The Royal New Zealand Navy is the maritime arm of the New Zealand Defence Force. In the summer of 1873, New Zealand was rocked by a scandal: Russian terrorists had newspaper editor David Leckie insisted, taken over a British warship in Auckland harbor and held the town to ransom. It was a hoax, but the moment served to highlight New Zealand's growing sense of vulnerability, as one of Britain's furthest-flung colonies. So, in earnest, began their naval story - one that extended through the highs and lows of the twentieth century: the First World War - when New Zealand naval forces and personnel fought from the North Sea to the Pacific - to the Second, when New Zealand's naval forces joined combat in most of the major theatres, and finally the Cold War. It was a dramatic, exciting, and ultimately human story of people, politics, heroism, and struggle.