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• Memorial to the Gallant New Zealanders

  Video

  Crowds gather to watch the unveiling of the memorial to the “gallant New Zealanders” at Messines Ridge in Belgium on 1 August 1924.

  A panning shot reveals a World War One cemetery and rows of graves (presumably of New Zealand soldiers). Soldiers and war veterans walk up a path between the graves. The King of Belgium, Albert I accompanied by the New Zealand High Commissioner, Sir James Allen and General Sir Andrew Russell and other dignitaries gather on the dais for the unveiling of the memorial which is draped with a New Zealand flag.

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• A dead teenager and life on the Somme

  Audio

  Like many young men, New Zealander Jim Warner lied about his age to enlist in World War I and found himself going into action on the Somme with the Auckland Infantry at the age of 18. 

  In this excerpt from a lengthy interview he recorded with Radio New Zealand reporter Andrew McRae in 1982, he recalls the conditions, the death of his 16-year-old friend and the shattered landscape of northern France which had been shelled heavily by the time the New Zealanders arrived in September 1916.

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