[8][9] The famous territorial regiments that were incorporated in the division were all drawn from the Scottish Lowlands, and have a history that in some cases goes back more than 300 years.

Initially assigned to the defence of the Scottish coast, the division moved to Gallipoli (without two of its artillery brigades), arriving there in early July 1915.

While moving from Scotland the division suffered the loss of 210 officers and men killed, and another 224 injured in the Quintinshill rail crash, near Gretna, that involved the 1/7th Royal Scots.

The division, under the command of Major General Granville Egerton, began landing at the Helles front, on the Gallipoli peninsula, in June 1915 as part of VIII Corps.

The 156th Brigade was landed in time to take part in the Battle of Gully Ravine, where it was mauled, under the notorious Lieutenant-General Aylmer Hunter-Weston, commanding VIII Corps.

Advancing along Fir Tree Spur, to the right of the ravine, the brigade had little artillery support and no experience of the Gallipoli battlefield.

[12] The division moved to Egypt as part of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, where it manned the east-facing defensive fortifications during the Battle of Romani.

With insufficient water, the mid-summer conditions proved too much for the infantry ordered to advance the following day and were not heavily involved in the fighting thereafter.

[14] As a division of XXI Corps, it played an important part in the final overthrow of the Ottomans at the Third Battle of Gaza and the subsequent advance.

The fact that the enemy were taken by surprise, and, that all resistance was overcome with the bayonet without a shot being fired, bears testimony to the discipline of this division.

The Second World War began on 3 September 1939, after both Britain and France declared war on Germany after the latter's invasion of Poland and the 52nd, based in Scotland under the command of Major-General James S. Drew,[18] was serving in Scottish Command, alongside its second line duplicate unit, the 15th (Scottish) Infantry Division.

[20] The division returned to the United Kingdom and, like most of the rest of the British Army after Dunkirk, began training to repel an expected German invasion, which never occurred.

[22] Operation Linnet proposed using most of the First Allied Airborne Army, including the 52nd Division, to seize areas in north-eastern France to block the German line of retreat.

[19] The division's first operation would be to aid in opening the vital Belgian port of Antwerp, in the Battle of the Scheldt.

Ironically, the first operation of the division would not be in mountainous terrain or being deployed by air, but fighting below sea level on the flooded polders around the Scheldt Estuary of Belgium and the Netherlands.

[36] Peter White, a second lieutenant within the 4th Battalion, King's Own Scottish Borderers, describes this change due to 21st Army Group commander Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's "aversion to two Battalions of the same Regiment" being in the same brigade as it could result "in one home district or town having disproportionate losses after any sticky action".

[38] The division (minus the 155th Brigade) took part in the Western Allied invasion of Germany, with its last major action being the Battle of Hamburg, where it ended the war.