THE HUNT is on to find long-lost Great War footage of New Zealand troops in action on the Western Front.
From the outset, as New Zealand’s soldiers went overseas, efforts were made to document them. First filmed at Gallipoli by Ellis Bartlett in 1915, efforts to film the troops continued and two years later Henry Armytage Sanders was appointed as New Zealand’s official photographer on the Western Front. Sanders, nicknamed ‘Movie’ by the troops, documented the actions at Messines, Passchendaele and in the Hundred Days Offensive - frequently from forward positions.
However, some believe that a long-lost film of his may still exist. Dr Chris Pugsley, who has spent 20 years researching New Zealand’s early film history, remains hopeful the missing footage can be found. He explained: “It was only last year that a piece of film found in a tin and handed in by a family was identified as New Zealand’s second oldest film… anything is possible, and one dreams of that.”
The footage, of New Zealand’s last attack of the war, was filmed at Le Quesnoy on 4 November 1918. An account from Lt. Lawrence Blyth MM, who died in 2001 aged 105 and was New Zealand’s last Great War veteran, describes Sanders coming under fire while filming.
