ANZAC

I was a coddled university student. And then I joined the Army Reserves.

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With NZ Army numbers dwindling, recent recruit Peter McKenzie looks back on his time in basic training for the Army Reserves. As I sank into the tussock I slowly gestured downwards with an outstretched palm. Legs splayed, I peered through the scope of my 38-year old assault rifle. A hill lay 400 metres in the … Read more

Sir Peter Jackson’s haunting WWI masterpiece

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One hundred years to the day from the end of WWI, Sir Peter Jackson has released They Shall Not Grow Old, a groundbreaking restoration of footage from The Great War.  “The first world war is still being fought,” says Sir Peter Jackson, 100 years to the day since the closing shots on the Western Front. “It could … Read more

Should ANZAC and the memory of war be such big business?

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Has remembrance of Anzac become too commodified? Australian historian Dr Jo Hawkins spoke to Alex Braae about what commercialised commemoration of Anzac means, and whether it has gone too far.  At Anzac Day commemorations in Auckland earlier this year, the drummers were sponsored by casino SkyCity. It was  just a small moment, but one that … Read more

The barefoot men of Niue sent to die in the trenches of World War I

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Michael Field reviews a new study of Niue’s role in World War I, when Sir Māui Pōmare despatched 150 Niueans to fight in a mysterious war. Millions of dollars have been spent in adoration of New Zealand’s mythology which says sending 18,000 men to die in the Great War made us a really great nation. Gallipoli, … Read more

NZ Nazi: the story of the Kiwi soldier turned traitor

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Black Sheep is a RNZ series about the shady, controversial and sometimes downright villainous characters of New Zealand history, presented by William Ray. Here he introduces Roy Courlander, a NZ Army Private who volunteered to join Nazi Germany’s infamous Waffen SS.   Roy Courlander’s early years are hard to trace. He was born in London in … Read more

The first, forgotten Anzacs, more than 50 years before Gallipoli

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Australian and New Zealand volunteers fought together in the Waikato War, yet still its place in the Anzac tradition is unacknowledged by our defence forces or Returned Services Association. When I was a boy cub I attended Anzac Day services in the South Auckland suburb of Drury. A crowd would gather around a cenotaph that … Read more

Kin and kūpapa: how a ‘friend of the Pākehā’ fought his own family

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Essayist Nadine Anne Hura goes looking for one ancestor’s story, and asks what really lies underneath our monuments to war. Small towns have big stories. I go around reading the plaques on top of rocks and plinths, memorials to the chosen, trying to decipher the story beneath the story. As I read, I almost feel … Read more