Papa Putu (with the big smile by the gun) and the man behind him are the only Ngati Porou. The rest of the soldiers are Ngapuhi. During a lull in the fighting he went over to see if his Ngapuhi Bros were ok. The photograper was there, to capture the moment: the men posed for the photographer from The New Zealand Weekly magazine, knowing that families would be seeing it at home. Just as the camerman was taking the snap shot a bomb went off just a few metres behind them and a mushroom cloud was clearly visible behind the group but the men held their composure. This is one of the many photos/ pictures that were in my Nan's house, and had been to lent out to Maori Battalion researchers in earlier years.
original copyrights would probably belong to the New Zealand Weeky magazine - currently, photo has been a part of a collection of items that went to Monty Soutar during his researching in previous years and has probably ended up in the Nat Archives. Otherwise it was a cutting from the mag, put in plastic and hung on my Nan's wall, in Wharekahika. Being the last known print, it had been a huge part of our lives for some 30 odd years.
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