A heroic swim by night

Remembering a Kiwi soldier's stealthy midnight swim

Every Sunday I swim from Freyberg Beach, which is next to Freyberg Pool. Both are named after Sir Bernard Freyberg, a Wellington swimmer and war hero (1889–1963). During WW1 the Lieutenant-Commander swam by night, naked, painted black and covered in grease for warmth, while towing a raft carrying several flares to distract the Turkish Army at the Dardanelles. For this feat of bravery in 1915 he won a Distinguished Service Order and also the ‘Legion of Heroism’ from the NZ Swimming Association.

I had a little dig on the Papers Past website (an excellent digital archive of NZ publications and articles) and found a few clippings. I like how this one from the Feilding Star in 1915 describes him as a “crack swimmer”.

A Dominion article from October 1915 also mentions that he swam “some miles” and was in the (undoubtedly cold) water for several hours.

So, to commemorate Sir Bernard Freyberg’s swim on April 25 (ANZAC Day – named after the Australia and NZ Army Corps and the day we remember and honour war service) a group of about 50 Wellington swimmers took to the water. A planned departure from Freyberg Beach was thwarted by blustery/gale northwesterlies so we changed to the more sheltered Hataitai Beach.

The swim was due to start at 2pm and, feeling warm and cosy inside at 1:30pm, I almost didn’t go. But I firmly told myself that if soldiers and nurses could volunteer for overseas war duty and serve their country, then the least I could do was get my lazy bum off the couch and drive 5 minutes to the beach.

We all gathered by the shoreline while the event organiser told us the story of Freyberg’s war swim. Edging into the grey water with everyone kicking and splashing away, I followed near the back and swam the three choppy loops of the course (750m). At the start it did feel a bit intimidating, with a bunch of people I mostly didn’t know (the event was organised by a local triathlon group) and some were very fast swimmers. I was relieved we weren’t doing it at midnight to emulate Bernard’s moonlit swim.

ANZAC (Day) swimmers (photo from the Wellington Ocean Swimmers Facebook page)

What I love about community swims in general is the bringing together of people, even if it’s just for a short time. We cheerfully show up, do something that most observers would find baffling (jump in the sea on a chilly autumn day to remember a soldier’s bravery), and then we get out and go home.

I hadn’t done an ANZAC swim before but apparently this is the event’s sixth year, and I reckon Freyberg (a dentist who served in both world wars, was wounded several times and won the Victoria Cross) would be chuffed that people in Wellington were swimming in his honour, more than a century after his Dardanelles achievement. Dawn ceremonies are important too but I think the most crucial thing is to remember and tell stories, however we choose to do that.

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On a related note, while googling Bernard Freyberg I found a short piece from Time Magazine in 1925 which reveals he once attempted an English Channel crossing. It’s a reminder that not all swims are officially ‘successful’, but the courage and perseverance are still there. I also love the old-fashioned writing!

Freyberg, covered with grease against the cold, wearing goggles to keep his sight from being extinguished by the brine, followed by an Admiralty tug, began at 8 o'clock one night last week to swim from Cape Gris Nez. He swam all night. At dawn a patchy fog, a westerly wind, a small rain. He swam on. At 11:30 in the morning he was a mile and a half from Dover. His trainer turned a drawn countenance upon the party in the tug.

"If he can get over the next 200 yards in 15 minutes, he'll make it."

It took him an hour. The tide turned. He was swimming now with the dreadful automatonism of exhaustion. Boats scurried out from the shore to meet him; cheery British voices hailed him for his triumph. He would make it now, right enough. Gad, he was only a half-mile from shore. But the swimmer turned upon his encouragers eyes darkened and guttering. He was a lost man now, though they did not know it; he was drowned head and heel in black water, the fathomless seas of fatigue. The tide set its knee in his chest and pushed him back toward France. Once he was only 600 yards from shore; but then for 30 yards he was borne back, unable to move his arms. Abruptly, with a tremendous agony of the will, he rallied; a little fire came back to his blood and he began, with pitifully feeble strokes, to swim

—in the wrong direction. His trainer lifted him into the tug.*