The division was formed as part of the fifth wave (K5) of divisions in the New Army; it did not have a regional title, but was composed primarily of recruits from the Midlands, London, and the south of England. Several of its battalions had been raised by local communities, and were named for their towns or industries. After training and home service, it deployed to the Western Front in early 1916, and fought in the Battle of the Somme. The following year, it saw action at the Third Battle of Ypres, and in 1918 took heavy losses in the German Army's Spring Offensive. The General Officer Commanding, Major-General Edward Feetham, was killed in the action in March 1918.[1]
Following near-destruction at the Battle of the Lys, the division was reduced to a cadre, which spent the remainder of the war training newly arrived units of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF). The division demobilised after the Armistice with Germany, and had ceased to exist by July 1919.[2]
1/1st (T.F.) Battalion, Hertfordshire Regiment(joined 29 February 1916, left 8 April 1918)
118th Machine Gun Company, (formed 21 March 1916, moved to 39th Battalion, M.G.C. 14 March 1918)
118th Trench Mortar Battery (formed 1 July 1916)
39th Divisional Composite Brigade
Formed on 10 April 1918 after the Division suffered heavy losses and placed under command of Brig-Gen. A. Hubback. Fought in the Battles of the Lys as an independent command attached to XXII Corps. Returned to Division and men deployed to old units by 6 May 1918.
1st Battalion (formed from remnants of 11th Royal Sussex and 1/1st Hertfordshire)
2nd Battalion (formed from remnants of 13th Gloucestershire and 13th Royal Sussex)
3rd Battalion (formed from remnants of units of 117th Brigade)
4th Battalion (formed from remnants of units 118th Brigade)
5th Battalion (formed from remnants of units of all three Brigades)
236th Divisional Employment Company (joined 30 June 1917)
For short periods in the summer of 1918, 47 battalion cadres from reorganised divisions that had suffered heavy losses in the German spring offensives were attached to the brigades and division HQ.
V.39 Heavy Trench Mortar Battery, RFA (formed 27 August 1916; broken up 7 February 1918)
X.39, Y.39 and Z.39 Medium Mortar Batteries, R.F.A. (formed 21 March 1916; Z broken up redistributed to X and Y batteries 7 February 1918; X and Y disbanded 15 May 1918)
^ abBaker, Chris. "39th Division". The Long, Long Trail. Retrieved 22 November 2018.
^Lt-Col H.W. Wiebkin, A Short History of the 39th (Deptford) Divisional Artillery, 1915–1918, London: Berryman, 1923/Uckfield: Royal Artillery Museum and Naval & Military Press, 2004, ISBN1-845740-82-3.