VII Corps (United Kingdom) - World War II

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.