COURAGE CROWNED

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25345, 29 October 1945, Page 6

COURAGE CROWNED

LAURELS FOE FEEYBERG SPLENDID SCENE AT OXFORD (N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent) LONDON. Oct 27 The scene at Oxford's Sheldonian Theatre, when the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law was conferred on General Eisenhower, Field-Mar-shal Lord Brooke, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Tedder, Field-Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, Lieutenant-General Sir Bernard Freyberg, and other leading figures, is described as the most spectacular event of its kind since 1919, when the late Lord Curzon walked at tho jheaJ of the procession which included Earl Haig, Earl Beatty, Marshal Joffre, General Pershing and Mr Herbert Hoover.

The public orator, in presenting General Freyberg with tho degree, said: "In an ago so prolific of marvels as ours what credence will he attached by posterity to these wonders which strain even contemporary belief? Will it he believed that fabricated ports, called 'mulberries,' were towed across the Channel? Or that New Zealand, in space a world apart from us, yot felt for us the closest attachment in sending picked troops to our side?

"Yet here," said the orator, turning to General Freyberg at his side, "is one who bore witness to that service." The orator touched upon tho unexampled number of distinctions gained by General Freyberg, though these wore not more numerous than tho honourable wounds that the general could show. In command of the New Zealand contingent, he showed in the defence of Greece, and later of Crete, what sheer courage could accomplish. From there, transferred to Egypt at a moment when "a mountain was in labour —and the desert rat was reborn" —he and his men went on to El Alamein, El Aglieila, El Hamma and other battles, where the outflanking moves ho undertook were decisive. From there he leapt to Italy, where impregnable fastnesses fell to his courageous assaults. It was, said the Times, in commenting on the ceremony, "perhaps the most distinguished company ever to be presented."