High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Occupation of Samoa was the takeover and subsequent administration of the Pacific colony of German Samoa in August 1914 by an expeditionary force from New Zealand called the Samoa Expeditionary Force and New Zealand`s first action in World War I. On 7 August 1914, the British government indicated that it would be a great and urgent Imperial service if New Zealand forces seized the wireless station near Apia, one of several German radio stations used by the German East Asia Squadron. Since the days of Seddon, New Zealand had aspired to control Samoa, and in 1913 General Godley had discussed the seizure of German Samoa with British military authorities.