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Goodbye to Blighty
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The evocative title for Pathé Gazette No. 535 says it all – Liverpool Good-bye to ‘Blighty’ – (New Zealand Soldiers Leave England with their Wives).
This short, 23-second clip, shows a passenger ship lined with New Zealand soldiers and their wives, waving goodbye. Quay-side friends and family members wave farewell – among those on shore are several New Zealanders identifiable in their lemon squeezer hats.
For New Zealand servicemen who had married ‘war brides’ – predominantly women from Britain and Europe – where possible the Defence Department arranged for the passage of both wives and children so that they could go to their new home on the demobilisation ships with their Kiwi husbands.
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Te Hokinga Mai Te Hokowhitu-a-Tū
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Look at the smiling soldiers, jam-packed along the ship’s rail, the Māori Pioneer Battalion is home at last.
After a 36-day journey from Liverpool, the SS Westmoreland arrived in Auckland harbour on the evening of Saturday 5 April 1919. It berthed the following morning and 1,033 personnel disembarked to great fanfare – guns fired a salute, all the ships in the harbour sounded their sirens and horns, three bands played patriotic music and dignitaries greeted the men with brief speeches.
Renowned Te Arawa leader Mita Taupopoki can be seen with his distinctive tāniko bonnet towards the end of the film clip. One of the haka being performed is the Ngāpuhi war cry “Ka eke te wīwī, ka eke te wāwā” – complete with the leaping in unison and brandishing of taiaha and tewhatewha fighting staffs.
Following the reception at the wharf the Battalion marched to a pōwhiri at Auckland Domain. Tribes from all over the country gathered to welcome the men home, along with thousands of spectators.
Of the 43,572 servicemen and nurses who returned home in 63 demobilisation sailings, only the Māori Pioneer Battalion returned together, as a complete unit.
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Supporting the men of Te Hokowhitu-a-Tū
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Māori leader Sir Apirana Ngata fundraised for the men of the Māori Pioneer Battalion during the war, by establishing concert parties which toured the country performing and popularising waiata such as E pari rā and Pōkarekare āna which have remained enduring favourites today.
The money raised from these concerts was used to set up a trust for the men of Te Hokowhitu-a-Tū (the Māori name for the Pioneer Battalion.) In this radio interview, Remi Morrison of Te Arawa, a member of the committee which administered the Māori Soldier’s Trust, explains how they purchased Hereheretau sheep and cattle station, to generate an ongoing income for supporting the returned veterans and their families.
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No Beer for Soldiers after 6pm
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Returning New Zealand soldiers found changes had been made to their homeland while they were away fighting. As a war measure, the early closing of hotels had been introduced in 1917, with all pubs forced to close at 6pm.
In a radio documentary recorded in 1977, entitled A Land Fit for Heroes, several men recalled the effect of these measures on New Zealand society and the anger they inspired in returning soldiers.
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The Diggers’ March in Sydney
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In April 1938, several thousand New Zealand “diggers” sailed from Wellington for Sydney, where they reunited with their Australian “cobbers” of 1914 – 1918 in a grand Anzac Day procession through the city.
The huge march from the Cenotaph to the Domain, where a commemoration service was held, was part of Australia’s 150th anniversary celebrations and some 50,000 returned servicemen took part – with an estimated half a million people lining the Sydney streets.
In this live radio broadcast from the Wellington waterfront, Station 2ZB announcers – who were veterans themselves – capture the cheering, bands and excitement on the docks. New Zealand Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage farewells the old soldiers as they board former World War One troopships – ‘the Monowai’ and ‘the Maunganui’ – for the trip across the Tasman.
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Flying over Gallipoli with the RNAS
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Most New Zealanders who flew as pilots in World War I went to Britain and joined the Royal Flying Corps. However, Phillip Kenning Fowler from Feilding, took a different path. Making his own way to England in 1916, he joined the Royal Navy and trained to become a pilot in the Royal Naval Air Service. This air-borne division operated under the Admiralty from 1914 to April 1918 when it merged with the R.F.C. and formed the Royal Air Force, or R.A.F.
Fowler was based initially in the Aegean Sea and eastern Mediterranean. Later in the war, he was one of the pilots tasked with trying to bring down German Zeppelin airships over the English Channel, before they could bomb British cities.
In this radio interview recorded in the 1960s, he recalls burning crops destined for Germany and early aerial bombing techniques. which amounted to simply dropping explosives over the side of the plane.
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Steeds and shellfire on the Western Front
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The horses that were sent to the Western Front during the First World War faced many of the same difficulties as the soldiers that they served. Horses were used to transport officers, heavy artillery and other equipment to the front lines. The artillery conveyed by these horses was an essential element of the military strategies that developed on the battlefront. The Battle of the Somme in 1916 in particular saw the first widespread use of the ‘creeping barrage’, a strategy designed to provide cover for an advancing line of infantry.
Leonard Leary was a law student in Wellington who first served in Samoa after joining up in 1914 and then joined the British Royal Artillery and fought at the Battle of the Somme. In this 'Spectrum' radio documentary from 1982 he recalls both the trials of controlling horses amid the confusion of a battlefield and the use of the creeping barrage at the Somme.
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First day on the Somme for Kiwis and tanks
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On the 15th of September 1916, the New Zealand Division saw their first major action on the Western Front. In the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, they joined British forces as part of the continued effort to attack German-held territory around the river Somme in northern France.
A new element was also introduced on September 15 with the arrival of tanks in battle for the first time. British military leaders hoped that these new armoured machines, initially known as land-ships, would be able to straddle enemy trenches, break through barbed wire entanglements and end the stalemate of trench warfare.
But Lindsay Inglis, a New Zealand officer involved in action that day, recalls the tanks he saw were less-than-impressive.
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Australia Day at Burra
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This newsreel shows the then prosperous and bustling mining town of Burra, or the collection of townships known as ‘The Burra’, celebrating Australia Day on July the 30th, predating the now national celebration held on 26 January. At that time there was no nationally recognised national day, instead they usually were based around each state’s date of significance for the founding of the colony.
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The wounded return home to Australia
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More than 150 sick and wounded men return to Australia on the S.S Karoola which was fitted as a hospital ship in England. Soldiers suffering severe injuries are transported from the ship to waiting vehicles. They disembark on stretchers and, rather unconventionally, by piggy-back.
When sick and wounded soldiers left the battlefield they were out of immediate danger, but were not entirely safe until they reached their final destination. It was not uncommon for hospital ships to be attacked, whether because of mistaken identity or intentionally. The Australian hospital ship HMAT Warilda was sunk on 3 August 1918 with the loss of 123 lives. The greatest disaster of this kind was in February 1916 when a German U-boat torpedoed the Canadian hospital ship HMHS Llandovery Castle, with the loss of 234 lives. After the war the U-boat’s captain and two of his lieutenants were charged with war crimes.
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Caring for our Wounded
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Over 3,000 Australian nurses volunteered during the First World War, working in hospitals, including hospital ships and trains, and in field stations closer to the front line. This film shows scenes of Allied forces medical staff and stations taken throughout the Western Front, 1916-1918: “No words can describe the awfulness of the wounds. Bullets are nothing. It is the shrapnel that tears through the flesh and cuts off limbs”
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Australian troops at the Pyramids
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Australian and New Zealand troops arrived in Egypt in December 1914. They set up Mena Camp near the Great Pyramids outside Cairo and began training in preparation for the Western Front and Gallipoli. This footage sees them exploring the extraordinary landmarks - the Pyramids and the Sphinx.
While they waited in Egypt to be deployed, the Australian and New Zealand forces were formed into the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) under the command of Lieutenant General William Birdwood. The training the Anzacs received was only rudimentary, and did little to prepare them for what was to come.
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A matter of principle
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Duncan McCormack was a working-class socialist. At the outbreak of World War I, he determined that he would not participate in what he later called a “fight to redistribute the spoils of colonialism.” When conscription was introduced, he ignored his call-up papers and was eventually arrested by the military police. Here he describes the cycle of military camp, court martial, prison and hard labour which conscientious objectors were subjected to for the remaining duration of the war and beyond. As his second prison sentence was for two years, he was kept in prison even after the war ended.
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A New Zealander at the Battle of Jutland
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On 31 May 1916, Lieutenant Alexander Boyle from South Canterbury was in charge of a gun turret and two 12-inch guns on the HMS New Zealand during the Battle of Jutland, the greatest naval clash of the First World War. In this excerpt from a 1959 radio talk, he recalls seeing the British battlecruisers Indefatigable and Queen Mary destroyed with a large loss of life. Lt. Boyle also remembers his crew’s faith in a Māori mat [piupiu] and tiki given to their captain when HMS New Zealand visited New Zealand just before the war.
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Leaving Gallipoli
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From 18 to 20 December 1915, the Allies retreated from the Gallipoli peninsula. In the days beforehand, rumours of their impending departure produced mixed feelings in the men. After months of the hardships of war, they were reluctant to leave the resting place of their fallen pals. Had it all been in vain? In this compilation, three veterans remember the evacuation of Gallipoli.
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Battle in the Blizzard
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In late 1915, towards the end of the Gallipoli campaign, a fierce snowstorm struck the peninsula. Allied soldiers fought the Turkish army while enduring rain, sleet and snow which caused severe frostbite and froze the trenches. In these radio interviews, three New Zealand veterans recall the living conditions and their experiences in the blizzard.
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Maggots and brandy – evacuating wounded men
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Facilities for evacuating and treating men wounded on Gallipoli were woefully inadequate. The British military command had not anticipated such large numbers of casualties, who often waited for days unattended on the narrow beach before they could be transported by ship to a hospital. Alexander McLachlan, a Scots officer on board the transport ship Saturnia, recalls in this 1969 interview how he and his colleagues were unable to cope with the vast numbers of sick and wounded.
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“We left a lot of booby traps behind…”
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From 18 to 20 December 1915, the Allies retreated from the Gallipoli peninsula. The evacuations were carried out quietly, overnight, so the Turkish troops would not suspect that their foes were leaving. Here, two veterans recall stealthily sneaking away in the dead of night, leaving booby traps behind. The first speaker is Sergeant Walter Cobb, a machine gunner with the Wellington Mounted Rifles. The second is Captain Ray Curtis of the machine gun section of the Canterbury Infantry Battalion.
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The walking wounded return home
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New Zealand soldiers board a ship. It may be a hospital ship returning them to New Zealand, as some of the men are visibly wounded, using crutches and walking sticks. A civilian woman can be seen in the opening frames, indicating that this scene may have been shot in England.
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Trentham Military Training Camp
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This film shows a panoramic view of Trentham Military Training Camp, north of Wellington. In the foreground, groups of men can be seen practising drills. Behind them is the camp; a few permanent structures surrounded by rows of characteristic cone-shaped tents. Trentham was where many soldiers of the Main Body completed their brief training.
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Nurses remember the sinking of the Marquette
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Three New Zealand nurses - Elizabeth Young, Mary Gould and Jeanne Peek (née Sinclair) - recount their experiences of the sinking of the troopship S.S. Marquette on 23 October 1915. The nurses were part of the New Zealand No. 1 Stationary Hospital unit, which was sailing on the troop transport from Alexandria, Egypt, to Salonika (Thessaloniki) in Greece, when their ship was struck by a torpedo from a German U-boat.
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Who was to blame for the sinking of the Marquette?
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Thirty-two New Zealand medical staff, including ten nurses, were killed when the troop transport ship SS Marquette was sunk by a torpedo from a German U-boat on 23 October 1915. The Marquette was en route from Alexandria to Salonika, carrying troops of the British 29th Division Ammunition Column, Royal Field Artillery, along with their equipment and animals. The medical personnel, equipment and stores of the New Zealand No. 1 Stationary Hospital were also on board. Questions were later asked about why a hospital unit was travelling with an ammunition column, which made the ship a legitimate military target.
In this 1965 recording two survivors, Herbert Hyde and Alexander Prentice of the New Zealand Medical Corps, recall the shipwreck and their impressions of why the disaster happened.
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Wounded at Chunuk Bair
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The battle for Chunuk Bair was one of the bloodiest of the Gallipoli campaign for the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. Robert (“Bob”) Alexander Needs of the Otago Infantry Battalion, describes his experiences of the battle up Rhododendron Ridge, and the chaotic aftermath for the wounded.
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From Queen Street to the front
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Although the details are uncertain, this brief film clip shows the Auckland Mounted Rifles Regiment marching down Queen Street on 22 September 1914, after a civic farewell at the Auckland Domain. The New Zealand Herald newspaper reported that “[f]lags were waved, and lusty cheers were given as the troops passed”. These scenes were later included in the 1928 Australian film The Exploits of the Emden. The original footage, like much film from that era, is now long lost.
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The Anzac convoy departs from Albany
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The Main Body of the NZ Expeditionary Force steamed off from Wellington on 16 October 1914. The convoy consisted of 10 transport ships and four escorts, carrying 8000 soldiers and nearly 4000 horses. They arrived in Albany on 28 October to join up with 28 Australian Imperial Force troopships. The combined Anzac fleet of 38 troopships and escorts, carrying 30,000 soldiers and 7,500 horses, departed Albany on 1 November.
This film shows soldiers of the Auckland Infantry Battalion ready to embark on Albany Wharf, and the line of grey-painted New Zealand troopships waiting to follow the Australian convoy ships (which retained their civilian colours). This vast fleet took soldiers from Australia and New Zealand halfway around the world to participate in the First World War.
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Wrestling on deck
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This film was made during the New Zealand convoy’s 1915 journey from Wellington to Egypt, via Hobart and Colombo. On long voyages like this, an especially popular way for soldiers to spend their free time was watching wrestling bouts. Here the crowd watches intently as two soldiers, possibly former professional wrestlers, come to grips on the deck of the troopship. This appears to be a “worked”, or staged, bout, rather than a genuine contest. Gambling was prohibited on board troopships, but it seems highly likely that money changed hands on this occasion.
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Readying the Samoan Expeditionary Force
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When war was declared in August 1914, New Zealand was asked by the British Government to capture German Samoa. A Samoan Expeditionary Force made up of just over 1300 soldiers, mostly from the Wellington region, departed for the Samoan capital, Apia, on 15 August. Little resistance was met when the troops landed a fortnight later, and a New Zealand military administration occupied Samoa over the course of the war.
No footage of the New Zealand occupation of Samoa exists. However, this is footage of the two troopships, S.S. Monowai and S.S. Moeraki, which transported the Samoan Expeditionary Force. While the provenance of this film is unknown, the fact that the transport ships are still in civilian colours, a "2" is evident on the side of one of them (the troopship number), the dress of the sentry and the presence of a 12 pound gun suggests that it shows a glimpse of the preparation on Wellington’s waterfront for New Zealand’s first action during the war.
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The last month I was there, I never wore trousers
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The Anzac troops on Gallipoli faced many discomforts in addition to the Turkish soldiers shooting at them from over the hill. They lacked food and drinking water, suffered from sicknesses like dysentery and typhoid, and were surrounded by bodies decomposing in the heat. Life on the peninsula was all about survival, and it changed the men’s priorities. Here two New Zealand veterans talk about the highs and lows, including eating a dead sheep they found, squabbling over fresh bread and being evacuated due to dysentery.
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Seasick men and horses
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Twenty-three-year-old Auckland telegraphist (signaller) Cyril Bassett sailed for the war in October 1914 with the Main Body of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. Cyril was on board the battleship Waimana, with the rank of orderly corporal. In this 1976 interview, he recalls that during the long sea voyage. his job was to clean up after seasick men and horses. However, in August 1915 Bassett won the Victoria Cross, the highest award for bravery in the Allied forces, for maintaining communication lines under fire during the Battle of Chunuk Bair.
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The First Anzac at Gallipoli
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Britain’s Royal Navy was in charge of landing the first Australians and New Zealanders at Gallipoli on April 25 1915. From their troop transport ships, the men were loaded into smaller boats which were towed as close to the beach as possible. The steam-powered ‘picket’ boats which towed them were commanded by teenage Navy midshipmen like 15-year-old Eric Bush, who was responsible for getting about 200 Anzacs ashore. Among the first Australians to land was Private James Bostock, who recalls how he jumped overboard and waded onto the beach at what would soon be known as Anzac Cove. Both men were recorded in 1955 for a BBC radio documentary marking the 40th anniversary of the landings.
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Australia’s submarine at Gallipoli
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In the early hours of 25 April 1915, Royal Australian Navy submarine the AE2 sailed up the narrow Dardanelles strait to disrupt Turkish supply ships. She faced strong currents, Turkish gun batteries on shore, and mines that had sunk two earlier submarines. Yet the AE2, commanded by Irish Lt. Commander Henry Stoker, successfully passed through the Narrows into the Sea of Marmara, making several attacks on Turkish shipping before she was hit by a torpedo boat. Stoker ordered his crew to evacuate and scuttled the vessel. He and his crew were taken prisoner for the rest of the war, and several died of illness in captivity. Forty years later, Henry Stoker recalled the nerve-wracking voyage.
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Treating Gallipoli’s wounded – Dr Agnes Bennett
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The Australian-born and New Zealand-based doctor Agnes Bennett refused to let routine sexism keep her out of the war. She offered her services to the New Zealand Army as soon as war broke out but was turned down because she was a woman. Undeterred, she paid her own passage to Europe, intending to join the French Red Cross. In May 1915 she was sailing through the Red Sea when word reached the ship of the casualties arriving in Egypt from the Gallipoli campaign. She disembarked at the next opportunity and began working in the over-stretched military hospitals of Cairo, with the status and pay of an army captain. Dr Bennett recalls her wartime experiences in this recording, made in 1959.
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A.I.F Parade and Departure
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In the first months after Australia entered the war, the public mood was wildly enthusiastic and patriotic. That mood is evident in this clip, showing cheering crowds gathered to support a military parade as AIF troops depart on the troopship A2 Geelong. The ship can be briefly glimpsed departing at the end of this film.
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Sailing into war, 1914
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For many Anzac soldiers, their outward voyage on a troopship was their first overseas experience. The excitement of departure was soon replaced by seasickness on one of the world’s roughest seas. On the long voyage to Egypt they took part in leisure activities and routine training exercises like those shown here. Officers organised physical training programmes, inoculations, lectures and target practice sessions to keep the troops occupied.
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Joining the Flotilla, 1914
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At the outbreak of war in August 1914, dozens of vessels were hastily converted into troopships to transport military units to their destinations overseas. This film shows newly recruited AIF troops boarding troopships at Woolloomooloo (Sydney, NSW) and Port Melbourne (Melbourne, Vic.) Their ships then joined the flotilla at King George Sound (Albany, WA), the final Australian anchorage for the first convoy of almost 30,000 Australian and New Zealand soldiers heading to Egypt.
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Cockatoo Island
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Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour had the largest shipping dock of its kind in the world when this film was made there in 1916. It shows the building HMAS Brisbane, and its launch on 30 September 1915. Margaret Fisher, wife of then-Prime Minister Andrew Fisher breaks a bottle of champagne over the ship’s bow before it slides down the slipway into the harbour.
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‘Australia Prepared’- the Royal Australian Navy
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“Since Captain Cook’s arrival, no more memorable event has happened than the advent of the Australian Fleet”, claimed Australian Defence Minister Edward Millen. The Australian Fleet Unit - eight cruisers and destroyers headed by HMAS Australia - assembled in Sydney Harbour for the first time on 4 October 1913. This extract from a 1916 documentary shows that event, plus later scenes of the light cruiser Sydney, probably taken in Albany WA in 1914. Captain Glossop is seen taking command of the Sydney, and RAN sailors board small boats, probably at Man-o-War steps, to go on board her.
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“Play the Greater Game”
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This 1915 Australian Government recruitment film uses slogans such as 'Play the Greater Game' to urge men to join the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). Later propaganda films were less subtle in their efforts, and used persuasion, fear, guilt, confrontation, accusation, or scenes of heroic action on the battlefields to influence eligible men to enlist. The films omitted any reference to the harsh realities of military life or the threat of death or injury for Australian troops abroad.
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A troopship departs for Albany, 1914
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When Australia entered the First World War in support of Britain, ships were urgently needed to transport troops to the distant battlefields. The hastily refitted ships also had to carry the troops’ horses and military stores, plus wool, metals, meat, flour and other foodstuffs, mainly for the armies of Britain and France. This film shows the loading and departure of troops HMAT (His Majesty’s Australian Transport) A20 Hororata from Port Melbourne, Victoria on 18 October 1914. Troops move up the gangplanks of the transport ship. A tug then tows the Hororata out of port and it joins other ships in the convoy to head out to sea.
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A rickshaw ride in Durban
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Two Australian soldiers riding in a rickshaw pulled by a local man in Durban, South Africa, is taken from a B&W glass slide. Durban was an important port during WWI as troopships from Australia and New Zealand sailed around the Cape of Good Hope. From 1916 this was a safer route than the Suez Canal as there was a risk of a submarine attack in the Mediterranean. Soldiers disembarked in Durban and the troopships resupplied the journey took up to eight weeks to and from Australia.
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Unloading barges, Anzac Cove
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This scene of soldiers unloading barges at what became known as Anzac Cove captures one moment in the landing and subsequent eight-month campaign at Gallipoli. The soldiers’ routine activity does little to indicate the heavy casualties incurred or the physical hardships endured. Turkish gunners had a good fix on Anzac Cove and many men were killed and badly wounded in the beach area or by the water.
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Household pets join the forces
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Ena Ryan of Wellington was a young girl when war was declared in August 1914, but she vividly recalled the excitement of those days. In this 1985 interview she describes watching the Main Body marching through the streets of Wellington to the departing ships. She noticed that one of the men had a kitten buttoned into his tunic. Once they arrived at the battlefront the men adopted other pets, including dogs, donkeys and goats found in and around battlefields. These animals helped to keep up the mens’ spirits, and some became official mascots.
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Farewelling troops in Wellington
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This rare film records a civic ceremony for New Zealand troops departing for the front. It shows the official farewell to the Wellington Section of the NZ Expeditionary Force on 24 September 1914. The troops are inspected by a group of dignitaries, including Prime Minister William Massey, Lord Liverpool the Governor-General and Major General Sir Alexander Godley. They then march four abreast down Adelaide Road and along Lambton Quay, Wellington’s main shopping street. The men of the NZEF are then seen crammed on board the deck and high up on the rigging of a troopship. Most have happy faces as they await what they expected would be a grand adventure. Contrast this with the more subdued figures of the 6th Reinforcement who appear at the end of the film. They are seen departing for the front in August 1915, when the horrors of the Gallipoli Campaign had become widely known.