This is unedited raw film footage, shot by Academy Award winning US Marine cinematographer Norman T. Hatch for a US newsreel that was never completed, provisionally titled 'Meet New Zealand'. Around 21,000 Marines were stationed in camps around the Wellington region from June 1942 until November 1943. Most of their time was spent training hard preparing for the war in the Southwest Pacific against the Japanese.
America's First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt publicly addresses US Marines at the Cecil Club in Wellington. She praises the club and the work of the American Red Cross who run it and also shares some humorous anecdotes related to her wartime travels. Mrs. Roosevelt passes on the gratitude of President Franklin Roosevelt for the ‘incredible work they’ve done’ in Guadalcanal and the Pacific. Scene cuts to a US Marines jazz band playing swing-time jazz and US Marines dancing in the Cecil Club with local women on a crowded dance floor.