At the time of World War Two, Jericho sat within British-administered Palestine and was reached by travelling down from Jerusalem into the Jordan Valley. For soldiers moving through the region, the descent alone would have been memorable, with the land opening out into a broad, dry basin framed by steep hills.
Jericho in the 1940s was a small agricultural town, surrounded by palms, cultivated fields, and irrigation channels fed by natural springs. This is reflected in the photos taken by Noel – many of which contain no commentary but seem to feature rather desolate looking landscapes. Soldiers passing through, like Noel, would have seen everyday life continuing under wartime conditions: people working the land, trading in small markets, and moving through streets little changed for generations.
Just outside the town lay Tell es-Sultan, the site of ancient Jericho. Exposed stonework, low walls, and layered earth marked the remains of settlements thousands of years old. Standing there, it would have been difficult not to feel the weight of time – to realise that people had lived, worked, and fought in this same place long before the modern world, let alone the Second World War.
The wider Jordan Valley shaped much of what a visitor to Jericho experienced. Flat, open land stretched out toward the river, while the surrounding hills reminded travellers how geography had always guided movement through the region. Trade routes, armies, and pilgrims had passed through this corridor for centuries, and the soldiers who visited the region during World War Two were simply the latest to do so.
Jericho was not a place of combat for New Zealand forces, but it was part of the lived experience of the war. For soldiers like my grandfather, time spent there became another layer of memory: not of fighting, but of observation of ancient places, unfamiliar landscapes, and everyday life.
Sites appearing in Noel’s photographs
Mount of Temptation
The Mount of Temptation, rising sharply above the Jordan Valley near Jericho, has been associated with Christ’s forty days of fasting and temptation since at least the Byzantine period. By the mid-twentieth century, a modest monastery had been maintained by Greek Orthodox monks, and visitors experienced a combination of natural ruggedness and centuries of architectural accretion, tracing a path used for pilgrimage for over a millennium.
En Es Sultan (Elisha’s Spring)
En Es Sultan, also known as Elisha’s Spring, has long been revered as the biblical site where the prophet Elisha purified the water for Jericho’s inhabitants. Archaeological and textual evidence indicates that it was in use from the Iron Age onward, with successive layers of Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman infrastructure reflecting its continuous importance for settlement and ritual. By Noel’s era, the spring remained an essential local resource and a point of pilgrimage, enclosed within a modest protective structure, combining practical utility with spiritual significance.
Good Samaritan Inn
The Good Samaritan Inn, located along the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, commemorates the parable of the Good Samaritan and has been associated with hospitality sites since at least the Byzantine period. Crusader and later Ottoman interventions established fortified and functional buildings at the site, which over centuries served both travelers and pilgrims navigating the treacherous descent into the Jordan Valley.