and having met the required fitness levels. In 2007, Stephen Hart wrote that, by September, the 21st Army Group "had bled Home Forces dry of draftable riflemen", due to the losses suffered in the Battle of Normandy, leaving the army in Britain (with the exception of the 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division) with just "young lads, old men and the unfit". Due to the decreased need for such a formation, the division was disbanded after the war on 1 November 1945. Postwar The division was not reformed in the Territorial Army in 1947. In 1961 the division became a district headquarters as 48th (South Midland) Division/District, and it was disbanded on the reduction of the TA into the Territorial and Army Volunteer Reserve on 1 April 1967, when many individual TA units lost their identities. The district headquarters itself formed the core of the structure for the creation of West Midlands District under HQ UK Land Forces in 1972. General officer commanding Commanders included: See also Charles Carrington, a member of the division and subsequent author. Ronald Poulton-Palmer, captain of the England national rugby union team and a member of the division who was killed in 1915. Notes Footnotes Citations References Sir Arthur Bryant, The Turn of the Tide, 1939–1943, London: Collins, 1957. Lt-Col Ewan Butler and Maj J.S. Bradford, The Story of Dunkirk, London: Hutchinson/Arrow, nd. Major L. F. Ellis, History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Military Series: The War in France and Flanders 1939–1940, London: HM Stationery Office, 1954. (Online at .) General Sir Martin Farndale, History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery: Western Front 1914–18, Woolwich: Royal Artillery Institution, 1986, . Cliff Lord & Graham Watson, Royal Corps of Signals: Unit Histories of the Corps (1920–2001) and its Antecedents, Solihull: Helion, 2003, . Huw Richards, 'Lawson, Edward Frederick, fourth Baron Burnham (1890–1963)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: University Press, 2004–15. External links The British Army in the Great War: The 48th (South Midland) Division The Patriot Files: British Southern Command on 3 September 1939 53rd London Medium Regiment website Richard A. Rinaldi, Royal Engineers, World War I at Orbat.com Infantry divisions of the British Army in World War I Infantry divisions of the British Army in World War II Military units and formations established in 1908 1908 establishments in the United Kingdom