In March 1942, the division also gained a new General Officer Commanding (GOC) in the form of Major-General Ivor Thomas. Thomas was a decorated officer who had served as a young battery commander in the Royal Artillery on the Western Front during the First World War where he was twice wounded and awarded the Military Cross and the Distinguished Service Order. He would command the 43rd Division until September 1945. Thomas was an effective but hard-driving commander, humourless and not universally liked, sometimes known as 'Butcher', or more jocularly by Lt-Gen Brian Horrocks and others as 'Von Thoma', after the German Lt-Gen Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma captured after the Battle of Alamein. (Horrocks also jokingly referred to Thomas's command as the 'Wicked Wyvern'). Critics of his training methods regarded 43rd (Wessex) Division as 'the most over-exercised in the Army'.