With ANZAC day coming up historians and archivists are looking at new ways of telling New Zealand's war stories that people might not be aware of.
A new podcast episode of Aotearoa Unearthed is telling the story of a secret war defence network in Te Tai Tokerau.
‘Fortress Northland’ was constructed in panicked haste following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour in December 1941.
Photo: DOC
Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga podcast editor Rosemary Baird tells Afternoons she hadn’t heard about the effort in Northland prior to working on the episode.
“Since doing the interview with Bill [Guthrie] and James [Robinson] and Bill [Edwards] and Jack [Kemp], I just discovered the massive amount of work and manpower and women-power that went into the effort in a short period of time but was quite astonishing.”
The massive regional defence effort was initiated in fears of a Japanese invasion during World War II, says Northland staff member Bill Edwards.
“So, they had to keep it very quiet. But they had to install a whole series of defences while most of the troops were away overseas in Europe.”
While there is an oral record of the event, most people linked to it are now elderly or have passed away, Edwards says.
“We were lucky enough to interview some of the people who were on active service in the north.
“We also get the children of the people that served, and they tell the stories.”
But there’s no archaeological record left either because the camps were pulled down after the war, he says.
Baird says through the interviews she learned that part of the agreement with landowners was that once the war effort was over, the infrastructure would be deconstructed or taken down or moved to the Pacific.
“So, I believe there’s some places [where] there’s concrete pads [left behind]. But the actual buildings are gone.”
And because these sites are post 1900, they are not classed as archaeological under the Heritage New Zealand Act, she says.
“Most of them have been built over but we were extremely lucky when we were doing the work that we found all the original plans and these plans hadn’t been opened up since the end of the war,” Edwards says.
“They’re all hand-coloured and so what we were able to do with those is overlay them, using Google Earth, so we were able to pinpoint exactly where those camps were.”
It was remarkable how the nation responded under stress while personnel were overseas, he says.
“And also, how this infrastructure was used later on in the war to help the Americans for their camps.
“It’s a remarkable story which really has been forgotten.”
