BRIGADIER HARGEST

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 December 1943, Page 3

BRIGADIER HARGEST

SAFE-ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND REPORTED BY NEW ZEALAND HIGH COMMISSIONER. FOLLOWING ON ESCAPE FROM ITALY. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) ’ WELLINGTON, This Day. The Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Nash, has received cabled advice from the High Commissioner in London, Mr Jordon, that Brigadier J. Hargest, M.P. for Awarua, has arrived safely in England. ’ “Everyone in the Dominion will be thrilled at the news that Brigadier Hargest is free,” said Mr Nash last evening, “and as the message received is from Wimbledon he is obviously staying with Mr Jordan, whose home is there. I expect after he has had a good rest in London he will be doing what he can to help there prior to coming back to the Dominion.” It was reported in New Zealand on November 18 that Brigadier Hargest, who escaped to Switzerland from a prisoner of war camp in Italy early this year, had reached Barcelona, Spain, on November 16, after crossing the Franco-Spanish frontier on foot and was granted partial freedom by the Spanish authorities, to whom he reported his arrival. Brigadier Hargest was the second senior New Zealand officer to reach Spanish soil from Switzerland, to which country he and the late Brigadier R. Miles, who also was a prisoner of war, escaped in March last. On October 26, the Primo Minister, Mr Fraser, announced that Brigadier Miles had .died in Spain after making his way across France in disguise. Both brigadiers were m the same camp near Florence, and ha been taken prisoner in the fighting in Libya within a few days of each other in November-December, 1941. Brigadier Hargest has had a distinguished career as a soldier, having also fought in the last war with the .New Zealand forces. He left the Dominion in 1914 with the Main Body, as a second lieutenant and rose rapidly til he was lieutenant colonel in command of the Otago Regiment at the. age of 26. He was wounded at Gallipoli in 1915 and later served in France, where he won the Military Cross and the Distinguished Service Order and received the Cross of the Legion of Honour. Going overseas with the Second Expeditionary Force, he commanded the sth New Zealand Infantry. Brigade from its formation, and took it through the Greek and Crete campaigns He was taken prisoner in tfk bitter A&M" ing in Libya near Sidi Wzegh in November, 1941. He and Brigadier Miles made a journey of at least 180 miles to reach Switzerland when they escaped from the Italian prisoner of war camp They were each awarded a bai to their D.S.O. for their feat. In 1931 Brigadier Hargest was elected member of Parliament for Invercargill and held this seat till 1935, when he contested the Awarua constituency and was elected. He has been a member for that electorate since then, and at the recent general election he was returned unopposed.