[7] The British request was immediately accepted and instructions issued to Godley to raise a composite force specifically tasked for this purpose.

[5] What was to be known as the Samoa Expeditionary Force (SEF) was formed with volunteers drawn primarily from the Auckland and Wellington Military Districts.

It included an infantry component, with three companies of infantry from the 3rd (Auckland) and 5th (Wellington) Regiments, a battery of field guns, a section of engineers, companies of railway engineers and signallers, as well as personnel from the Royal Naval Reserve, Army Service Corps, a Field Ambulance section, as well as nurses and chaplains.

[20] Government buildings, including the post office and telegraph exchange, were seized by early evening and a party dispatched to the wireless station, in the hills several kilometres away near the terminus of the Telefunken Railroad.

By the time the New Zealanders arrived, close to midnight, the German operators had sabotaged much of the radio equipment rendering it inoperative.

The approach of the German ships was observed and the New Zealanders promptly manned their defences while many civilians, fearing exchanges of gunfire, made for the hills.

One historian, Ian McGibbon, wrote that this was likely due to von Spee's fears of damage to German property should he open fire.

[12] Instead, von Spee steamed off and landed a small party further down the coast and learned from a German resident there the apparent strength of the occupation.

A. C. Gray, von Spee considered a landing by the forces under his control would only be of temporary advantage in an Allied-dominated sea[27] and so the German ships then made for Tahiti, a French possession.

A small relief force arrived in Apia on 3 April and the troopship that brought them to Samoa transported the last of the SEF back to New Zealand.

His term was controversial for he significantly mishandled the arrival of the Spanish flu influenza pandemic in November 1918, resulting in over 7,500 deaths.