Freyberg's friend Winston Churchill.

Lieutenant-General Sir Bernard Freyberg is New Zealand's outstanding military leader. But that pedestal was nearly never constructed. Within the first hundred days following Winston Churchill unexpectedly becoming the British prime minister on 10 May 1940, his long friendship with Freyberg was renewed and then severely tested. The new prime minister, who was his own defence minister, wanted Freyberg -- throughout the Second World War a British Army general and a Conservative Party candidate for the next British general election -- close by him. During the Battle of Britain he even toyed with the idea of giving Freyberg a substantial military role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]