KEY POINTS:
Trenches, mud, the stench of death ... and New Zealanders in the thick of it.
In a book of never-before-seen photographs released in time for Armistice Day commemorations on November 11, the hardship of World War I is seen through the eyes of the Kiwi soldiers who were there.
Images of War, by military historian Glyn Harper, is launched tomorrow with an exhibition of photographs at Queen Elizabeth II Army Memorial Museum at Waiouru, before the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I.
Brent and Penny Clothier, of Palmerston North, were among the New Zealanders who contributed images for the book.
Mrs Clothier said the photographs were taken by her husband's grandfather, William Clothier, a stretcher bearer posted on a hospital ship off the coast of Gallipoli.
He returned safely from the war with a collection of photographs that he and his wife painstakingly mounted in an album.
They were left largely untouched for decades.
The album was given to the Clothiers by an aunt, Edna Clothier of Christchurch, when they planned a trip to Belgium.
There they retraced William Clothier's steps and on many occasions, Mrs Clothier said, they knew they were standing on the same spot he had.
Aunt Edna also kept William's kit bag - still in pristine condition after 90 years - containing field maps, his camera and a German beret.
The camera was taken to World War II by his son, and Mrs Clothier said it was presumed that the beret came from a German soldier William had helped.
As a stretcher bearer, William saw "the whole lot" of the campaign on the Western Front.
"He didn't want to bear arms but he wanted to serve," Mrs Clothier said. "It's really heartwarming to get these pictures out there and it's a great tribute to the old fellow that they're going to be published."
William Clothier was not the only soldier to smuggle a camera in his kit bag.
Harper's 17th book features photos taken by hundreds of New Zealand soldiers who took cameras into the front lines.
Many of the photographs are from the Army Memorial Museum and the Kippenberger Military Archive but dozens more are from private collections around the country.
Thousands of photographs were sent in following a nationwide appeal, and the book is the culmination of three years' work and more than 30,000 viewed photographs.
The pictures depict every imaginable scene from the war - the aftermath of battle, the attempts at relaxation on the front line, scenes of soldiers leaving home to fight, landing on the beaches of Gallipoli and surveying bombed French villages.
Mr Harper is head of Massey University's centre for defence studies and is working on a follow-up book on World War II.
RARE DIARY FOR AUCTION
A rare New Zealand war diary is to go under the hammer in an auction of war memorabilia in Sydney next week.
Auction house Lawson's said it was the most important New Zealand diary from Gallipoli auctioned in 20 years.
The diary of Private George Petersen, of the Canterbury Infantry Regiment, records daily life on the front lines from the first day of landing on April 15, 1915, until departure that September.
It is expected to fetch more than $20,000.
