On 10 July 1985, French secret agents bombed the Greenpeace campaign flagship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour, New Zealand. Portuguese-born photographer Fernando Pereira died in the sabotage outrage that shook the world. The bombed ship was scuttled off Matauri Bay in 1987 to form a living reef and Rainbow Warrior II was commissioned.

Award-winning journalist David Robie was on board the Greenpeace environmental ship Rainbow Warrior on its last mission to Rongelap Atoll in May 1985 and stayed with the ship until it reached Auckland in July. Robie’s account of this voyage – of the Marshall Islands community poisoned by nuclear fallout and of the fatal bombing of the Rainbow Warrior by the French secret service – remains a definitive work on Western treachery in the Pacific. But, it also shows the power of good people who were willing to stand up and be counted when others desperately needed their help.

The 40th anniversary edition has a Little Island microsite with plenty of Rainbow Warrior resources.