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Hero image for Weekly Review No. 140 - Easter Action on Bougainville

Weekly Review No. 140 - Easter Action on Bougainville

Short Film (Full Length) – 1944

While on the home front most of us were taking it easy for four days over Easter, Americans, Fijians and some New Zealanders were fighting the Japanese in shell-blasted swamps and jungle of Bougainville Island.
– A title card
At last we drew lots to return and bring up grenades. The camera was forgotten, I drew third and what a job that was I’ll never forget. We all made a trip and then started pitching as soon as the pins could be pulled.
– Stan Wemyss, in his cameraman’s report (shown on a title card)
These grim pictures were taken under fire by a NZ National Film Unit cameraman. We show them to remind you that the troops sweating and dying in the jungle will not easily understand any slacking on the home front.
– A title card
No longer tropical jungle it resembles more burnt out bush on New Zealand farms.
– Narrator Rex Walden, on the shell-blown jungle
This is no holiday spot, this is no scene on a Hollywood set. Here trees smoulder from the fire of raking shells, and the stench of dead bodies stills the air ...
– Narrator Rex Walden
With a very brief instruction on what to do with a grenade I added my sixpence worth.
– Cameraman Stan Wemyss describes the encounter, in an interview for The Years Back series

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