Andrew Thorne

General Sir Augustus Francis Andrew Nicol Thorne, (20 September 1885 – 25 September 1970) was a senior British Army officer who served in the First and Second World Wars, where he commanded the 48th (South Midland) Infantry Division during the Battle of France in mid-1940.

Family Thorne was the son of Augustus Thorne, a barrister, and Mary Frances Nicol. His nephew, Patrick Campbell-Preston, was the husband of Dame Frances Campbell-Preston.

Thorne married the Hon. Margaret Douglas-Pennant, daughter of George Douglas-Pennant, 2nd Baron Penrhyn, on 29 July 1909 at the Guards' Chapel, Wellington Barracks, in London. They had six children, including Lieutenant Colonel Sir Peter Francis Thorne.

Early military career Educated at Eton and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Thorne was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Grenadier Guards on 2 March 1904. and saw action in the First Battle of Ypres in 1914 and Battle of the Somme in 1916, earning the Distinguished Service Order and two Bars. The citation for his first Bar, appearing in The London Gazette in July 1918, reads:

Thorne was also awarded the Legion of Honour by the President of France in 1917, and was promoted to acting lieutenant colonel in July that year as well.

On 14 October 1918 he became general officer commanding (GOC) of the 184th Infantry Brigade, part of the 61st (2nd South Midland) Division, and with it came the temporary rank of brigadier general although his substantive, or permanent, rank was still a major. He was appointed military assistant to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff at the War Office in 1925 and commanding officer of the 3rd Battalion, Grenadier Guards again in 1927. In 1932, he was made military attaché in Berlin for three years, where he came to know Adolf Hitler and many of his senior officers. He then became GOC XII Corps, where he founded the innovative XII Corps Observation Unit as a prototype of the Auxiliary Units guerrilla organisation. He became GOC Scottish Command and Governor of Edinburgh Castle in 1941 and was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in the 1942 Birthday Honours. Whilst in Scotland, he was involved in the creation of War Office Selection Boards and responsible for the Fortitude North deception plan, as well as preparation for the Operation Doomsday the liberation of Norway.

After the end of the war in Europe, German prisoners in Norway were reportedly forced to clear minefields under British supervision. The Germans complained to Thorne but he dismissed the accusations arguing that the Germans prisoners were not prisoners of war but "disarmed forces who had surrendered unconditionally". By 1946, when the cleanup ended, 392 were injured and 275 had died; this was contrary to the terms of the Geneva Conventions. He formally held the sovereignty of Norway until 7 June, when Haakon VII of Norway returned from his exile. Thorne remained in charge of dismantling the German presence in Norway until he left the country on 31 October 1945. Thorne retired in 1946.

Post-war years He was chairman of the Anglo-Norse Society for some time and was at some point a deputy lieutenant of Berkshire.