3rd Infantry Division

The 3rd (United Kingdom) Division, also known as The Iron Division, is a regular army division of the British Army. It was created in 1809 by Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, as part of the Anglo-Portuguese Army, for service in the Peninsular War, and was known as the Fighting 3rd under Sir Thomas Picton during the Napoleonic Wars. The division fought at the Battle of Waterloo, as well as during the Crimean War and the Second Boer War. As a result of bitter fighting in 1916, during the First World War, the division became referred to as the 3rd (Iron) Division, or the Iron Division or Ironsides. During the Second World War, the division (now known as the 3rd Infantry Division) fought in the Battle of France including a rearguard action during the Dunkirk Evacuation, and played a prominent role in the D-Day landings of 6 June 1944.

The 3rd Infantry Division, under the command of Major-General Bernard Montgomery was sent overseas to France in late September 1939, just under a month after the outbreak of the Second World War. There the division became part of Lieutenant General Alan Brooke's II Corps of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).

In May 1940, after several months of relative inactivity, the German Army launched its attack in the west which resulted in the BEF being split up from the French Army, evacuated from Dunkirk. Due to Montgomery's strict training regime, the 3rd Division suffered comparatively few casualties and earned a reputation as one of the best British divisions in France.