A range-finding station at a coast fortification. To the layman it is
a combination of engineer’s office, telephone exchange, and telegraph
office where soldiers work out the distance from the muzzle of their
cannon to the enemy. In coast-defense work three range-finding stations
usually coöperate in working out the distance.]
“The personality, valor, and utter contempt of danger on the part of
this single officer enabled the lodgment in the most advanced objective
of the Corps to be permanently held, and on this _point d’appui_ the
line was eventually formed.” So closed the official version of the
gallant colonel’s performance.
Colonel Freyberg was by birth a New Zealander. He was not yet
twenty-eight years of age. Born in Wellington, he developed both the
physique and resourcefulness that were essential for the success of
some of the enterprises which he undertook in the war. He won fame
throughout Australasia as an exceptionally fine swimmer; he grew to be
six feet in height, and broad and powerful in proportion; he achieved
renown as an oarsman, a footballer and a boxer, and his physique won
for him the affectionate nickname of “Tiny.” Leaving New Zealand he
went to America, and drifting to Mexico found full scope for his
adventurous aspirations; he fought in Mexico’s Civil War.
In 1914, the London _Times_ says, Freyberg came home, joined the Royal
Naval Division, and was wounded in the hand at Antwerp. With good
service to his record he went to Gallipoli with his battalion, being
already a lieutenant-commander. In Gallipoli he again distinguished
himself. General Paris was in charge of a force which was to make a
feint landing at Bulair, the narrow neck of the Peninsula. Freyberg was
given charge of the party, but, while prizing the honor, he proposed an
alternative scheme which, he believed, would protect the lives of the
men. This idea was that he should take colored flares and swim ashore,
that he should then light the flares, as if a landing was anticipated,
and then swim out again to a waiting destroyer. This he did, stripping,
and painting his face and shoulders a dark color, so that he should not
be seen swimming. Freyberg landed on the beach, lit the flares, made a
reconnaissance, and swam off again, but owing to the darkness and the
current he missed the boat which was to pick him up, and it was almost
two hours before he was hauled on to the deck of the destroyer, more
dead than alive. This remarkable feat of endurance and resourcefulness,
more suggestive of an adventure from Mayne Reid or Fenimore Cooper than
a sober act of modern war, won for the young officer the D. S. O.