Detainment camps set up near Shannon
A disturbing wartime story is now being rediscovered.
Exploring local history is usually a pleasant experience. But sometimes it reveals a darker side, as Palmerston North historian Margaret Tate found while researching an almost forgotten event of 74 years ago.
It’s the story of the pacifist ‘‘conscientious objectors’’ of World War II, and the two detainment camps near Shannon where more than 250 of them lived from 1942 to 1946, in the shadow of government scorn and public disdain.
Earlier this year, Tate (former senior lecturer at the Palmerston North College of Education) was shown, by a Horowhenua District Council member, copies of photos that had been mounted in the Moutoa Hall.
The vintage pictures were of the two government camps, Whitaunui on the Shannon Foxton Rd, and Paiaka, on Springs Rd. (Moutoa Hall itself is near the site of the former Whitaunui camp.)
These camps were a major part of the wartime detention system, which also included two other big camps at Strathmore and Hautu in the central North Island, and various others.
‘‘I made some enquiries,’’ she says, ‘‘and found that most people had never heard of the camps, and if they had … they did not know where they were. Why had this event in our local history been almost completely forgotten?’’
Now the full story, including rare Hocken Library photos, will be told in an article by Tate in the 2016 Manawatu Journal of History, which goes on sale in early August.
The hunt for clues was sparked off by Mrs Mary Bielski, who discovered concrete remnants and artefacts of the Whitaunui camp on her own farm property – and told the Manawatu Standard about it early this month.
‘‘There is no doubt that she began this project’’ says Tate. ‘‘The concrete remnants have always been highly visible, but more recently Mary began research into the records at the Hocken Library, Dunedin, and received copies of photos of Whitaunui camp. This immediately sparked the interest of local people, and started the search for further information.’’
Horowhenua District Council is currently doing more detailed research on the site.
The backstory to this episode starts with the outbreak of World War II in September 1939. In July of 1940 conscription began in New Zealand and men between 18 and 40 were picked for military service by ballot.
They could appeal against going to war on conscience grounds, but most of the appeals were dismissed, and about 800 men were classed as ‘‘military defaulters’’ and detained for the rest of the war. In New Zealand, unlike other Commonwealth countries, pacifists were not given the option to do nonmilitary war work.
The Shannon camps were sited deliberately: somewhat out of sight of civilians, the men worked at weeding the nearby flax fields attached to the government-owned Whitaunui Mill. Barbed wire surrounded the camps. Accommodation was spartan, and though they were not treated badly by their guards – whose own living conditions weren’t much better – there were stringent limits on letters, visits and reading materials. Some of the detainees succumbed to being ‘‘wire happy’’ – depression and mental illness. A few escaped – but not for long.
‘‘In World War I,’’ Tate says, ‘‘many pacifists were sent to prison. The camps (of WWII) were genuinely designed to be an improved system. The question is why they turned out more punitive than the systems in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. What dismayed me most, I think, was the bitterness directed by sections of the public towards the wives of the detainees and their children during the war, and the sanctions imposed on former detainees for some years after they were released.’’
The detainees were people of high intellectual calibre, she found. Many became university lecturers, writers, artists and theatre directors; others later served in relief services overseas or in the peace movement.
One Palmerston North man with a personal connection to the local camps is Rod Bennett, whose father Norman was at Whitaunui. His fellow detainees were both secular and religious objectors; Norman Bennett was a Christian pacifist, a member of the Christian Pacifist Society comprising various denominations. ‘‘His views on war and killing were formed by his strong beliefs of ‘thou shalt not kill’. He became a Quaker shortly after the end of WWII.’’
Norman was not permitted camp leave to be with his wife when she gave birth to their first child, Rod Bennett’s sister. Later, ‘‘mum would visit, travelling by train from Whanganui, leaving my [little] sister with friends in Palmerston North, travelling on by train to Shannon, and then by bicycle to the camp. About one letter, heavily censored, was allowed per week.’’
After the war, Norman Bennett lost his civil rights (voting, workplace choice) for several years. But he had made lifelong friends in the camp, and his children would grow up knowing them and their families well. His son says he’s inherited many of his father’s values. Rod Bennett and his wife Mary settled in Palmerston North in 1981 when he joined the Massey University staff. ‘‘Dad and I were never able to find the location of the former camps in the Manawatu … I am looking forward to visiting Whitaunui.’’
Margaret Tate’s recent series of public talks about the camps have brought a huge response, and even some new information. She adds: ‘‘I would welcome more.’’