The divisional RE's work included felling timber for new artillery positions, improving the water supply, providing deeper dugouts for headquarters and constructing 'keeps' for all-round defence.

This involved constructing protected observation posts for the artillery and assembly trenches for the infantry, filling supply dumps, and additional dugouts for signallers.

The division's participation consisted of brigade-scale attacks with limited objectives, in which the RE field companies were used to consolidate the captured trenches, repairing shell damage, creating bomb stops and strongpoints.

During the attack on the Leipzig Redoubt at 17.00 on 18 August 143rd (Warwickshire) Brigade took its objectives and two sections of 1/2nd SM Field Company followed up at about 19.30 to consolidate, within 50 yards (46 m) of a German-held trench.

[12][33][34] To support III Corps Cavalry Regiment in probing forwards, 48th (SM) Division formed an advanced guard under Brig-Gen H.D.O, Ward of an infantry battalion, two field artillery batteries and two RE sections, known as 'Ward's Force'.

The rest of the RE and large working parties of infantry were engaged in restoring communications across the area left devastated by the retreating enemy, the sappers suffering casualties and damage to equipment from German booby-traps.

The division attacked at the Battle of Broodseinde (4 October), where the field companies' role was to extend the duckboard tracks forwards, prepare large signboards at the various objectives (to guide follow-up troops) and to repair the roads behind the lines.

The divisional commander ordered the CRE, Lt-Col Briggs, to push 477th Fd Company up into the gap as infantry to make contact with the flanking division, which it was unable to do.

Meanwhile 474th Fd Company with the pioneer battalion (1/5th (Cinque Ports) Bn, Royal Sussex Regiment) were holding the Red Line covering divisional HQ from a different breakthrough.

The division entered the Val d'Assa and 474th and 475th Fd Companies and 1/5th Royal Sussex made the steep mountain road across No man's land and through Asiago suitable for wheeled traffic, with only one serious demolition to overcome.

144th (Gloucester & Worcester) Brigade seized Monte Interrotto early on 2 November, and 143rd (Warwickshire) Bde was ordered to form the advance guard for the pursuit, accompanied by half of 475th Fd Company and some field artillery.

The only part of the division's attack that was initially successful was that of 182nd (Warwickshire) Bde, where the men had moved out into No man's land before the bombardment lifted off the German front line.

479th Field Coy sent up two-man teams of 'moppers-up' to accompany the infantry to use explosive charges and sledgehammers against the iron rear doors of the pillboxes, while other sections were detailed to consolidate the positions gained.

As the mist cleared the company brought down rifle fire to assist a field gun in repelling one German attack, and at dusk sent out fighting patrols with 1/8th Argylls that found the enemy in great strength.

On 26 March the remnants of 61st (SM) Division, together with the rest of XVIII Corps, was assembled at Roye to maintain contact with the French Army, with 61st Divisional RE at Mézières.

At dawn on 23 April six sappers of 479th Fd Coy joined 2/5th Gloucesters to lead parties carrying trench bridges for a small attack to eliminate a German salient in the line.

The divisional engineers remained in the St Venant area until July, elaborating the forward defences, working on the Busnes–Steenbecque reserve line in rear, and building bridges across the network of rivers and canals.

182nd Brigade made the main attack at Artres, silently crossing the footbridges laid by 476th Fd Coy before zero hour and forming up its leading battalions on the far side by 04.30.

By 17 November the division had moved back to Cambrai and at the end of the month went into winter quarters outside Doullens, where the sappers were kept busy erecting Nissen huts and improving the billets.

[113][114][115][116][117][118] When the Phoney War ended and the Germans attacked in May 1940, opening the Battle of France, the BEF moved into Belgium according to plan and took up positions on the Dyle on 13 May, with 48th and 4th Divisions in reserve.

On its return the division's units were widely scattered across the west of the country: HQRE was at Monmouth until 2 July, when it moved to Bradford-on-Avon, while 9th Fd Coy was at Chipping Sodbury, 224th at Frome, 226th at Sherston and 227th at Gorsey, with all the companies engaged in building roadblocks.

[137][138] The German surrender at Lüneburg Heath on 4 May did not end the work for the sappers: for many months they were engaged in repair and restoration of essential services behind the armies and in the occupied zone of Germany.

4th Divisional RE, acting as infantry, took up a defensive position screening Warneton, but the move took all night on the congested roads and the companies deployed without having time to rest or dig in.

Then, almost surrounded, the company disengaged and withdrew over flat open ground to take post on the left of the new line, protecting Warneton bridge over which troops were still retreating.

The attack, described by the RE historian as 'probably unique as an example of divisional RE being used as a whole for offensive action', succeeded in driving the enemy back and consolidating a line on the Kortekeer River, keeping them out of range of Warneton bridge while the BEF's withdrawal continued.

During the initial fighting in Athens 4th Divisional RE were chiefly employed in guarding prisoners of war and sending out small parties to demolish road blocks and clear mines and booby-traps, suffering a considerable number of casualties.

After a truce was arranged, the field companies fanned out with the infantry brigade groups to clear the roads of mines, snow and landslides, and to rebuild bridges.

In the summer of 1944, 6th ATRE was deployed to North West Europe, where it formed part of the massive concentration of RE bridging resources for Operation Market Garden.

[9][154] 61st Division did appear in 21st Army Group's proposed order of battle in the summer of 1943, but it was later replaced by veteran formations brought back from the Mediterranean theatre before Operation Overlord was launched.

[112] When the TA was reconstituted on 1 January 1947, the South Midland engineers were reformed as two units (now termed 'regiments'), one at Bristol and one at Birmingham, each deriving its seniority from the 2nd Gloucestershire EVC of 1861.