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.
Two American officers accompanied by two members of the NZ Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) visit Whakarewarewa and are greeted by Guide Rangītiria Dennan. They walk round the Māori village looking at the hot springs then lighting their cigarettes from a smoking vent. They observe the geysers and see the mud pools up close, and then watch how clothing gets washed by hand at a warm spring. Guide Rangītiria shows them the meeting house and points out the carvings.