The blog of New Zealand’s Audiovisual Archive
In April 2011, Kiwi film maker, Steve La Hood travelled from Wellington, New Zealand to Quantico Virginia to receive the William Genaust award for an exhibition his company, Story Inc., produced about the US Marines stationed in New Zealand during World War II.
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The Collection of 30 films and over 673 black and white photographs includes: U.S. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s visit to New Zealand in 1943 and shows her touring Whakarewarewa with Guide Rangi Dennan.
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The late Norman J. Hatch was a World War II combat cameraman who witnessed and filmed some of the most bitter fighting in the Pacific War.
His efforts ended with, an Academy Award for footage so brutal that it took special permission from President Franklin Roosevelt to allow his documentary on the Battle of Tarawa to be shown to the American public in 1944.
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Between June 1942 and November 1943, around 21,000 US Marines arrived in the Wellington region to prepare for or recover from combat in the Pacific. They were among about 50,000 American servicemen who would be posted in New Zealand during World War 2, an event that would have a lasting impact on local culture.
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