in the south until January 1944, when it was assigned to Northern Command, before being switched to Southern Command in March. It reverted to Northern Command in July. Some of these moves, as well as notional ones, were deliberately leaked through double agents as part of Operation Fortitude. Between April and October 1944, the 141st Brigade was made responsible for an embarkation sector in the Southampton area; an administrative and organisational role in support of Operation Overlord facilitating the movement of troops from their camps to ships to be deployed to France. Wind down, training division, and disbandment By mid-1944, the five lower establishment divisions allocated to home-defence duties – the 38th (Welsh), the 45th, the 47th (London), the 55th (West Lancashire), and the 61st – had a combined strength of 17,845 men. Of this number, around 13,000 were available as replacements for the 21st Army Group fighting in France. The remaining 4,800 men were considered ineligible for service abroad for a variety of reasons, including a lack of training or being medically unfit. Over the following six months, up to 75 per cent of these men would be deployed to reinforce the 21st Army Group following the completion of their training and certification of fitness. On 15 August, what was left of the division was dispersed; this process took until the end of the month, when the division and its brigades were disbanded. During 1944, the British Army suffered a severe shortage of manpower. In an effort to downsize the army and consolidate as many men within as few formations as possible to maintain efficiency, the War Office began disbanding divisions and restructuring the Army. It was believed that division numbers familiar to the British public held recruiting value, and should be retained. As a result, the 76th Infantry (Reserve) Division was disbanded; its GOC, Utterson-Kelso and his staff, reformed the division as the 47th Infantry (Reserve) Division on 1 September. As part of this process, the 76th's 213th Infantry Brigade was renumbered the 140th and assigned to the 47th. Likewise, the 220th Infantry Brigade was assigned from the 76th to the 47th and in November 1944 was re-designated the 141st Infantry Brigade. The 7th Infantry Brigade, which was previously part of the 9th Armoured Division, was also assigned to the new division. Soldiers who had completed their basic and their job-specific training were sent to reserve divisions for