WELL-EARNED POST

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 57, 5 September 1945, Page 8

WELL-EARNED POST

LEGENDARY FIGURE

GEN. FREYBERG'S CAREER

Ths appointmont oi" Sir Bernard Freyberg to. the high and honourable post of Governor-General of New Zealand will be received with the utmost gratification by New Zealanders, of whom he is one of the most famous. Indeed, General Freyberg is almost a

legendary figure, and this well-merited distinction crowns a career of courage and adventure which has few parallels.

Born in London in 1889, he came to New Zealand with his parents in 1891, and was educated at Wellington College, and later he became known throughout Australasia as a swimmer, oarsman, footballer, and boxer. He left New Zealand as a youth for the United States, took p.art in the civil war in Mexico as a member of Villa's forces against Huerta, and when the World War broke out came to England to join the naval brigade. He took part in Churchill's magnificent Antwerp adventure, served later in France, and then went to Gallipoli, where he swam two miles to the shore and lighted flares to decoy the Turkish forces at Bulair, enabling British forces to land at the other end of the peninsula. Ten years later he showed his ability as a swimmer in different waters, for in 1925 and again in 1926 he tried to swim across the English Channel —and nearly succeeded. Sir Bernard Freyberg received the D.S.O. for his feat at Gallipoli, and when he returned to France he won the V.C. at Beaumont Hamel. He commanded an attack which got through to its third objective, and drove a wedge into the German positions. He held this apparently untenable position for a day and a night, and later led a charge which resulted in the capture of Beaucourt. He was sev-oi-ely wounded, but before allowing stretcher-bearers to take him away he gave orders for defending the position. Later he won a bar to his D.S.O. for the capture of Gheluvet, and a second bar for saving a bridge at Lessines, on the River Dendre. At the end of the World War I he was a lieutenant-colonel in the West Surrey Regiment. Later he joined the Grenadier Guards, and in 1929 he was given the command of the Ist Manchester Regiment. In 1931 he became assistant quartermaster general, Southern Command, in 1933 he was appointed to the General Staff, and in the following year was promoted majorgeneral. His was the first case of a "New Army" officer rising from a temporary wartime commission to be a major-general of the Regular Army. He retired in 1937. but was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the New Zealand Forces . t the end of 1939. After commanding the New Zealand Forces in Greece he was placed in command of all the Imperial Forces in Crete, and, at the request of King George of the Hellenes and the Greek Government, took command of the Greek forces in the island as well. He resumed command of the New Zealand Division after the evacuation of Crete. His appointment was hailed with universal satisfaction, and in the ensuing critical years he proved in even greater measure than before those qualities that made him a great soldier and a great leader. This tribute by Prince Peter of Grece after Crete is typical of the high regard in which he is held: "He is a magnificent man. He is absolutely unconscious of danger, and likes to be with his troops all the time." General Freyberg had a narrow escape during the Mersa Matruh engagement in 1942. When the famous 21st German Panzer Division was trying to break down the New . Zealander's defence the general received a shrapnel wound in the neck which removed him from the active list for a short period. It was in January, 1942. that he received his K.C.B. in recognition of the