When HMS Achilles opened fire on the German ‘pocket battleship’ Admiral Graf Spee on 13 December 1939, it became the first NZ unit to engage the enemy in the Second World War. Seventy years on, the Battle of the River Plate still holds a special place in this country's naval history.
Despite some opposition, nearly 16,000 Maori enlisted for service during the Second World War. By 1945 the 28th (Maori) Battalion had became one of New Zealand's most celebrated and decorated units. But Maori contributed to the war effort in many different ways, at home and overseas.
The Second World War was the greatest conflict ever to engulf the world. It took the lives of 50 million people, including one in every 150 New Zealanders, and shaped the world that we have lived in ever since.
Thousands of New Zealanders fought in the Pacific War, which was sparked by the Japanese bombing of the American naval base at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. It was a conflict fought on a vast scale over huge distances. For the New Zealanders,
this was a war fought close to home.
Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence Wright was a doctor in the Medical Corps. At Gerawla he helped set up the hospital, but was also sports officer, responsible for making a rugby field as he describes here
Eleanor Fraser served in the Women's War Service Auxiliary as a Tui in the New Zealand Forces Club in Cairo. She left for Egypt in September 1941 with 29 other young women with whom she would work in the club, behind one of the counters supplying refreshments to the troops on leave. Here she describes the routine of the club
During the Second World War New Zealanders became prisoners of war in large numbers. Most Kiwi POWs were soldiers captured in Greece, Crete and North Africa. In total, more than 8000 were held in captivity - one in 200 of New Zealand's population at the time.
3 September is Merchant Navy Day. The date commemorates the sinking of
the first British merchant ship in 1939, just hours after war with Germany began. Merchant seafarers, including several thousand New Zealanders, were involved in the Second World War from
the first day to the last.
After over five years of rationing and anxiety about loved ones overseas, New Zealanders greeted the coming of peace in Europe in May 1945, and then victory over Japan in August, with understandable relief and enthusiasm.
War is often thought of as constant frontline action, but in reality troops are often out of the lines, training or on leave. And many of those who serve are not in front line units.
Tens of thousands of New Zealanders fought their way up the boot of Italy from 1943 to 1945 as part of the vast multinational force assembled to roll back Axis aggression in far-flung theatres of war across the globe
Sixty years ago, in June 1942, the first American soldiers landed on New Zealand soil, to begin an 'invasion' which would have a profound impact on both visitors and hosts over the next 18 months.
It remains the most dramatic battle ever faced by New Zealand forces. Over 12 brutal days in May 1941, the Allies fought off a massive German airborne assault on the Mediterranean island of Crete. They almost succeeded.
Once the crucial political decision to send New Zealand troops to Italy had
been made in Wellington in 1943, it ensured that the bulk of New Zealand's
active soldiers would see action there until the end of war in Europe
Germany surrendered in the early afternoon of 7 May 1945, New Zealand time. The news became known the next morning, with huge headlines in the morning papers. But the acting prime minister, Walter Nash, insisted that celebrations should wait until British Prime Minister Winston Churchill officially announced the peace, which would not be heard in New Zealand until 1 a.m. on 9 May.
Most of New Zealand's Second World War POWs were captured in the European theatre in the early stages of the war. Only about 100 New Zealand servicemen fell into Japanese hands, mainly airmen or seamen attached to the Royal Navy or Royal Air Force.
United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt described it as 'a date which will live in infamy' - 7 December 1941, the day the Japanese bombed the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
