2nd Armoured Brigade (United Kingdom) 2nd Armoured Brigade (United Kingdom) The 2nd Armoured Brigade was an armoured brigade of the British Army, part of the pre-war Regular Army, during the Second World War, originally titled 2nd Light Armoured Brigade. The 2nd Armoured Brigade was part of the 1st Armoured Division when it was sent as part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to France in 1940. It was evacuated from Brest without its heavy equipment. After being reformed it was sent in November 1941 to North Africa where it served with the 7th Armoured Division at Gazala, El Alamein and with the 1st Armoured Division
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