WEEKLY REVIEW 125: ARMY AND AIRFORCE... DAILY LIFE IN THE SOLOMONS

Rights Information
Year
1944
Reference
F21968
Media type
Moving image
Item unavailable online
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Rights Information
Year
1944
Reference
F21968
Media type
Moving image
Item unavailable online
Series
WEEKLY REVIEW
Place of production
New Zealand/Aotearoa
Categories
Newsreel
Duration
0:06:19
Production company
NEW ZEALAND NATIONAL FILM UNIT

On Guadalcanal (Solomon Islands), a New Zealand air force plane unloads mail for New Zealand forces stationed there.

Overhead, American dive bombers are accompanied by New Zealand Kittyhawks as fighter and navigational escorts. They carry extra petrol in belly tanks which are dropped before attacking.

Back on the ground on New Georgia, men of the New Zealand Fighter Wing work two twelve hour shifts a day maintaining the aircraft.

Soldiers on leave at Lunga Beach on Guadalcanal, make the most of their few hours off. At a nearby beach are the remains of Japanese freighters, left to rot after a battle in 1942.

On Florida Island, children salute the camera. These children are not allowed to smoke until they are five years old, but make the most of the foreigners’ cigarettes soon after.

Fijian Scouts (described in voiceover as “the most dangerous jungle enemies the Japs have to face”) welcome the New Zealand film crew by performing the kava ceremony. New Zealand soldiers barter for fruit with local women.

Back on Guadalcanal, the New Zealand plane is ready to make its return journey. It will carry soldiers on sick leave and mail on the 2000 mile journey to Auckland.