Ivor Thomas (British Army Officer)

General Sir Gwilym Ivor Thomas, (23 July 1893 – 29 August 1972) was a senior British Army officer who saw active service in both World Wars. He is most notable for commanding the 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division throughout the campaign in Western Europe from June 1944 until Victory in Europe Day in May 1945, and later rose to become Quartermaster-General to the Forces.

Early life and military career

Born in Marylebone, London, on 23 July 1893, Ivor Thomas was the son of John Thomas, the harpist to Queen Victoria and King Edward VII and Joan Francis, the youngest daughter of William Denny. He attended Cheltenham College in Gloucestershire and later the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, from where he was commissioned into the Royal Field Artillery on 20 December 1912.

Thomas fought in the First World War, arriving on the Western Front from India with II Battery, XIII Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, part of the 7th (Meerut) Division, in October 1914. Still a second lieutenant when war began, Thomas rose rapidly in rank, being made a lieutenant on 9 June 1915, a temporary captain on 12 January 1916 (made permanent on 20 December 1916, four years since he was commissioned), and an acting major on 10 April 1917, which he held for only five days, but he regained the rank on 15 June, which he held until 2 October, when he again reverted to his permanent rank of captain. He remained on the Western Front throughout the conflict, was wounded twice, awarded the Military Cross and Bar and Mentioned in Despatches in 1917, and, in January 1918, received the Distinguished Service Order (DSO).Thomas, Sir (Gwilym) Ivor (1893–1972)
Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives From 22 September he served as a staff captain at the War Office.

Between the wars

Relinquishing this appointment on 19 November 1919, over a year after the war ended, the first few years of the interwar period for Thomas were spent as an adjutant to various Territorial Army (TA) units, including the 68th (South Midland) Field Brigade, Royal Artillery, part of the 48th (South Midland) Division, until attending the Staff College, Camberley from 1924 to 1925. After this he became a brigade major with the artillery of the 1st Infantry Division in Aldershot Command from 1926 to 1930, during which time he was made a brevet major on 1 July 1929.

In 1931 Thomas served at the Royal Artillery depot at Woolwich, Kent, before in January 1932 becoming a General staff Officer Grade 2 (GSO2) to General Sir David Campbell, the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Malta. After being promoted to brevet lieutenant colonel on 1 July 1933, he returned to England and attended the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, in 1934. This was followed by serving as a GSO2 at the War Office and later GSO1, being promoted to colonel on 12 May 1938 (with seniority dating back to 1 July 1937).
Promoted to the temporary rank of brigadier on 14 July 1939, he was appointed Deputy Director for Recruiting and Organisation at the War Office, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, and then he was Director of Organisation at the War Office in 1940, by which time the war had begun.

Second World War

In September 1940 Thomas, by now a temporary brigadier, became Commander Royal Artillery (CRA) of the 2nd Infantry Division, which had recently fought in France with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and was then commanded by Major General Noel Irwin before being succeeded by Major General Daril Watson, both of whom had been fellow students at the Staff College in the mid-1920s.

Thomas remained in this post until March 1942, when he was promoted to the acting rank of major general and became General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division, his first time in charge of a large formation of infantry, succeeding Major General Charles Allfrey, another artilleryman. The 43rd Division – composed of the 128th, 129th and 130th Infantry Brigades, along with supporting divisional troops – was a first line TA formation recruiting from the West Country, serving in Kent on anti-invasion duties as part of XII Corps, under Lieutenant General James Gammell, who was replaced in November by Lieutenant General Montagu Stopford who, the following November, was himself replaced by Lieutenant General Neil Ritchie.

In June 1942, three months after Thomas became GOC, the 43rd Division was one of many selected to be converted into a "mixed" division, of one tank brigade and two infantry brigades. As a result, Brigadier Manley James's 128th Brigade left the division and was replaced by the 25th Tank Brigade which, in September, was replaced by the 34th Tank Brigade. Two months later, on 11 November, Thomas was promoted to the permanent rank of major general. In September 1943, however, the experiment with "mixed" divisions was abandoned and, with the arrival of Brigadier Hubert Essame's 214th Infantry Brigade, formerly an independent unit, the division reverted to being a standard infantry division. By this time Thomas's division had been selected to participate in the Allied invasion of Normandy, then scheduled to take place in May 1944, as part of the newly formed British Second Army (initially under Lieutenant General Sir Kenneth Anderson but later replaced in January 1944 by Lieutenant General Miles Dempsey), and training in all-arms co-operation, already at a very high standard due to Thomas's energetic and ruthless methods, intensified, and he demanded only the very highest standards.

After years of training under Thomas's command, the 43rd Division landed in Normandy in mid-June 1944, but was not immediately involved in any major engagements. However, casualties had already been sustained, by the 43rd (Wessex) Reconnaissance Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Francis Lane Fox−who "Von Thoma" later sacked−which suffered severe losses before it even landed in Normandy. On 24 June, the 43rd Division was reassigned from Ritchie's XII Corps to Lieutenant General Sir Richard O'Connor's VIII Corps and, days later, took part in Operation Epsom, in an attempt to capture Caen

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