Throughout its existence the brigade, serving under numerous many different titles and designations, was an integral part of the 56th (London) Infantry Division.

The Stanhope Memorandum of December 1888 introduced a Mobilisation Scheme for Volunteer units, which would assemble in their own brigades at key points in case of war.

[11] However, from November 1914 until April 1915 all of the battalions of the brigade were posted elsewhere, either to other formations or to reinforce the tired Regulars of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) serving on the Western Front.

The reformed brigade would serve with 56th Division for the rest of the war, fighting in the trenches of the Western Front in both Belgium and France and saw its first action fighting alongside the 46th (North Midland) Division on the Gommecourt Salient on 1 July 1916, to distract the German Army's attention away from the simultaneous Somme offensive.

[40] The brigade, brought up to strength earlier in the year with large numbers of conscripts, remained with the division in Kent, under command of XII Corps, and, as with most of the rest of the British Army after the evacuation from Dunkirk, either on coastal defence and home service duties or training to repel a German invasion of England which was, at the time, thought highly likely.

[41] In November 1941, after serving in Kent since July 1940, the division moved to East Anglia, in particular to Suffolk, where they came under command of XI Corps.

[42] The move to Suffolk proved to be popular for the many men, mostly conscripts but also wartime volunteers, from the nearby counties who had joined the brigade since Dunkirk.

[39] The brigade soon left to be sent to Essex for a month before returning to Suffolk again and in July, after being brought up to full War Establishment strength, began to prepare for overseas service although the whereabouts where as yet unknown and the men of the battalions were given 14 days leave.

[46] On 19 March 1943, however, the brigade, the men now very well trained and fit, received orders to depart for Egypt and were relieved by the Polish 3rd Carpathian Rifle Division.

[49] The campaign in Tunisia ended less than a month later with the surrender of over 230,000 Italian and German soldiers, a number almost equal to that captured at the Battle of Stalingrad the year before, who would become Prisoners of war.

The King George VI, who had visited them nearly a year before when they began departing for overseas service, and the men cheered as he drove past.

[52] The 56th Division left Libya, where they had remained for nearly the past four months, on 4 September and were at sea for the next four days[37] and landed at Salerno on 9 September 1943, D-Day, and initially met light opposition but soon met heavy resistance as the Germans tried desperately to repel the Allies' invasion.

On the morning of 18 October, the brigade was ordered to secure the village of Calvi Risorta, which was to be aided by bombardment from air support.

Joe, of the U.S. Army Pigeon Service, managed to arrive in time to avoid the bombing, after having flown 20 miles in 20 minutes.

On 2 December, when fighting in front of the Bernhardt Line (a smaller part of the Winter Line), the Queen's Brigade led an assault to capture Monte Camino, which took four days of hard fighting to capture the mountain and saw casualties for 2/5th Queen's, which spearheaded the assault.

[57] The commanding officer (CO) of the 2/5th Queen's, Lieutenant Colonel John Yeldham Whitfield, was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his actions in capturing Camino, leading personally from the front with his Webley revolver.

The Queen's Brigade continued to fight in front of the Bernhardt Line, and crossed the Garigliano river in January 1944, part of the First Battle of Monte Cassino.

Casualties were high at 85%,[64] with 362 officers and men being lost, nearly half the strength of a British infantry battalion at the time, most being taken prisoner.

For the next few weeks, the brigade, together with the Americans and Germans, "fought for some of the most miserable terrain on the planet Earth in" almost a "trench-warfare stalemate" more alike to that suffered a generation before on the Western Front during the First World War.

[65] Although not involved in any major fighting, the battalions were under almost constant artillery or mortar fire, causing a steady stream of casualties.

The Queen's Brigade had by this time sustained 45% casualties,[68] nearly half its strength, in just a few weeks, testimony to the severity of fighting at Anzio.

The brigade arrived in Egypt on 4 April[34] and, throughout the next few weeks, was brought up to strength from returning wounded and by receiving large drafts of replacements in the form of ex-anti-aircraft gunners of the Royal Artillery, and with the absence of the Luftwaffe now found their original roles redundant, who had been retrained as infantrymen and had to be taught all the infantry weapons.

The attack by two battalions, and supported by very heavy artillery fire, was "watched with pride by their fellow Queensman, Maj-Gen Whitfield".

[74] The battles around the Gothic Line lasted another few weeks, and by the end of the battle the 56th Division had sustained very heavy casualties, and the Queen's Brigade was reduced to nearly half strength, with all three battalions losing up to 400 casualties[75] whereas the division itself had been reduced to virtually two brigades and had to be completely reorganised.

However, the manpower available was simply not enough, and, as a direct result of heavy casualties and the lack of infantrymen, all British infantry battalions in serving Italy were reduced from four to three rifle companies and this "would seriously hamper deployment once one of the three suffered loss.

"[78] The Gothic Line offensive had been partially successful, with the Eighth Army commander, General Sir Oliver Leese, claiming that he "had 'severely mauled' eleven German divisions and taken over 8,000 prisoners" but it had delivered far less than had been expected and with the weather worsening due to the oncoming autumn rains and snow of winter, and no hope of a successful breakthrough offensive in such weather, both the U.S. Fifth and British Eighth Armies settled down and began to prepare plans for a final offensive against the Germans in the spring, with the scheduled date being for 1 April 1945.

[80] In April 1945 the Queen's Brigade, together with the rest of 56th Division, and the 15th Army Group fought in the final offensive in Italy (Operation Grapeshot).