 During 1944, the British Army was facing a manpower crisis as it did not have enough men to replace the losses to front line infantry.While efforts were made to address this (such as transferring men from the Royal Artillery and Royal Air Force to be retrained as infantry), the War Office began disbanding divisions to downsize the army so as to transfer men to other units to help keep those as close to full strength as possible.The War Office decided to disband several "Lower Establishment" divisions, which included the 80th Infantry (Reserve) Division.