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Augustus Francis Andrew Nicol Thorne is not a
name that springs to mind as one of the great popular generals of WW2 but
Andrew Thorne’s name should be remembered as the key figure responsible
for the implementation in Scotland of FORTITUDE NORTH, the deception plan
to cover the D-Day Landings in 1944.
Andrew Thorne, nicknamed “Bulgy”, was born on the 20th September 1885 and
educated at Mulgrave, near Whitby, Eton and the Royal Military Academy
Sandhurst. He joined the Grenadier Guards in 1904. Ten years later, on the
outbreak of the First World War, Captain Thorne was sent to France where
he had a very distinguished war record. He fought at Gheluvelt in the
First Battle of Ypres in October and November 1914, he was awarded the
Distinguished Service Order in 1916, with a first bar in early 1918 and a
second bar at the end of the War. He was mentioned in Dispatches seven
times and commanded the 3rd Grenadiers between September 1916 and
September 1918. He ended WW1, aged 33, as a temporary Brigadier General.
After the war Thorne reverted to the rank of Major. In 1919 he was posted
to Washington as Assistant Military Attaché in Washington for two years,
followed by the Staff Course at Camberley, both as a student and as an
instructor, Military Assistant to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff,
Command of the 3rd Battalion Grenadiers and a period of study at the
Imperial Defence College.
In 1932 Thorne was appointed as Military Attaché to the British Embassy in
Berlin and it was during this three-year period that he got to know Hitler
and many of his senior officers personally. Both Hitler and Thorne had
been present at Gheluvelt in 1914 and they are known to have discussed
their battle experiences together at length. The posting to Berlin was
followed by Command of the 1st Infantry Brigade (Guards) and Command of
London District.
Here therefore was a man who, on the outbreak of WW2, was uniquely placed
and indeed poised to take high command; more than the equal of Alan
Brooke, Bernard Montgomery, John Dill and Bill Slim.
Andrew Thorne’s handling of the Territorial 48th (South Midland) Division
in France in 1940 merely served to reinforce his distinguished battle
record and after Dunkirk he commanded XII Corps with the vital
responsibility of organising the defence of Kent and Sussex against the
very real threat of invasion.
Then in May 1941, Andrew Thorne was promoted to Scottish Command and
Governor of Edinburgh Castle. It was an extraordinary decision given
Thorne’s ability, age, training and battle experience but there is also
evidence to suggest that in the long term nobody was better prepared than
Thorne for the task that lay ahead, not in commanding an army in the
field, but in co-ordinating a complex deception plan to convince the
Germans that the 4th Allied Army, including substantial, but not real,
American formations existed in Scotland in the spring of 1944. Thorne was
able to draw on his experience in both Washington and Berlin in the 1930s
and his personal knowledge of Hitler’s preoccupation with Norway as a
“zone of destiny”, in the implementation of FORTITUDE NORTH which was
carried out by means of wireless deception, physical deception and double
agents and which is credited with ensuring that large numbers of German
troops remained in Norway and were not available for deployment against
the invading Allies on the beaches of Normandy.
In 1943 Thorne was tasked with planning the liberation of Norway but it
was not until after VE Day, 8th May 1945, that his force of just 30,000,
including Crown Prince Olav, set sail to disarm over 350,000 Germans in
Norway with the assistance of the Norwegian Resistance.
Andrew Thorne retired in 1946. He returned to active service and worked
for a year with the Norwegian Ministry of Defence in 1950-51, before
retiring to live near Reading and devoting himself to charity work. He
received honours from Poland, France, the United States and Norway. He
died on the 25th September 1970 aged 85.
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