The 4th Battalion The Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders were originally posted to 152 Infantry Brigade of the 51st (Highland) Division. The battalion was captured in France in June 1940, having been among the two brigades of the Division which covered the British and French withdrawal to Dunkirk. One story of the 4th Camerons with the BEF shows to good effect the cunning of the Cameron Jocks: "The Camerons had had a roughish time, losing a couple of section-posts in the Tiergarten, and the Brigade battle-patrol had been isolated by fire in Spitzwald. The Germans, who made a practice of tapping our forward telephone cables, were sadly disappointed by the Camerons, who countered this form of espionage by talking with their platoon-posts in Gaelic. And before being relieved, the Camerons had retaken some of their lost positions." -from The Highland Division, by Eric Linklater. HMSO, 1942. After they were reconstituted in Inverness in July 1940, they were sent to garrison the Dutch West Indies. The Battalion was then assigned to 46th (Highland) Brigade of the 15th (Scottish) Division from 24 March 1942 until 16 November 1942, replacing the 7th Battalion. Their next posting was in 228th Independent Infantry Brigade, part of the Orkney & Shetland Defences (OSDEF). They were subsequently disbanded and re-numbered the 2nd Battalion on 20 December 1942, after the original 2nd Battalion was lost at Tobruk.