“TINY” FREYBERG

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20102, 23 November 1939, Page 6

“TINY” FREYBERG

DOMINION TROOPS

COMMAND OVERSEAS BRILLIANT SOLDIER

NOTABLE WAR RECORD ASSOCIATION WITH N.Z. | (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. I The appointment of Major-General I B. C. Freyberg, V.C., C. 8., C.M.G.,j D. 5.0., LL.D., to command the New Zealand forces overseas has been I approved by His Majesty the King, j Major-General Bernard Freyberg was! born in London in 1389 and went to! New Zealand in 1891. He was educated] at Wellington College. |, He first joined the Gth Hauraki j Regiment, Auckland. He did not serve < with the New Zealand troops during the Great War. but served with the infantry from the beginning to the;

Armistice. He served first at Antwerp, then Gallipoli, and then France as

company battalion commander of the; Hood battalion of the Royal Naval j Division.

In April, 1927, he was promoted brigadier-general in command of the 173rd Infantry Brigade. After being wounded at Passchendaele. he commanded the 88th Infantry Brigade of the 29th Division till tire end of the war. He was recommended by Earl Haig in 1918 as fit to command and

train a division.. Feat at Bulair

In the war he was wounded nine i times, mentioned in dispatches live i times, awarded the D.S.O. at the j landing on Gallipoli for swimming ashore at Bulair, awarded the V.C. during <the battle of Ancre in November. 191(5. a ban to the D.S.O. in the! last battle of Ypres, and a second bar ! lo the D.S.O. during the last 10' minutes of the war for capturing the! crossing over Dcndre at Lessines,! Belgium. He passed through the stall college! in 1919 and served as company com-1 mander of the Grenadier Guards and i also general staff officer of the Eastern i Command from 1922 to 192(i and in! 1928 and 1929. Tie commanded the first battalion of the Manchester Regiment from 1929;

to 1931, was assistant quartermastergeneral of the Southern Command

from 1931 to 1933, and a general stall’ officer (first grade) from 1933 to 1934 of the War Office. He was promoted to the rank of major-general in 1334. On the outbreak of war in September, 1939, he was appointed general officer commanding the Salisbury Plain area.