7th Armoured Division (United Kingdom) camp to be liberated.The 7th Armoured Division's final battle of the war was the Battle of Hamburg. In July 1945 the 7th Armoured Division moved to Berlin where it took part in the Berlin Victory Parade of 1945, alongside American, French and Russian troops. Among the many witnesses in the parade were Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, who was particularly fond of the division, Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) and Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, the 21st Army Group commander. The Division remained in Germany as part of the occupation forces
Guards Armoured Division casualties and were struggling to find replacements. As a result, the attack was changed to one largely of armoured divisions, as lost tanks would be easier to replace. The Guards Armoured Division joined with the 7th and 11th Armoured Divisions for this attack. The aim was to strike south out of the Orne bridgehead on 18 July. The Guards Armoured Division was to advance south-east to capture Vimont and Argences. Prior to this attack the German defences were heavily bombed be the Royal Air Force. Unfortunately this was less effective than hoped against the dug-in defenders, both in the south