Major-General Lewis Owen Lyne CB, DSO took over command of the division on 22 November 1944, when Gen Verney went to Italy to command 6th Armoured Division. Gen Lyne had commanded 50th Northumbrian Division in Normandy, when Gen Graham was injured, until it became a training division in the UK. He would then command the "Desert Rats" on the final lap through the Siegfried Line, into Germany and on to the surrender of Hamburg and the end of the war. Postwar he was the first Military Governor of the British Zone of Berlin, then Director Staff Duties at the War Office, before retiring in 1949.