7th Armoured Brigade (United Kingdom)

Light Armoured Brigade (Egypt) 7th Light Armoured Brigade 7th Armoured Brigade
Insignia of the 7th Armoured Brigade.
Active	1938–2015
Country	United Kingdom
Branch	British Army
Type	Armoured
Size	Brigade
Part of	7th Armoured Division 1st Armoured Division
Nickname(s)	The Green Rats The Desert Rats
Motto(s)	"All of one company"
Engagements	Western Desert Campaign, Burma Campaign, Italian Campaign, Iraq War, War in Afghanistan

The 7th Armoured Brigade was an armoured brigade formation of the British Army. The brigade is also known as the 'Desert Rats', a nickname formerly held by the 7th Armoured Division, of which the brigade formed a part of during the Second World War until late 1941.

The brigade was raised from garrison troops stationed in North Africa in 1938. It was initially known as the Light Armoured Brigade which was part of the Mobile Division in Egypt.

When the Mobile Division became 7th Armoured Division, the Light Armoured Brigade became the 7th Armoured Brigade in February 1940. The 7th Armoured Division had a red jerboa (a nocturnal rodent indigenous to North Africa) as its emblem and became known as 'The Desert Rats'. The 7th Armoured Brigade, meanwhile, had a green jerboa as its emblem. The 7th Brigade became known as the 'Green Rats' or the 'Jungle Rats' after it moved to Burma in 1942.

The Second World War broke out in September 1939, with both Britain and France declaring war on Germany after the German Army invaded Poland. Italy launched an invasion of British-controlled Egypt shortly after entering the war on Germany's side in June 1940. The brigade fought in many of the major battles in North Africa, including Operation Crusader in November, fighting at Sidi Rezegh to try to relieve the Commonwealth forces in the port of Tobruk, besieged by Axis forces.

It moved to fight in the Burma Campaign in early 1942 just as the Imperial Japanese Army were pushing the Allies back. The brigade took part in the fighting retreat to India, successfully completed in May just before the monsoons would have cut them off. The 7th Armoured Brigade returned to the Middle East in 1943, based in Iraq and later Egypt. With Axis forces defeated in North Africa, the brigade's time was a quiet one until it moved to the Italian Front in April 1944 where it remained for the duration of the Second World War; fighting as part of I Canadian Corps, itself part of the British Eighth Army. The brigade, now composed of the 2nd, 6th and 8th Royal Tank Regiments, fought in the final stages of the Battle of Monte Cassino and later the Gothic Line and in Operation Grapeshot, the final offensive in Italy.