COLONEL FREYBERG

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 69, 23 March 1931, Page 9

COLONEL FREYBERG

SOLDIER OF FORTUNE

ROMANTIC CAREER

Colonel Freyberg, whose further promotion in the British Army was recorded in a cable message last Thursday, is one of those figures whose attributes make them almost legendary—great physical strength, complete contempt of danger, a. passion for adventure, and rare force of • personality all go to their making; and in addition, they appear to be invested with a charmed life. Freyberg, unknown save as a fine athlete in. 1914, was a brigadier four years later, held the V.G., D.S.O. and three bars,. the C.M.G., had been mentioned in dispatches six times and wounded nine times. He had performed- feats of extraordinary gallantry and was to add to his romantic career, by an equally romantic marriage, the receipt of an honorary, LL.D. from St. Andrew? *Jniversity, and a splendid failure in a Channel swim. Dazed with pain from a war wound he was lifted out of the water within 500 yards of the cliffs of -Dover and was robbed of success in a feat which he had planned for years. It would have taken him six hours to swim that short distance, for he had arrived off the coast an hour too late for the change of tide. Contrary to gerferal belief, Colonel Freyberg was not born in Wellington, but in London 41 years ago. He attended Wellington College, gained a reputation for his prowess in football, boxing, swimming, and rowing, and at an early age he, left New Zealand seeking adventure. From the United States he travelled down to Mexico, where he was fighting when the World War began. He returned to England at onqe, enlisted in the Royal Naval Division, and was at Antwerp, where he was wounded in the hand. By the time his battalion was sent to the Dardanelles in 1915, Freyberg was already a lieutenant-commander. s In Gallipoli. he won the D.S.O. for a remarkable feat which Barrie- used to point the moral of his a.ddress on "Courage" at Edinburgh University. Freyberg swam ashore and lit flares at Bulair, the narrow neck of the Peninsula. This relieved General Paris of the necessity of 'sending out a landing party to make a feint landing. Frey berg not only lit the flares along the beach, but made a reconnaissance and learnt something of the strength and disposition of the Turks^ ana then battled for two hours with a ; strong current in utter darkness before he could leach a waiting destroyer. For this he won the D.5.0., and eighteen months later he gained the Victoria Cr-iiis. This time he was leading the Hood Battalion in the battle of the 3omme. His corps was the only one to reach its objective—the trench line outside Beaueourt in the stubborn front of the Ancre's right wall where the Germans were strongly entrenched. With barely 300 men he undertook-the final assault on the village,'walking at the head of his troops and being .twice wounded. He had already suffered:two wounds, following the British barrage bo closely that flying splinters struck him. His men took 500 prisoners and large quantities of material, and though badly wounded when hit the fourth time, he refused to leave until he had given detailed orders for the dofence of the village against the counterattack. "It was the personality, gallantry, and complete contempt of danger of this one man that enabled tho lodgment in the most advanced objective of the corps to be permanently held/ said the recommendation for his V.C. After the war, Colonel Freyberg (now a major) was posted to the Koyal West Surrey Regiment, then to the Grenadier Guards, and .in February, 1929, to command of the Ist Battalion, the Manchester Begiment. In 1922 he ( married Barbara, the widow of the late Hon. Francis M'Lareu, M.P., {laughter of Sir Herbert Jekyll, a soldier with a distinguished administrative career, and a sister of the wife of \he Hon. Reginald M'Konmi.