page_title: 7th Armoured Division (United Kingdom)
section_title: North West Europe
hierarchical_section_title: 7th Armoured Division (United Kingdom) / History / North West Europe
caption_attribution_description: English: The British Army in North-west Europe 1944-45 Major General G L Verney, GOC 7th Armoured Division, enters Ghent in his Staghound armoured car, 8 September 1944.
context_page_description: The 7th Armoured Division was an armoured division of the British Army that saw distinguished active service during World War II, where its exploits in the Western Desert Campaign gained it the Desert Rats nickname.
  After the Munich Agreement, the division was formed in Egypt during 1938 as the Mobile Division and its first divisional commander was the tank theorist Major-General Sir Percy Hobart. In February 1940, the name of the unit was changed to the 7th Armoured Division.
  The division fought in most major battles during the North African Campaign; later it would land and fight in the Italian Campaign during the early stages of the invasion of Italy before being withdrawn to the United Kingdom where it prepared to fight in North-west Europe. It began landing in Normandy during the afternoon of D-Day, 6 June 1944, and fought its way across Europe ending the war in Kiel and Hamburg, Germany.
  Although the division was disbanded during the 1950s, the history, name and the "Desert Rat" flash was carried on by the 7th Armoured Brigade.
context_section_description: In November 1943, the division left Italy for the United Kingdom; with the last units arriving on 7 January 1944. The division was re-equipped with the new Cromwell cruiser tanks and in April and May received 36 Sherman Vc Fireflies; enough to organise each troop so that they had a complement of three 75 mm gun Cromwell tanks and a 17 pounder gun Firefly. The Desert Rats were the only British armoured division to use the Cromwell as their main battle tank.
  The 7th Armoured Division was one of the three British follow-up divisions of the two British assault corps earmarked for the Normandy landings. The 22nd Armoured Brigade embarked on 4 June and most of the division landed on Gold Beach by the end of 7 June, a day after the initial landings. The division, part of Lieutenant General Gerard Bucknall's XXX Corps, initially took part in Operation Perch and Operation Goodwood, two operations that formed part of the Battle for Caen, itself part of Operation Overlord, codename for the Allied invasion of Normandy. During Perch, the division was to spearhead one arm of a pincer attack to capture the city. Due to a change in plan, elements of the division engaged tanks of the Panzer-Lehr-Division and the Heavy SS-Panzer Battalion 101 in the Battle of Villers-Bocage. Following the capture of Caen, the division took part in Operation Spring, which was intended to keep the German forces pinned to the British front away from the Americans who were launching Operation Cobra and then Operation Bluecoat, an attack to support the American break-out and intercept German reinforcements moving to stop it. After the Battle of the Falaise Gap, which saw most of the German Army in Normandy destroyed, the 7th Armoured Division then took part in the Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine.
  The division's performance in Normandy and the rest of France has been called into question and it has been claimed they did not match those of its earlier campaigns. In early August 1944, Major General George Erskine, the division's GOC, who had been in command of the division since January 1943, Brigadier William Hinde, commanding the 22nd Armoured Brigade, and up to 100 other officers of the division were removed from their positions and reassigned. Erskine was replaced by Major General Gerald Lloyd-Verney. Historians largely agree that this was a consequence of the "failure" at Villers-Bocage and had been planned since that battle. Historian Daniel Taylor is of the opinion that the battle's result provided an excuse and that the sackings took place to "demonstrate that the army command was doing something to counteract the poor public opinion of the conduct of the campaign". Historian and former British Army officer Mungo Melvin has commented approvingly of the 7th Armoured Division's institution of a flexible combined arms structure, which other British armoured divisions did not adopt until after Operation Goodwood.
  The replacement of the division's GOC, following Normandy, did not change the performance of the division and in November 1944, Erskine's replacement, Major General Lloyd-Verney, was relieved, by Major General Lyne, after he "was unable to cure the division's bad habits well enough to satisfy Montgomery and Dempsey." There is almost no doubt that the division was suffering from collective and cumulative battle fatigue. As Lloyd-Verney put it, with some prescience: "There is no doubt that familiarity with war does not make one more courageous. One becomes cunning and from cunning to cowardice is but a short step." This was not an isolated incident; the 51st (Highland) Division and several of the other veteran formations Montgomery had brought back from the Mediterranean for Operation Overlord experienced similar difficulties, although, curiously, not with the 50th (Northumbrian) Division, which performed well throughout the Normandy Campaign.
  Following the advance across France, the division took part in the Allied advance through Belgium and the Netherlands; liberating Ghent on 6 September. The division then took part in the advance to and sec
caption: Major General Gerald Lloyd-Verney, GOC 7th Armoured Division, enters Ghent in his Staghound armoured car, 8 September 1944.
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