7th Armoured Division (United Kingdom) Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark's U.S. Fifth Army's British X Corps, commanded by Lieutenant-General Richard McCreery, and supported by the British 46th Infantry Division, it drove on and took Naples. The Desert Rats, used to fighting in the desert, had to adjust to the confined Italian roads. The division crossed the river Volturno in southern Italy, constructing a pontoon bridge. This paved the way for many divisions heading north. The 7th Armoured Division was then withdrawn from the front line and held in reserve. On the wishes of the British Eighth Army commander, General Sir Bernard Montgomery, the 7th Armoured
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