Who were those men in the iconic Maori Battalion haka?

April 22, 2018

A fierce haka was performed in Egypt before the soldiers faced the horrors of the North African campaign.

It's a striking image of young Maori men preparing for war.

For years, history buffs have wanted to tell the story of just who these men in the photograph were.

The 28 Batallion, made up of volunteers, left New Zealand to much fanfare during the second world war, but three of the four soldiers pictured would not return.

John Manuel was killed in a trench when a shell exploded, Maaka White was shot, and Rangi Henderson was killed at Tebaga Gap, Tunisia.

Monty Soutar, a historian, says the the image reflects the casualty rate for the Battalion during the campaign.

"If you take those four guys who are the key ones you can see in the photograph, that pretty much represented the casualty rate for the Maori Battalion during the desert campaign," he says.

"You were either going to be killed or wounded."

Only the man who leads the haka, Te Kooti Reihana, makes it home.

Postwar New Zealand was a place old soldiers struggled to find their place in, and Te Kooti Reihana was no different.

Reihana's grandson, Reihana Tipoki, says he was very proud of his grandfather.

"When he returned from war, he taught us skills like milking cows, scrub cutting, fencing - he was a hard worker" Mr Tipoki said.

However, he says his grandfather was also a big drinker.

"He would go to work, then go straight to the pub with his friends he went to war with. They thought by drinking, all their troubles would go away."

Mr Soutar says he thinks the men expected life to improve after returning home.

"They felt that overseas, they'd done their share alongside everybody else trying to get work back in New Zealand - the opportunities weren't quite the same," Mr Soutar said.

The iconic photograph captures forever the bloody price paid by soldiers.

"They were gunna spill their blood for their citizenship. The photograph says, 'Here's our price'. We've paid with these men's lives."

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