The 117th Infantry Brigade Royal Marines was an
infantry
Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and mar ...
brigade
A brigade is a major tactical military formation that typically comprises three to six battalions plus supporting elements. It is roughly equivalent to an enlarged or reinforced regiment. Two or more brigades may constitute a division.
B ...
formation of the
Royal Marines created in the final stages of the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
.
Unit history
The unit was one of two created to address the manpower shortage of
21st Army Group in early 1945. The brigade was created on 15 January 1945 from former members of the
Royal Marines Division, which had been broken up in 1943 and the troops distributed to Marine Commandos, or retrained as
landing craft crew. They were quickly re-mustered as regular infantry, organised as a standard Army brigade.
The Brigade was stationed in England until after the
German surrender
The German Instrument of Surrender (german: Bedingungslose Kapitulation der Wehrmacht, lit=Unconditional Capitulation of the "Wehrmacht"; russian: Акт о капитуляции Германии, Akt o kapitulyatsii Germanii, lit=Act of capit ...
when it was moved forward to occupy the naval port of
Kiel
Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021).
Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the Jutland ...
as part of
VIII Corps 8th Corps, Eighth Corps, or VIII Corps may refer to:
* VIII Corps (Grande Armée), a unit of the Imperial French army during the Napoleonic Wars
* VIII Army Corps (German Confederation)
* VIII Corps (German Empire), a unit of the Imperial German Ar ...
,
releasing
46th Highland Brigade for occupation duties elsewhere.
The Brigade was tasked with guarding naval installations and overseeing the capitulation of German naval ships and personnel.
It also had to deal with the arrival of ships carrying troops returning from the
Eastern front, and also civilian refugees from
Soviet-occupied Germany.
On one particularly busy night this involved taking command of 21 destroyers and removing 14,000 soldiers from shipping.
The Brigade returned to the UK in July 1945 to be disbanded.
See also
*
British brigades of the Second World War
This is a list of British Brigades in the Second World War. It is intended as a central place to access resources about formations of brigade size that served in the British Army during the Second World War.
* List of British airborne brigades ...
References
{{British infantry brigades of the Second World War
Infantry brigades of the British Army in World War II
Military units and formations established in 1945
Military units and formations disestablished in 1945