Shoulder flash Lincoln (Royal Lincolnshire Regiment)

The Second World War was declared on Sunday, 3 September 1939 and the two Territorial Army battalions, the 4th and the 6th (a duplicate of the 4th), were called-up immediately. The 2nd Battalion embarked for France with the 9th Infantry Brigade attached to the 3rd Infantry Division commanded by Major-General Bernard Montgomery in October 1939. They were followed by the 6th Battalion, part of 138th Brigade with the 46th Infantry Division, in April 1940; both served with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and managed to return from Dunkirk after the battles of France and Belgium. After returning to England, both battalions spent years in the United Kingdom on home defence anticipating a possible German invasion of the United Kingdom.

The 1st Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment was stationed in British India and saw no active service until 1942. They remained in India and the Far East throughout the war and were assigned to the 71st Indian Infantry Brigade, part of 26th Indian Infantry Division, in 1942. fighting the Imperial Japanese Army in the Burma Campaign and during the Battle of the Admin Box, the first major victory against the Japanese in the campaign, in early 1944 where Major Charles Ferguson Hoey was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, the only one to be awarded to the regiment during the Second World War.

The Territorials of the 4th Battalion, part of 146th Brigade attached to 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division, were sent to Norway and were among the first British soldiers to come into contact against an advancing enemy in the field in the Second World War. Ill-equipped and without air support, they soon had to be evacuated. Within a few weeks, they were sent to garrison neutral Iceland. They trained as Alpine troops during the two years they were there. After returning to the UK in 1942, when the division gained the 70th Brigade, they were earmarked to form part of the 21st Army Group for the coming invasion of France and started training in preparation.

After two years spent on home defence, the 6th Battalion left the United Kingdom, still as part of the 138th (Lincoln and Leicester) Brigade in the 46th Infantry Division, in January 1943 to participate in the final stages of the Tunisia Campaign. In September 1943, the battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel David Yates, took part in the landings at Salerno in Italy as part of Mark Clark's U.S. Fifth Army, suffering heavy losses and later captured Naples, crossed the Volturno Line and fought on the Winter Line and in the Battle of Monte Cassino in January 1944. The battalion returned to Egypt to refit in March 1944, by which time it had suffered heavy casualties and lost 518 killed, wounded or missing. It returned to the Italian Front in July 1944 and, after more hard fighting throughout the summer during the Battles for the Gothic Line, it sailed for Greece in December to help the civil authorities to keep order during the Greek Civil War. In April 1945, the 6th Lincolns returned to Italy for the final offensive but did not participate in any fighting and then moved into Austria for occupation duties.

The Lincolnshire Regiment also raised two other battalions for hostilities-only, the 7th and 8th, both created in June and July 1940. However, both were converted into other arms of service, the 7th becoming 102nd Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery on 1 December 1941 and the 8th becoming the 101st Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery.