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Lieutenant-General Bernard Cyril Freyberg, 1st Baron Freyberg, VC, GCMG, KCB, KBE, DSO & Three Bars, KStJ (21 March 1889 – 4 July 1963) was a British-born New Zealand soldier and Victoria Cross recipient, who served as the 7th governor-general of New Zealand from 1946 to 1952.
Freyberg served as an officer in the British Army during the First World War. He took part in the beach landings during the Gallipoli campaign and was the youngest general in the British Army during the First World War,[10] later serving on the Western Front, where he was decorated with the Victoria Cross and three Distinguished Service Orders, making him one of the most highly decorated British Empire soldiers of the First World War. He liked to be in the thick of the action: Winston Churchill called him "the Salamander" due to his ability to pass through fire unharmed.
During the Second World War, he commanded the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in the Battle of Crete, the North African campaign and the Italian campaign. Freyberg was involved in the Allied defeat in the Battle of Greece, defeated again as the Allied commander in the Battle of Crete and performed successfully in the fighting in North Africa, commanding the 2nd New Zealand Division, including during the Second Battle of El Alamein and in the subsequent Tunisian campaign.
In Italy, he was defeated again at the Second Battle of Cassino as a corps commander but later relieved Padua and Venice and was one of the first to enter Trieste, where he confronted Josip Broz Tito's Yugoslav Partisans. By the end of the Second World War, Freyberg had spent ten and a half years fighting the Germans.[11]
- ^ Freyberg 1991, p. 14.
- ^ "No. 29664". The London Gazette (Supplement). 11 September 1916. pp. 6941–6952.
- ^ "No. 35821". The London Gazette (Supplement). 11 December 1942. p. 5446.
- ^ "No. 36065". The London Gazette (Supplement). 22 June 1943. p. 2866.
- ^ "No. 37368". The London Gazette (Supplement). 27 November 1945. p. 5835.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
ReferenceAwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Cite error: The named reference
ReferenceBwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b McGibbon, Ian. "Freyberg, VC". diggerhistory. Archived from the original on 9 January 2008. Retrieved 26 November 2010.
- ^ "No. 35519". The London Gazette (Supplement). 7 April 1942. p. 1595.
- ^ "Youngest General WW1". Mindef.gov.sg. Archived from the original on 15 October 2013. Retrieved 1 November 2013.
- ^ Kay, p. 549 Archived 4 July 2009 at the Wayback Machine
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