Remaining active in the Territorial Army (TA) during the interwar period as a peacetime formation, the division again saw action in Second World War, fighting in North-western Europe from June 1944 until May 1945.

[5] The evacuation was forced by a combination of combat, disease and harsh weather which saw the division reduced to just 162 officers and 2,428 men, approximately 15% of full strength.

Despite gaining the advantage towards the end of the day, the British commander, Lieutenant-General Philip Chetwode called off the attack so that the division's casualties, were suffered in vain.

[9] After the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France and Belgium was evacuated from Dunkirk in mid-1940, the threat grew of a German invasion of Northern Ireland.

"It was a very different 53rd Division which returned to near its own countryside in November 1941, from the comparatively untrained one which had moved to Ireland in driblets between October 1939 and April 1940.

"[15] The 53rd Division, now commanded by Major-General Gerard Bucknall, returned to the Welsh Border counties again in November 1941, with the divisional HQ based in Whitchurch, Shropshire.

[20][21][22] The division spent the remaining period in the build-up to the Allied invasion of Normandy (Operation Overlord) in training.

In March divisional HQ and the brigade and ancillary HQs took part in 'Exercise Shudder' to study 'thrust line' technique, then in April the whole division was engaged in 'Exercise Henry' on the South Downs training area; this included a river crossing and full-scale simulated attack.

Finally, in the last week of May, the division began moving into its concentration area at Herne Bay, ready for the invasion.

In August it began to push beyond the Odon and crossed the river Orne, helping to close the Falaise Pocket.

[28] The division took part in the Swan (swift advance) to Belgium where much fighting took place to secure an important bridgehead at the Junction Canal near Lommel.

The 53rd Division then fought hard to expand the salient south of Eindhoven in conjunction with the Operation Market Garden, which ended in failure due to events at the Battle of Arnhem in late September, where the British 1st Airborne Division was virtually destroyed in severe fighting.

In December 1944, attached to XXX Corps, it was one of the British divisions that took part in the mainly American Battle of the Bulge, helping to cut off the northern tip of the German salient.

Still with XXX Corps, which was attached to the First Canadian Army, it was later sent north in front of the Siegfried Line to take part in Operation Veritable (the Battle of the Reichswald Forest) in February 1945 where the division, supported by Churchill tanks of the 34th Armoured Brigade, was involved in some of the fiercest fighting of the campaign thus far, against determined German paratroopers and fighting in terrain similar to that found at Passchendaele 27 years before but with the addition of the cold of "winter rain, mud and flooding", where the mud was knee-deep.

[29][30] The Commanding Officer (CO) of the 1st Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment described the fighting in the forest as a "terribly wearing business for the men.

[32] The division, now under command of XII Corps, under Lieutenant-General Neil Ritchie, took part in Operation Plunder, the crossing of the Rhine, and advancing into Germany, where they ended the war.