VII Corps ( United Kingdom ) VII Corps was an army corps of the British Army active in World War I . In the early part of World War II it was part of the defence forces of the United Kingdom , and later acted as a shadow formation for deception purposes . Prior to World War I . In 1876 a Mobilisation Scheme was published for the forces in Great Britain and Ireland , including eight army corps of the ' Active Army ' . The ' 7th Corps ' was to be headquartered at York , formed from Irish and English militia . In 1880 its order of battle was as follows : This scheme had been dropped by 1881 . World War I . VII Corps formed in France on 14 July 1915 under the command of Lt - General Thomas D ' Oyly Snow ( previously commander of 27th Division ) as part of Sir Charles Monro ' s Third Army on the Western Front . Order of Battle of VII Corps 14 July 1915 < br > General Officer Commanding ( GOC ) : Lt - Gen Sir Thomas D ' O . Snow 1916 . In 1916 VII Corps remained in Third Army , now commanded by Sir Edmund Allenby . The Corps ' first serious action was in the Somme Offensive of 1916 , on the first day of which it carried out a disastrous diversionary attack at Gommecourt , in which 46th Division suffered 2455 casualties , and 56th Division 4313 , for no permanent gain . Order of Battle of VII Corps 1 July 1916 < br > GOC : Lt - Gen Sir Thomas D ' O . Snow < br > GOC , Royal Artillery : Brig - Gen C . M . Ross - Johnson < br > GOC , Heavy Artillery : Brig - Gen C . R . Buckle < br > Chief Engineer : Brig - Gen J . A . Tanner 1917 . When the German Army retreated to the Hindenburg Line in March 1917 , VII Corps was the only part of Third Army required to follow up , south of the new line ' s pivot at Vimy Ridge . Order of Battle of VII Corps 14 March - 5 April 1917 During the Arras Offensive of April and May 1917 , VII Corps was engaged in all three Battles of the Scarpe . During the First Battle of the Scarpe , 9 – 14 April , it had the same divisions under command , with the addition of 50th ( Northumbrian ) Division , which captured the Wancourt Ridge . VII Corps then had 30th , 50th and 33rd Division engaged in the Second Battle of the Scarpe , 23 – 24 April . During the Third Battle of the Scarpe , 3 – 4 May , it operated with 14th ( Light ) , 14th ( Eastern ) and 21st Divisions . Finally , for the subsequent actions on the Hindenburg Line , 20 May - 16 June , VII Corps had 21st and 33rd Divisions under command . Later in 1917 the corps fought in the Battle of Cambrai . 1918 . In 1918 the command was taken over by Lt - Gen Sir Walter Congreve , VC , KCB , MVO . and the corps fought in the First Battle of the Somme ( 1918 ) and the subsequent victorious British advance that ended the war . World War II . 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 the Canadian Major General Andrew 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 ' . On December 25 , 1940 VII Corps was renamed the Canadian Corps at a time when the threat of German invasion had somewhat dissipated and as the growing number of Canadian troops in the United Kingdom made the formation of a larger Canadian formation advisable . 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 . General Officers Commanding . Commanders included :