Major-General Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...

Sir David Calthrop Thorne KBE CVO (13 December 1933 – 23 April 2000) was a

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

officer who commanded 1st Armoured Division.

Early life

Educated at

St Edward's School, Oxford St Edward's School is a public school (English independent day and boarding school) in Oxford, England. It is known informally as 'Teddies'. Approximately sixty pupils live in each of its thirteen houses. The school is a member of the Rugby G ...

, and the

Royal Military Academy Sandhurst The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS or RMA Sandhurst), commonly known simply as Sandhurst, is one of several military academies of the United Kingdom and is the British Army's initial officer training centre. It is located in the town of ...

, Thorne was commissioned into the

Royal Norfolk Regiment The Royal Norfolk Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army until 1959. Its predecessor regiment was raised in 1685 as Henry Cornwall's Regiment of Foot. In 1751, it was numbered like most other British Army regiments and named ...

in 1952.Debrett's People of Today 1994 He was a keen

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er and played two first-class matches for the

Combined Services cricket team The Combined Services cricket team represents the British Armed Forces. The team played at first-class level in England for more than forty years in the mid-twentieth century. Their first first-class match was against Gentlemen of England at Lo ...

in 1964. He also played

minor counties The National Counties, known as the Minor Counties before 2020, are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that do not have first-class status. The game is administered by the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), which comes unde ...

matches for

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

from 1954 to 1962, as did his twin brother, Michael (1955–1958), and uncle,

Gordon Thorne Gordon Calthrop Thorne (3 March 1897 – 2 March 1942) was an English first-class cricketer and British Army officer. Serving for most of his military career with the Royal Norfolk Regiment, Thorne saw action in the First World War from 1916 t ...

(1914–1925).

Military career

Thorne was given command of the 1st Battalion,

Royal Anglian Regiment The Royal Anglian Regiment (R ANGLIAN) is an infantry regiment of the British Army. It consists of two Regular battalions and one Reserve battalion. The modern regiment was formed in 1964, making it the oldest of the Line Regiments now operating i ...

in 1972. He was appointed Commander of 3rd Infantry Brigade in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

during

Operation Banner Operation Banner was the operational name for the British Armed Forces' operation in Northern Ireland from 1969 to 2007, as part of the Troubles. It was the longest continuous deployment in British military history. The British Army was initial ...

in 1977, in which capacity in 1979 he was the first officer to brief Prime Minister

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...

on the

Warrenpoint ambush The Warrenpoint ambush, also known as the Narrow Water ambush, the Warrenpoint massacre or the Narrow Water massacre, was a guerrilla attack by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on 27 August 1979. The IRA's South Armagh Brigade ambus ...

. He was appointed to the post of the British Army's Vice Quartermaster-General in 1981. in 1982 he was appointed as the Commander of British Forces in the

Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about from Cape Dubouzet ...

, shortly after their re-capture by the British Armed Forces from an Argentinian invasion in the

Falklands War The Falklands War ( es, link=no, Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial de ...

. In that role he gave support to the idea of then-Captain

Geoffrey Cardozo Geoffrey Cardozo CBE (born 3 March 1950) is a former British Army Colonel, known for helping to identify the human remains of Argentine soldiers in the Argentine Military Cemetery, Falkland Islands. A number of the Argentine dead had graves ma ...

to locate, retrieve, and respectfully bury every dead Argentine soldier left dead unattended after the war ended. He went on to be General Officer Commanding 1st Armoured Division in 1983, and Director of Infantry in 1986, in which role he secured the rejection a proposed reform in the

Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...

for the posting officers which he believed would undermine the British Army's regimental system. He retired in 1988. In retirement Thorne became Director General of the

Royal Commonwealth Society The Royal Commonwealth Society (RCS) is a non-governmental organisation with a mission to promote the value of the Commonwealth and the values upon which it is based. The Society upholds the values of the Commonwealth Charter, promoting confli ...

. He died from the effects of a

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

on 23 April 2000 at

Framlingham Framlingham is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Suffolk, England. Of Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon origin, it appears in the 1086 Domesday Book. The parish had a population of 3,342 at the 2011 Census and an estimated 4, ...

, in the county of

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

, in his 67th year.

Personal life

In 1962 he married Suzan Anne Goldsmith; they had one son and two daughters.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thorne, David 1933 births 2000 deaths Royal Anglian Regiment officers British Army major generals Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire Royal Norfolk Regiment officers People educated at St Edward's School, Oxford Commanders of the Royal Victorian Order Graduates of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst Combined Services cricketers English cricketers People from Hertford Norfolk cricketers British military personnel of The Troubles (Northern Ireland) Sportspeople from Hertfordshire Deaths from cancer in England Military personnel from Hertfordshire