Though constituted in August, 1918, VII Corps received no credit for campaign participation in World War I and did not see combat until it was part of the landings at Utah Beach during the D-Day invasion of Normandy, where it operated as a component of 21st Army Group. Units from the Corps led the two-division assault that kicked off Operation Cobra, an offensive operation launched from the area around Saint-Lo that secured the Cotentin Peninsula and eventually led to the creation of the Falaise Pocket and the capture of around 60,000 Germans. Units from the Corps fought in many engagements between August, 1944 and the Germany surrender, including major action in the Siegfried Line Campaign and in blunting the German “Watch on the Rhine” Offensive (Battle of the Bulge).
After a period of inactivation following the conclusion of World War II, the VII Corps responded to its nation’s call of duty when it deployed Europe as a bulwark against Warsaw Pact forces to the east. Along with V Corps, it was one of the two main combat groups based in Germany from the 1950s up until the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. There it played a major role in the 100-hour campaign, with one of its units—the 2nd Cavalry Regiment—taking part in the Battle of 73 Easting, marking the first ground defeat of the Iraqi Republican Guard and inflicting tank casualties at a ratio of over 3:1.
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VII Corps Unit Patch (SSI)
Following the successes of the Gulf War campaign, VII Corps were redeployed directly to the United States, and the Corps was officially inactivated in April, 1992.
For its CSIB (Combat Service ID Badge), the VII Corps employs an appropriately colored olive-drab disc featuring seven-pointed red star in the center. Across the top of the star is a blue-white Roman numeral "VII," completing a straightforward design that features the color of Army of uniforms and our nation's historic colors of red, white, and blue. A modified version of the seven-pointed star is used for the Corps' Unit Crest. The unit’s informal nickname of "The Jayhawk Corps”—a sobriquet dating back to the Civil War—is found on neither its CSIB nor Unit Crest.