LONDON - New Zealand war hero Lord Freyberg, VC, has come under fire in a BBC film on the Battle of Crete.
But the criticisms have been rejected by a military historian and Lord Freyberg's daughter-in-law.
The film - Hitler, Churchill and the Paratroopers - claimed that Lord Freyberg was ill-prepared forthe 1941 Battle of Crete, despite being well informed by intelligence units.
As a major-general, Bernard Freyberg commanded the Allied forces on Crete in 1941.
His ill-equipped troops were overrun when the Germans took Maleme airfield, on the north coast.
War historian and author Chris Pugsley said the road to defeat began when Lieutenant-Colonel Leslie Wilton Andrew "lost his nerve" and withdrew 22nd Battalion, which was to defend the airfield.
Colonel Andrew, a NZ platoon commander who won the Victoria Cross for bravery in the First World War, was "unable to cope with being a battalion commander in the second," Dr Pugsley said.
Histories of the battle, which has its 60th anniversary this year, state among other things that Colonel Andrew was injured, or was privy to information that convinced him retreat was the best option.
But Dr Pugsley, a senior lecturer in war studies at Sandhurst Military College near London, said: "That man wasn't up to it. It's as simple as that."
The present-day Lady Freyberg said her father-in-law was given strict instructions not to act on intelligence information, as this would show that the British had cracked the German code.
