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Meaning and memory
Freyberg's War
A name less common...
Meaning and memory: the quake revisited
Matthew Wright
Nearly eighty years on, the Hawke’s Bay earthquake of 1931 still has
the
power to elicit deep emotion.
It was the worst human disaster ever experienced on New Zealand soil
and, on a per-capita basis, the second worst ever to strike New Zealand
to that time. It killed more New Zealanders at a stroke than any event
since Passchendaele, the 1917 battle where 1200 Kiwis were slaughtered
in a few hours. More to the point, the quake left over 400 seriously
injured, and over 2500 were scraped, bruised, cut and battered – a toll
that was never fully recorded. Thousands suffered psychological trauma.
The calamity engulfed province and nation. At a time when the
population stood around 1.5 million, virtually every New Zealander from
North Cape to Bluff knew somebody who had been in it, or were involved
in the nationwide relief effort.
This scale underscores the realities. History is a study of meaning –
an attempt to understand the way the shapes of past life and times have
built the world of today. Single events are seldom decisive, individual
numbers usually even less so against the shifting interplay of broad
social, political and economic forces. Yet the quake was decisive. It
re-shaped two cities and had a social effect that encompassed a
population. Even the revision of the quake strength is irrelevant in
this sense. Charles Richter put it at 7.9 on his intensity scale. That
number stuck, repeated as if true today. In fact, it was revised down
to 7.8 in 1981 by New Zealand seismologists.
But that’s not something to angst about. For those who lived through
it, the quake was strong enough to smash two cities and a province,
strong enough to ruin their livelihoods in the depths of the worst
economic depression the world had ever seen. Someone whose father,
mother or siblings had just been killed by falling masonry did not
worry about whether the projectiles had been dislodged by a 7.8 or 7.9
strength jolt. Which underscores the real meaning of the quake as a
human disaster.
It also came to a generation that had lived through the First World
War, and that added depth to the experience. Open comparison between
quake-shattered Napier and shell-shocked Ypres was rife in the
newspapers of the day. More to the point, many Hawke’s Bay men had
lived through the absolute hell of the Western Front. When death struck
their homes, they knew what to do. War service also provided an instant
shape to relief efforts; in Hastings, one wartime unit was even
resurrected. And the former soldiers knew they could rely on each other
– if necessary, to the death Would we react so well?
The quake was felt across the lower North Island, and none forgot it.
One woman narrowly missed death in Wanganui when a chimney collapsed
beside her. During research for my book on the disaster I spoke to
people as far away as Wellington, who recalled dogs barking and seeing
chimneys swaying in Tinakori road. The day left its mark on children.
One survivor, four at the time, still recalls walking on the Marine
Parade, watching a man ride past on bicycle with shouted warning of a
possible tsunami. Another survivor, a young adult in 1931 and 88 when I
spoke to him, mimed the way he had clutched a washing line at a house
near Dartmoor, trying to stand against the bucking ground. And, as I
discovered, there are even new photographs. At the launch of my book
‘Quake Hawke’s Bay 1931’, the late Reverend Douglas Storkey pressed
half a dozen new photographs into my hands. Too late for the book, of
course; but not for a reprint. Other pictures have emerged since. Two
Wellington brothers hastened to the shattered province days after the
quake, looking for relatives. They had a camera with them and rolls of
film.
Which makes me wonder whether other images yet remain, buried in photo
albums around the country?
The quake was a turning point, a social disaster, a moment that
affected the nation and divided the history of a whole region into
‘before’ and ‘after’. We must not let the experience slip away.
Freyberg's
War
Matthew Wright
Wider history, as
has been said more than once, is 'argument without end'. It is unlikely
that a 'final' or 'definitive' view of Lieutenant-General Sir Bernard
Freyberg can ever be achieved, any more than
such a consensus can be achieved about any person or period of history.
But it seems to me
that a good starting point might be the way he saw his own war - to get
to grips with this complex, capable
character as a first step towards obtaining a better understanding of
what he did. The next essay, adapted from the
introduction of my biography Freyberg's War,
highlights
some of the themes.
Lieutenant-General Baron Bernard Cyril Freyberg of Wellington, VC,
GCMG, KBE, KCB, DSO (three bars), among other awards,[1] remains one of
New Zealand’s better known historic figures, with a career spanning the
great arc of war that swept Europe in 1914 and ended for Freyberg
thirty years later in Trieste. He was appointed commander of the Second
New Zealand Expeditionary Force and its component Second New Zealand
Division in 1939, a command that lasted the duration of the Second
World War. During this remarkable tenure, Freyberg led a combined total
of more than 75,000 New Zealand soldiers,[2] a significant proportion
of New Zealand’s youth, and inspired many to extraordinary deeds.[3] ‘A
difficult old cuss at times,’ one officer opined. ‘But we’d do anything
for him.’[4]
Afterwards he was appointed Governor-General, and his name entered New
Zealand’s ordinary life at every level, particularly in his home town
of Wellington. There were Freyberg buildings, avenues, roads, schools,
parks and streets. His popular stature was unassailable, and his image
as hero-leader fed back into the vision of his abilities in the field –
abilities that were themselves entwined with the popular reputation of
the Second New Zealand Division. It was, as Major-General Sir Howard
Kippenberger remarked, ‘sort of heresy’ to be critical of Freyberg,
either as leader or as a tactician.[5]
Privately, though, Kippenberger had other opinion. The ‘only sort of
battle in which General Freyberg was any good,’ he wrote, ‘was the
encadred set-piece battle, of which he was a master.’[6] Lindsay Inglis
and James Hargest, Brigadiers under Freyberg, were loud in their
criticism of his actions on Crete.[7] Brigadier K. L. Stewart thought,
privately, that Freyberg had made a ‘balls’ of the island campaign,
though he did not say so at the time.[8] Much of this emerged later,
when wartime immediacy was over and Freyberg’s officers had time to
consider events at their ease.[9]
These remarks paved the way for a re-appraisal of Freyberg’s
performance in the 1980s and 1990s, fuelled by a generation of
historians trying to demythologise the war and its heroes.[10]
Freyberg’s own war was considered part of that mix, and criticism was
largely driven in his case by the ongoing controversy over the battle
for Crete. This was given new dimension by the 1975 revelation of
ULTRA, the wartime British ability to read German cyphers. Freyberg had
been given secret decrypts – and supposedly misread them, losing the
island.[11] His actions outside Tobruk, at El Alamein, and his Corps
commands at Tebaga Gap and Cassino also came in for attention, and
although there was clear over-compensation for wartime myth, efforts to
find a balance did not stop a general shift towards the notion that
Freyberg’s bubble had been burst.[12]
However, while some re-analysis was thoughtful, other discussion was
not. Events are never simple, and from the British perspective
Freyberg’s performance was usually secondary to wider arguments. Partly
for this reason, some historians sourced part or all of their
understanding of his character and tactical decisions from the writings
of others, misinterpreting his motives or losing the context in the
process.[13] At other times discussion was reduced to ‘should have’
declarations, in effect applying the perfect hindsight of armchair
history. Yet the participants did not have the luxury of such
prescience. ‘It is easy to be wise after the event,’ Major-General
Steve Weir wrote in 1950, adding ‘...one is never able to capture the
doubts, the atmosphere, etc, to which those responsible for the
decisions were subjected’.[14]
All, of course, is grist to the historical mill. As a field of
investigation, history does not stand still, and in telling the tale of
Freyberg’s personal war, this book also reconsiders some of the
criticisms in context of the wider evidence. This does not mean
launching an ungenerous trawl through the work of other historians for
trivial discrepancies or unintended ambiguities. Debate requires a
generous and co-operative approach to be of value. In Freyberg’s case
we must take fair account of such factors as the ideological
differences between Freyberg and Middle East Command, and the point
that the measure of victory – from the New Zealand government’s
perspective – included preserving the New Zealand division as a
fighting force in the face of a dire ‘manpower’ crisis. Freyberg’s war
can only be understood in the light of these two great forces.
To this we must add the context of character, an aspect long obscured
by mythology. At a personal level Freyberg was uncomfortable with the
unfettered adulation of wartime media coverage and at least one
hagiography.[15] In 1949 he told G. H. Scholefield that he had reduced
himself to one set of biographical data, which he kept ‘as boring as
possible.’[16] He opposed an unofficial biography published in
1963,[17] and it was not until the mid-1960s that a picture of deeper
humanity was published, a book-length snapshot by one of Freyberg’s
officers.[30] This picture was detailed by the 1990 biography written
by Freyberg’s son Paul, in effect the memoir Freyberg himself never
completed.[19]
Perhaps the clearest picture emerges from the letters, papers and
contemporary writings by and about Freyberg and his war. Many are on
the public record, sometimes in places not often examined by purely
military researchers. Others are in private hands. Once put in context,
these documents paint a picture of a complex, capable, professional
soldier; a devoted family man who was deeply loyal to friends and
colleagues,[20] kind, considerate, generous,[21] resolute, and
intensely proud of his New Zealanders. Much of the evidence used by
Freyberg’s historian-critics to condemn him – including some of his
throw-away remarks during battle – gain different aspect when put in
context of both event and character.
Freyberg’s character was hard to define on brief meeting. He was
enthusiastic about anything that interested him, particularly matters
military, and his effusiveness often disguised the depth of his
thinking. To W. G. Stevens, Freyberg at first came across as a
‘schoolboy’, combining ‘childlike enthusiasms’ with a ‘solemn laying
down of the law.’[22] Freyberg himself made similar remarks. ‘I enjoy
things like a child,’ he wrote, adding ‘I suppose it’s wrong and
un-English!’[23] His irrepressible excitement was sometimes mistaken
for irrational mood-swings.[24] He also seems to have had a dry and
rather impenetrable wit; and his occasional ironies and throw-away
remarks were not always obvious.
The combination was a recipe for misunderstanding, and Stevens was not
alone in pushing Freyberg into a less-than-complementary box after a
brief meeting. Many of Freyberg’s peers mistook what they saw for lack
of intellect. Some, such as Evelyn Waugh, misread Freyberg
altogether.[25] So did many contemporaries in the service. Brigadier E.
E. ‘Chink’ Dorman-Smith classified him as a ‘bear of little brain’;[26]
an opinion reflected in Middle East Command – though this can only be
understood in context of the bitter tactical debates of the day.
However, historians sourcing a quick summary of Freyberg have used such
glib analyses without evaluating them further.[27] A 1993 analysis of
the battle for Crete, for example, drew on the work of other historians
to classify Freyberg as obstinate and unable to shed
misconceptions.[28]
Those who knew Freyberg better - notably his staff, with whom he worked
in some cases for
the bulk of his six-year term in command of the Second New Zealand
Expeditionary Force - saw a more complex picture, though Peter McIntyre
still felt Freyberg’s mind was ‘so hard to gauge’ that ‘even his
closest colleagues’ could not often penetrate it. Most recognised his
‘extraordinary capabilities’.[29] Part of the issue was his focus.
Murray Sidey, Freyberg’s ADC in 1943-44, remarked that Freyberg could
‘divorce his mind from his present circumstances when he was thinking
or planning’.[30] He also explored every possibility, sometimes aloud,
as part of his analytical technique.
Such thinking betrayed a capable mind. In 1928, General Sir Percy
Radcliffe described Freyberg’s mental abilities as above average.[31]
US Intelligence services in the Middle East classified him as a ‘very
great leader of men, possessed of tremendous courage and sound
judgement.’[32] To Howard Kippenberger he was the ‘biggest, bravest and
wisest man I know’.[33] A few recognised these qualities at once.
Geoffrey Cox saw ‘keen intelligence’ on his first meeting,[34] later
remarking that Freyberg remained alert even when exhausted.[35] Another
on whom Freyberg made an instant impression was Lieutenant-Colonel C.
J. C. Molony, who on one meeting in 1944 decided Freyberg was a
‘thorough fighting commander, who really understood the ordinary
soldier’.[36]
Stevens learned more as his working association with Freyberg
developed, changing his opinions in the process;[37] and we cannot go
past the observations John White made in August 1944 after working
closely with Freyberg for nearly five years:
I am, of course, used to the General
now, but I still find his character and personality well worth study;
he is a stimulating person! During operations his ruthless
determination and tireless planning and thinking of ways to beat the
Boche are truly remarkable. Take his conferences – they are never dull.
Both the broad view and the important points of detail are brought out
– the General’s mind roves from the Russian front back to Italy and
along the whole German and Allied front – and then settles on the
Division’s sector with a powerful grip. He always sees for himself,
gets his data and advisers’ views and then the plans evolve. As things
begin to happen modifications and developments flow out to meet the
changing circumstances with the speed of a born opportunist, but speed
of thought, tempered by long experience, and that extra thing which is
either luck or special military sense. Always there is action,
optimism, and relentless, obstinate determination.[38]
Time and again Freyberg showed a feel for
battle, an indefinable understanding that, his staff decided, was
something he shared with Rommel.[39] Off the battlefield, Freyberg was
an effective administrator, displaying ‘grimness’, as Cynthia Asquith
observed in 1917, varied with ‘startling gentleness’.[40] Where
anything outside the military seized his interest – such as literature
– he became an enthusiast. He was keenly interested in rugby to a
degree shared by few outside New Zealand. He often pondered weighty
matters at idle moments; and McIntyre quickly discovered that the
steely gaze with which Freyberg sometimes surveyed rooms was often a
symptom of Freyberg’s thoughts roaming elsewhere.[41]
I explored all these themes in considerably more detail in my book
Freyberg’s
War. There was much more documentary information about Freyberg
than could conveniently be used in a single volume, even one of 85,000
words. One very useful source was the daily diary kept from September
1941 to October 1945. It is a unique document, known to historians but
to date not used very extensively. In part this is because it runs to
more than 800 pages in typescript form, which is difficult to access as
an archive in a reading room; in part it has been little
used because it does not directly address
the more typical tactical and operational questions asked by military
historians.
For a biographer, however, the diary is a crucial record. It is more
than a daily narrative; it combines Freyberg’s own comments,
third-person descriptions of what he was doing, and transcripts of key
conversations - notably including
key discussions relative to Cassino. When combined with operational
plans, notes and official reports, the diary creates a powerful and
multi-dimensional insight into the workings of Freyberg's own war. Much
of it was written by Freyberg’s personal assistant, John White, whose
typescript copy was used for
Freyberg's War. This contains more material than the original held by
Archives New Zealand.[42]
I also checked a wide range of official archives and reports – most of
them restricted under privacy legislation but accessible with
permission – unofficial notes; personal papers; diaries; letters;
post-war analyses; and interviews and discussions I had over the years
with former officers of 2 NZ Division. When researching Freyberg's War.
This combination of documentary and oral source provided the bulk of
the human insight I sought.
Other material, peripheral to the main theme, was sourced from Britain
and Australia, in part through joint copying projects;
unlike government military historians I did not have the luxury of paid
research trips to foreign archives.
I was
particularly grateful while researching and writing this book for the
kind assistance of the late Sir John White, former PA to Freyberg, who
generously offered me invaluable access to his private papers and
photographic collection, some of which had not previously been
published.
Freyberg’s War explicitly does not cover the war story of the Second
New Zealand Division, and for that tale I refer readers to my books
covering the divisional campaigns.[43] Freyberg’s War instead
looks at one man’s life, and his
particular period of prominence from 1939 to 1945, complementing the
wider tale of the forces he led.
Endnotes
[1] Sir John White Papers; see also
Appendix 1.
[2] Paul Freyberg, Bernard Freyberg, VC, Hodder & Stoughton, London
1991, p. 513.
[3] Matthew Wright, Desert Duel, Reed, Auckland 2002, p. 2.
[4] Cited in Fred Majdalany, Cassino, Portrait of a Battle, Longmans,
Green & Co., London 1957, p. 102
[5] WAII 11/6 , Kippenberger to Scoullar, 21 June 1955
[6] Op cit, Kippenberger to Scoullar, 21 June 1955
[7] John McLeod, Myth and Reality, Reed-Heinemann, Auckland 1986, pl
175; See also Barber and Tonkin-Covell, p. 2.
[8] Cited in McLeod, p. 177. See also MacDonald, p. 300.
[9] WAII 11/6, Kippenberger to Scoullar, 21 June 1955.
[10] See, e.g. John McLeod, Myth and Reality, Reed Heinemann, Auckland
1986, p. 304
[11] See, e.g. Antony Beevor Crete – The Battle and the Resistance,
Penguin, London, 1992, pp. 87-88.
[12] Laurie Barber and John Tonkin-Covell, Freyberg: Churchill’s
Salamander, Century Hutchinson, Auckland 1990; John Tonkin-Covell ‘The
Salamander’s Last Offensive’ in John Crawford (ed) Kia Kaha, Oxford
University Press, Melbourne 2002, pp. 163-172.
[13] See, e.g. Beevor, pp. 82-83, citing Singleton-Gates.
[14] WAII 11/4, C. E. Steve Weir to H. K. Kippenberger, 25 May 1950.
[15] Alan Hercus, Freyberg, A. H. & A. W. Reed, Wellington, 1946.
[16] MS Papers 0212, Folder 031, Scholefield, Guy Hardy Papers,
Freyberg to Scholefield, n.d. (1949).
[17] Peter Singleton-Gates, General Lord Freyberg, VC, Michael Joseph,
London 1963; MS-Papers-1132 Heenan, Joseph William Allan (Sir) Papers,
Folder 379, Barbara Freyberg to Tom Seddon, 10 August 1963.
[30] W. G. Stevens, Freyberg - The Man, A. H. & A. W. Reed,
Wellington 1965; [19] Paul Freyberg, Bernard Freyberg, VC, Hodder and
Stoughton, London 1991, pp. 2-3.
[20] See, e.g. Stevens pp. 37, 44. [21]` Ibid, esp. pp. 38-39. [22]
Ibid, p. 15.
[23] Cited in Paul Freyberg, p. 99.
[24] As by Wavell’s ADC, see Beevor, p. 88.
[25] Cited in Geoffrey Cox, A Tale of Two Battles, William Kimber,
London 1987, p. 91.
[26] Lavinia Greacen, Chink: A Biography, Papermac, London 1991, pp.
177, 195-196.
[27] See, e.g. Beevor, p. 89
[28] Callum McDonald, The Lost Battle: Crete 1941, MacMillan, London
1993, p. 142; citations p. 322.
[29] McIntyre, p. 77.
[30] Sir John White papers, Murray Sidey letters, p. 73 (handwritten
note on reverse sheet of typescript).
[31] Cited in Paul Freyberg, p. 175.
[32] WAII 11/7, ‘Extracts from cables USAFIME to General Marshall’,
Maxwell to Marshall (II), 27 June 1942.
[33] Sir John White Papers, Miscellaneous newspaper clippings, ‘New
Zealand’s General’.
[34] Geoffrey Cox, A Tale of Two Battles, William Kimber, London 1987 ,
p. 43.
[35] Ibid, p. 91.
[36] Cited in Stevens, p. 103.
[37] Stevens, p. 15.
[38] Sir John White papers, letter, August 1944.
[39] Stevens, p. 96.
[40] Cynthia Asquith, Diaries 1915-1930, Hutchinson, London 1968, p.
377.
[41] McIntyre, p. 77.
[42] Made from the original folio.
[43] Matthew Wright, The Battle for Crete, Reed, Auckland 1999, reprint
2003; Matthew Wright, Desert Duel, Reed, Auckland 2002; Matthew Wright,
Italian Odyssey, Reed, Auckland 2003; Matthew Wright, Blue Water Kiwis,
Reed, Auckland 2001; Matthew Wright, Kiwi Air Power, Reed, Auckland
1998.
A name
less common...
Matthew Wright
When
I started my blog in early
2010, I began by identifying myself. It’s a practical matter.
There are 41 other Matthew Wrights on the New Zealand electoral roll
alone, quite apart from around the world. I’ve always had a niggling
worry that one might do something with which I’ll be wrongly
credited. Or debited.
I
remember an incident in the 1980s when my former bank withdrew money
from my account and gave it to somebody else with the same name. Then
there was the ‘where’s our cellphone payment’ call from a New Zealand
telecommunications company who I have never dealt with. I was within an
ace of laying a complaint with the police on the basis of identity
theft before they admitted their accounts clerk had been
doing a little amateur detective work and had mistaken me for
somebody else with the same name. The capper came last year when an
English military historian looked online for a picture to
identify me - and found somebody who stars in movies made for
– how can I put it politely – marital entertainment
purposes? Yay. I’m not Matthew Wright the Wellington
bank manager either.
Actually,
I’m not even the only Matthew Wright writing in New Zealand. A while
back my relations in Greymouth congratulated me on a book I’d
apparently written about the Otira viaduct. Except I hadn’t. There’s
also the Matthew Wright who lives in Wellington and publishes poetry on WordPress. I don’t know him.
There are others with my name on the web worldwide - including
one who blogs on WordPress. That guy, absolutely and utterly, is
not me.
So
where I am on the web? Right now I don’t have a Facebook page . I’m not (yet) on Twitter,
MySpace, Friendster, Flickr or any of the other social networking
sites. Although it appears
up to 1381 other Matthew Wrights are. I post stuff on the web
in two places. My blog -
and here, on my website. And I’ve got a Digg account. If it’s not in
these places, I didn’t write it. Google tangles it all up; but the publications list on
this blog, repeated
on my website, is definitive – matching the legal deposit
records in the National Library of New Zealand. Sometimes my name
means me. I’m the guy Professor Judith Binney didn’t agree with in The Listener.
But for the most part, like the
Bob Dylan song tells us, it ain’t me, babe.
Still,
it could be worse. I could have the same name as Michael Jackson, who’s alive, well and writes
poetry.
[UPDATE - am on twitter from July 2011, follow me at www.twitter.com/mjwrightnz]
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