Bernard Cyril Freyberg, 1st Baron Freyberg VC, GCMG, KCB, KBE, DSO

"So You're on a Stamp" Project - 1990 NZ Heritage stamp collection - The Achievers - Single $1.00c gummed stamp.

Lieutenant-General Bernard Cyril Freyberg, 1st Baron Freyberg VC, GCMG, KCB, KBE, DSO & Three Bars (21 March 1889 – 4 July 1963), was a British-born New Zealand Victoria Cross recipient and soldier who later served as the seventh Governor-General of New Zealand (1946-1952).

A veteran of the Mexican Revolution, he became an officer in the British Army during the First World War. Freyberg was the first soldier on the beach during the Gallipoli Campaign and the youngest general in the British Army during the First World War, later serving on the Western Front where he was decorated with the Victoria Cross. He liked to be in the thick of action—Churchill called him "the Salamander" due to his love of fire.

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 defeat in the Battle of Greece, defeated again as the Allied commander in the Battle of Crete and performed successfully commanding the New Zealand division in the North African, including the Battle of El Alamein.

In Italy, he was defeated again at the Second Battle of Cassino as a corps commander, but later relieved Padua and Venice, and was first to enter Trieste, where he successfully confronted Josip Broz Tito's Partisans. By the end of the Second World War, Freyberg had spent ten and a half years fighting the Germans.

Source: wikipedia.org

External Links

• Ian McGibbon. 'Freyberg, Bernard Cyril', from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand
• Cenotaph Record
• Residence: 1891 - 59 Weltze RD, Hammersmith, London, England
• Reference: 1891 England & Wales Census - SmartCopy: Mar 31 2017, 4:14:34 UTC
• Reference: MyHeritage Family Trees - SmartCopy: Jan 25 2017, 5:53:37 UTC
• Reference: MyHeritage Family Trees - SmartCopy: Nov 29 2017, 15:51:39 UTC