Weekly Review No. 206 - Danger in Trieste

Short Film (Full Length) – 1945

This newsreel captures the elation and excitement of the final days of WWII in northern Italy. In the early spring of 1945, the Second New Zealand Division raced their way to the key port city of Trieste to help expel German troops. This Kiwi government film documents the 21st Battalion taking charge of 6000 German prisoners of war, while other Kiwi soldiers take part in a 'liberation parade' through the village of Monfalcone. In Trieste, General Bernard Freyberg and his division find a charged post-war atmosphere as partisan Yugoslav and Italian forces jostle each other for territory.

It should have been a final moment of glory in the Italian campaign; a chance to savour the end of the war in Europe on 8 May, and relax before a speedy return home. Instead, it proved a 'helluva way to end a war', as one soldier recorded in his diary.
– Excerpt from the NZ History website about the protracted Italian WWII campaign