7th Armoured Division (United Kingdom) 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
7th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht) sea, leaving what was left of its heavy equipment behind each time. After fighting defensively across Prussia and northern Germany, the surviving men escaped into the forest and surrendered to the British army northwest of Berlin in May 1945. Following the completion of the invasion of Poland, the limited effectiveness of the light divisions caused the German High Command to order the reorganization of the four light divisions into full panzer divisions. In October 1939, the 2nd Light Division became the 7th Panzer Division, one of Germany's ten armoured divisions. It consisted of 218 tanks in three battalions, with two