AMAZING RECOVERY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 173, 24 July 1942, Page 3

AMAZING RECOVERY

N.Z. MEN'S COMMANDER

DISCHARGE FROM HOSPITAL,

N.Z.E.F. Official War Correspondent. CAIRO, July 22

Lieutenant-General Sir Bernard Freyberg, V.C., commander of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force has been discharged from hospital after three weeks' treatment. He was wounded when in the front line with his troops. The New Zealanders fought their first action on June 26 about 20 miles south of Mersa Matruh. At about five o'clock, General Freyberg went forward in his car with his A.D.C., the All Black, Lieutenant J. L. Griffiths, to see what progress the enemy attack was making. Shortlv after he had arrived at a machinegun post enemy artillery put down a heavy concentration of fire. The general was hit in the neck by a splinter while walking to his car. He was thrown to the ground. Lieutenant Griffiths and the commander's driver, Corporal Cropp, were with him.

General Freyberg's wound was bandaged at once with a field dressing. Then another shell landed close. It threw Lieutenant Griffiths forward on to General Freyberg, half burying them with earth. Lieutenant Griffiths and the driver got the general into his car and returned to headquarters.

Then General Freyberg gave instructions that Brigadier Inglis should be summoned to take over. While he lay wounded, he got up-to-the-minute reports of the progress of the battle from the Auckland solicitor colonel, who directed operations from the top of the general's truck.

When the time came for the New Zealanders to fight their way through the German armoured ring which encircled them that night, General Freyberg travelled in his own office truck, which contained his bed. So he was in the thick of the charge of New Zealand transport through the German armoured ring. His truck was well forward, and ran the gauntlet of enemy tanks, anti-tank guns and machine-guns. He dragged himself up to wafth the display of German tracer bullets and to see our own anti-tank guns coming into action to cover the withdrawal. The truck driver had to swerve to the left as the truck ran into a stream

of machine-gun bullets, some of which went through the frame of the windscreen. Dawn found the New Zealand column still making its way east. Later in the morning they reached an aerodrome, and General Freyberg was flown to Cairo, arriving there the same evening. Since then he has amazed his doctors with the speed with which he has recovered.