Auckland War Memorial Museum: Cenotaph Database
"Search for biographical and service details for over 115,000 New Zealand service men and women from the 19th century till today and especially from World War One and World War Two."
(Auckland War Memorial Museum)
Fig.1 [3] Portrait, WW2, soldier standing in front of jeep, wooden hut, cigarette in hand, wearing beret. Godfrey Perkins 20/641254 at Mizuba 1946.
Fig.2 [4] Group soldiers, Perenchies, Germany. Wilfred B Quennell 1st row standing 4th from left, scanned from copy of original.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Heavy Water: a film for Chernobyl
"On April 26th, 1986, reactor four at Chernobyl nuclear power station explodes, sending an enormous radioactive cloud over Northern Ukraine and neighbouring Belarus. The danger is kept a secret from the rest of the world and the nearby population who go about their business as usual. May Day celebrations begin, children play and the residents of Pripyat marvel at the spectacular fire raging at the reactor. After three days, an area the size of England becomes contaminated with radioactive dust, creating a 'zone' of poisoned land.
Produced by Seventh Art Productions and based on Mario Petrucci's award-winning book-length poem, Heavy Water: a film for Chernobyl tells the story of the people who dealt with the disaster at ground-level: the fire-fighters, the soldiers, the 'liquidators', and their families."
(Seventh Art Productions)
'Heavy Water: a film for Chernobyl' (2007). Directed by David Bickerstaff and Phil Grabsky, Poetry by Mario Petrucci, 52 minutes
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Short Story: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
"In 1890, author Ambrose Bierce penned a short story entitled 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge', about Peyton Farquhar, a Civil War Confederate sympathizer who's condemned to be hanged by the neck off the Owl Creek Bridge. As he is pushed off the bridge, the rope breaks and Peyton falls into the river below. He unties his bonds and makes his way to dry land. He travels day and night for thirty miles to reach his home, all the while experiencing a heightened, almost superhuman awareness of his surroundings. Just as he's about to run into his lovely wife's arms, he feels a stunning blow on the back of his neck, and all goes dark. Peyton Farquhar's escape turns out to be a dream experienced in the brief moments between being pushed off the bridge and having the noose snap his neck.
Bierce's story, with its twist it-was-all-a-dream ending has influenced and inspired many films in its wake."
(Cineleet, 23 March 2008)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Recombinant prose poem: What I Heard about Iraq
"...I heard an American soldier say: 'There's a picture of the World Trade Center hanging up by my bed and I keep one in my Kevlar. Every time I feel sorry for these people I look at that. I think: 'They hit us at home and now it's our turn.'..."
(Eliot Weinberger)
LRB, Vol. 27 No. 3, 3 February 2005
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
New Zealand is not naive to the great cost of waging war
"The New Zealand war memorials of the First World War have become part of the common fabric of NZ life, like stop signs or lamp-posts. Virtually every township in the country has one, usually in the main street. Excluding the many honours boards and plaques in schools and churches throughout the country, there are well over five hundred public memorials to the soldiers of the Great War."
(Ted Harris: DiggerHistory.Info)
[New Zealand's anti-nuclear stance and recent reluctance to engage in International conflicts has its reasons. Despite it's geographical remoteness it has not escaped the impact of war. The numerous memorials erected throughout it's countryside, in it's cities and it's towns are a testament to this. There are memorials commemorating the New Zealanders that died in: The Boer War; The Great War; The Second World War; The Korean War; The Vietnam War as well as more recent conflicts. New Zealand is not naive to the great cost of waging war.]
CONTRIBUTOR
The Constellations ProjectSHARE
