This is unedited raw film footage, shot by Academy Award winning US Marine cinematographer Norman T. Hatch for a US newsreel that was never completed, provisionally titled 'Meet New Zealand'. Around 21,000 Marines were stationed in camps around the Wellington region from June 1942 until November 1943. Most of their time was spent training hard preparing for the war in the Southwest Pacific against the Japanese.
[Scene 203] US Marines are boarding a warship moored in the Wellington docks.
[Scene 65] In Whakarewarewa Guide Rangitīaria Dennan leads four Marines to a hot spring where tamariki and wahine are bathing.
[Scene 65E] Two wahine are washing their tamariki.
[Scene 203] Fully kitted out Marines marching along the Wellington docks and walking up a gang plank to board a warship.
[Scene 66B] Guide Rangitīaria Dennan pulls up a woven basket from a hot spring containing kumaras and potatoes and offers them to some Marines to eat.
[Scene 78B] A country church with a steeple surrounded by a garden of trees and a small cemetery.
Brief footage of kapa haka being performed on a specially constructed outdoor stage in Gisborne.
[Scene 51] An American soldier carries some hay to a stable and proceeds to feed a horse.
A mixed kapa haka group entertain the massive crowd of US Marines and people of Gisborne, gathered in a stadium in the countryside.
[Scene 82 & 82B] Marines walk down from a chalet and grab ski gear. Scenic shots of snow-covered mountains and a glacier(?).