VII Corps (United Kingdom)

Infobox Military Unit
unit_name=VII Corps


caption=
dates=World War I World War II
country=United Kingdom
allegiance=
branch=British Army
type=Field corps
role=
size=
command_structure=
current_commander=
garrison=
ceremonial_chief=
colonel_of_the_regiment=
nickname=
patron=
motto=
colors=
march=
mascot=
battles= Battle of the Somme, Battle of Arras, Battle of Cambrai, First Battle of the Somme (1918)
notable_commanders= Lt-General Sir Thomas D'Oyly Snow KC KCB
anniversaries=

World War One

VII Corps formed in France in July 1915 under the command of Lt-General Thomas D'Oyly Snow and as part of British Third Army commanded by Edmund Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby in order to fight on the Western Front. It took part in the Battle of the Somme in 1916, the Battle of Arras, the Battle of Cambrai, the First Battle of the Somme (1918) and the subsequent victorious British advance that ended the war.

World War Two

VII Corps was reformed in the United Kingdom during mid-1940 to control field forces deployed to counter the invasion threat of that year. On 17 July that year it comprised 1st Canadian Division, 1st Armoured Division, and 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force (UK), a somewhat oversized brigade based on the second NZ echelon of troops which had been diverted to the UK from Egypt. The Corps was placed under the command of Major General A.G.L. McNaughton. At the time its allotted task was to 'counter-attack and destroy any enemy force invading the counties of Surrey-Kent-Sussex-Hampshire which was not destroyed by the troops of the Eastern and Southern Commands'. It was disbanded in December 1940 when the threat of invasion had somewhat dissipated.

Later in the war it was notionally reactivated for deception purposes as a formation of the British Fourth Army as part of Operation Fortitude North, the threat to invade Norway at the time of the Normandy landings, with headquarters at Dundee. It was composed of the genuine British 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division at Dundee, the notional U.S. 55th Division in Iceland, a Norwegian brigade, and three notional American ranger battalions in Iceland, plus corps troops. It moved south with Fourth Army for Fortitude South II, the continuation of the threat to the Pas de Calais, with headquarters at Folkestone in Kent and consisting of the British 61st and 80th Divisions and 5th Armoured Division, the latter two notional and the 61st a genuine but low-establishment formation. It notionally moved to East Anglia in September, to Yorkshire in December, and was notionally disbanded in January 1945. Its insignia was a scallop shell on a blue ground.

References and Sources

*W.G. McClymont, To Greece: Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939-45, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington, New Zealand, 1959, p.36