The powerful story of new zealand’s wwi conscientious objectors and the disturbing efforts to silence them. In 1916 the new zealand government secretly shipped 14 of the country’s most outspoken conscientious objectors to the western front in an attempt to convert, silence or even kill them. This is their story. Powerful, moving and at times brutal, field punishment no. 1 charts the incredible true story of the men who refused to fight in wwi, such as archibald baxter, new zealand’s most famous objector. It is a political stance that would cost the men dearly and test their most personal beliefs to the very limit, but it also showed the human spirit at its most principled and indomitable.