In July 1941 Major-General Mackay wrote a report entitled ‘Organisation of an Infantry Division’. He could look back on six months in which his division had fought three campaigns against two enemies, and was just finishing a fourth campaign against a third, in widely divergent terrain and circumstances. He wrote a detailed analysis of the existing form of Commonwealth divisions, and his essential conclusion was that the existing divisional structure was sound. He would surely have been shocked had he known that his division would not fight again as a unified formation for another three years, and that no single component of it would fight again for more than a year.

Mackay himself would not oversee this change, for in late July Prime Minister Menzies suggested, and Blamey concurred, that Mackay should return to Australia and become GOC Home Forces. Within days of the appointment, some 4200 officers and men were mustered to farewell him in a divisional parade on 6 August. Photograph 7.1 depicts the occasion, as Mackay stands in a Bren carrier in front of the massed ranks in Palestine. As he told the men, his appointment constituted a ‘glowing tribute’ to the 6th Division's efforts.

Mackay's successor was Edmund Herring, who had hitherto ably commanded the division's artillery. Herring is depicted in Photograph 7.2 (sitting at left) watching an exercise in November 1941. By then, the units that had fought in Syria had been joined by the remainder of the division, which was now garrisoning and fortifying the area. Herring and Brigadier Vasey, next to him here with pipe, had recently overcome British objections to resiting defences near Baalbek.