a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order on 31 December 1942. Following the fall of Tripoli in January 1943, the remaining Axis forces retreated to defensive positions in Southern Tunisia, in front of the Mareth Line built by France before the war. Here in March, Horrocks carried out one of his most successful actions. His corps, composed of the 1st Armoured Division, a Free French brigade and the attached New Zealand Corps (which included the 2nd New Zealand Division and the British 8th Armoured Brigade), was ordered to attack as part of Operation Supercharge II after XXX Corps failed to breach the line. He carried out a flanking manoeuvre through a pass judged by the Germans to be impenetrable, rendering the Mareth position untenable and forcing the Axis into another retreat. Three Italian divisions were destroyed, and the German 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions and the 164th Division were heavily depleted. Horrocks was then transferred to the First Army to take over IX Corps after its previous commander, Lieutenant-General John Crocker, was wounded in a training accident. He led this corps in the final Allied offensive in Tunisia during April and May 1943, capturing Tunis and accepting the surrender of the remnants of Rommel's Army Group Africa. He was mentioned in despatches on 24 June, and for his service in Tunisia, was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath on 5 August. He was also given the rank of temporary lieutenant-general and war substantive major-general. In June 1943, after returning to command of X Corps, Horrocks sustained serious injuries during an air raid at Bizerte, while watching an amphibious rehearsal by the 46th Infantry Division for Operation Avalanche, the Salerno landings. Bullets from a strafing German fighter struck his upper chest and carried on through his body, piercing his lungs, stomach and intestines. He underwent five operations and spent fourteen months recovering. He was replaced as commander of X Corps by Lieutenant-General Sir Richard McCreery. Northwest Europe It was a year before Horrocks recovered sufficiently to tell Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), that he was "very anxious to be given another corps". Restored to the acting rank of lieutenant-general in August 1944, he was sent to France to assume command of XXX Corps during the cataclysm engulfing the trapped German 7th Army and 5th Panzer Army in the Falaise Pocket.