Stuff
Tens of thousands of American soldiers were stationed in New Zealand during WWII and tensions flared with their Kiwi counterparts on more than one occasion. Here US Marines march through the streets of Wellington in a route march past Oriental Bay where they stop for a breather (Photo: Alexander Turnbull Library)
Whether it was the fog of war, military censorship or just a case of not letting the truth get in the way of the good story, but common tellings of the infamous Battle of Manners St could be quite wrong. It went down in history as one of the ugliest confrontations between American and New Zealand servicemen during WWII. But like many apocryphal stories, the facts have become muddied over the years.