It's just one week until Anzac Day when New Zealanders remember those who fought on foreign battlefields, many of whom are resting in unmarked graves.

And on Sunday at the Trentham military camp near Wellington, a New Zealand captain was remembered for his part in saving tens of thousands of civilians in World War I.

Watch video report.

The Assyrian community credits Captain Robert Kenneth Nicol with saving 60,000 of their people.

Nicol was just 21 when he died, but in his short life he became a hero.

"As long as I live, I will talk about Captain Nicol," says Assyrian community leader Gaby Kiwarkis.

Known for his fighting ability and quick thinking, Nicol was hand-picked for the secret unit known as Dunsterforce - or the Hush Hush Brigade - an allied force fighting in what was then Persia.

Nicol fought at Gallipoli and won the Military Cross for his gallantry and leadership in an earlier battle in France.

In July 1918 the Dunsterforce soldiers came across 60,000 Assyrian refugees fleeing enemy forces.

"The captains and their party directed the refugee column to safety and remained in the rear, protecting them from constant attacks which eventually cost the life of Captain Nicol," says Kiwarkis.

Nicol's nephew Lindsay Grigg says he was a simple, God-fearing Christian man who "was not afraid to die".

The Assyrian people come from an ancient territory made up of several nations - northern Iraq, Syria, northwest Iran and parts of Turkey.

At Trentham, where Nicol began his training - his descendants and those of the refugees gathered from around Australia and New Zealand to remember the captain's sacrifice.

"In his actions...he set the standard, the benchmark against which we hold ourselves in the New Zealand Defence Force today," says Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Piercy from the New Zealand Army.

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