When Brigadier General John Royston returned to South Africa on the eve of the Third Battle of Gaza (30 October 1917), Wilson was given command of the 3rd Light Horse Brigade as colonel and temporary brigadier general. Short and stocky, quiet and shy, Wilson was the antithesis of his predecessor. In the Second Battle of the Jordan (30 April – 4 May 1918) he seized Es Salt with astonishing speed and, when the Turks counter-attacked, succeeded in withdrawing his brigade from a perilous situation. Forty miles (64 km) behind the Turkish lines after the breakthrough at Megiddo (20 September), Wilson's brigade advanced southwards on Jenin, capturing three or four times their own number.