39: In August 1915, an Anzac shot through the eyes recognised one comforting voice as he lay close to death in a Cairo hospital.

For 89-year-old retired naval officer Frank Sanft, his most memorable time in military service was taking part in the Normandy landings in 1944.

38: The torpedo struck in the dead of night and shook its target - a steel-hulled steamer under the control of the British Admiralty - from stem to stern.

37: Leading into Ypres, the village of Passchendaele today is home to just 3000 people. In July 1917, the tiny town was the site of 500,000 casualties in an offensive of Anzac and other Allied troops against Germany.

36: It's easy to commemorate every Tongan who fought for New Zealand in the Great War - just 94 signed up to fight for the tiny country. Eleven died from combat, illness and accidents.

35: Hundreds of vessels were sunk by U-boats and Allied submarines during World War I, from the Mediterranean to the South Atlantic to the Pacific.

34: It's said the greatest technological advances come in wartime. Indeed, World War I saw the invention of tanks, flamethrowers, tracer bullets, depth charges, aircraft carriers, and even sanitary napkins.

32: An adventurous Frenchman whose attempts to get New Zealand's fledgling aviation industry off the ground were cut short by the outbreak of World War I.

31: Trooper Ralph Newton's series of letters to his mum told the story of his war.

29: Mothers whose sons died on the other side of a world at war often had no details of their death.

28: When the school day dawned early in February 1918, Auckland Grammar School headmaster James Tibbs had a painful burden to unload.

Sir Richard Bolt had a tonne of courage, a common touch and a sense of irony.

27: When brothers Michael and Ernest Murphy were killed on the Western Front in World War I, their father sold the family farm.

26: When World War I came, Kiwis were ready. The first foundations of a homegrown army were already in place.

25: In the studio photograph Lieutenant Kenneth Thomson wears the splendid military dress of a British officer in the Indian Army.

A century ago today, Kiwi soldiers arrived in German Samoa ready for battle. The Herald is live-streaming the national ceremony to mark the 100th anniversary.

For generations that have not known war, our stories from exactly a century ago are an insight into what it would be like.

21: Towey St in Oamaru could be in any small town in New Zealand. But what makes this street special are the trees that line the grass verge.

Film-maker Sir Peter Jackson says the new World War I museum he is curating will focus on New Zealand soldiers and their experiences, right down to the smell of the dirt in their trenches.

20: Private Herbert Stanley Sing was in a dugout on the Western Front in July 1916 when enemy shells rained down.

Film-maker Sir Peter Jackson has been enlisted by Government to curate a temporary World War I exhibition in Wellington.

19: In 1918, Bert Johnston was shot in the arm and leg by Germans. He waited two days before receiving first aid. He was then transferred three times before landing in an English hospital.

18: In 1871, a German giant mobilised the New Zealand left. That year 600 people, inspired by Karl Marx, formed an unemployed workers union and demonstrated.

Sapper Robert Hislop, the young soldier who fell to his death off Parnell Railway Bridge in August 1914, will be honoured by the Defence Force as the first New Zealand casualty of WWI.

17: Karl Strack risked his life to advance New Zealand over the Germans again and again; we repaid his bravery by blacklisting him.

William Burnwas the first New Zealand pilot killed in World War I action.

Among Pam MacDonald's most prized treasures is the black-and-white photograph of her late father cradling her in his arms when she was a baby.

The first All Black to die in World War I was Albert "Doolan" Downing, a rangy forward who sported a Ranfurly Shield tattoo on his left arm.