Wartime bunker built as backup
With overseas travel off the cards and Kiwis exploring their own backyard this summer, Stuff’s Secret NZ series explores what lies beneath our cities and what is out of view. Katy Jones reports.
Manning the borders, and banning gatherings of more than three people: Such similarities between New Zealand during World War II and today were hard to imagine – until the Covid-19 pandemic.
But in a suburban hillside in Nelson, a more tangible reminder of the last major threat to Kiwis from an invading force has sat quietly for nearly 80 years.
The underground bunker, hurriedly built there in 1942, was intended as one of the country’s last lines of defence.
It was the growing threat from Japan that sparked the rush to fortify New Zealand’s defences then, historians Graeme McConnell and Kerry Neal explain from within the musty subterranean chamber in Stoke.
Japan’s air strike on the United States naval base of Pearl Harbour in Hawaii in December 1941 was a turning point in World War II, they said. ‘‘At the start of the war, the war was a little remote from New Zealand because it was all in Europe and North Africa,’’ McConnell said.
‘‘But after Pearl Harbour, it was a different story.’’
The attack triggered the Pacific War, bringing the threat of conflict much closer to New Zealand shores.
In February 1942, the British stronghold of Singapore fell to Japan, as Japanese forces advanced down the Malayan peninsula.
Japanese submarines started ‘‘nosing around the place’’, launching reconnaissance flights over the North Island and attacking Allied warships in Sydney Harbour, said Neal, who was 5 when World War II began.
Blackouts, sirens, aeroplanes, tanks, and barbed wire on the beach were among vivid memories, along with the installation of two guns above Haulashore Island, just off the Nelson coast, he said.
‘‘They test fired that one day when we lived up there and the windows rattled, quite exciting for a little person but pretty serious.
‘‘I can remember the fear of it was very much in the air.’’
About 14 secret air bases were set up in New Zealand to enable the US air force to get out of Australia and establish here as a last stand, Neal said.
Japan wanted to ‘‘knock out any chance’’ of the US navy getting a base here, he said.
The house Neal’s family moved into in Nelson in 1942 was not unusual in having an air raid shelter on site, he said.
Unbeknown to most people, the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) also decided in February that year to build 17 underground operations rooms.
The bunker in Nelson was intended as a fallback bomber operations centre, should the RNZAF base at Nelson airport come under attack.
A fleet of about 20 Hudson bombers patrolled Cook Strait from Nelson and were considered to have ‘‘long reach’’, Neal said.
The construction of the Nelson
station was prioritised, along with five combined fighter and bomber operations centres nationwide.
Landowners Nellie and William Cole of Stoke received notification in May 1942 that 27 acres of the property they had just bought in Arapiki Rd was to be used for the emergency airport headquarters.
They were initially told they could not move into their house because it was wanted for the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force Service but the air force then found somewhere else for them, the Coles’ son, Lloyd, wrote in his memoirs.
People did not question authority, McConnell said.
There was a ‘‘complete blackout of information’’ and people were told not to discuss anything with anybody. The Government imposed a restriction on more than three people gathering anywhere, he said.
Nelson was one of just five fallback RNZAF stations to actually be built, New Zealand Archaeological Association Records show.
More than 17 tons of reinforcing steel was required for the station, which has walls of reinforced concrete 1 foot (30 centimetres) thick.
A zigzag entrance way (designed to prevent ordnance like hand grenades getting in) leads to two
‘‘They test fired that one day when we lived up there and the windows rattled, quite exciting for a little person but pretty serious.’’
Kerry Neal
main chambers and a 6-metre-high escape hatch.
The largest chamber, just over 7m by 8m, is thought to have been partitioned into several rooms.
Fires lit by vandals have blackened the walls of the bunker, which has also been used for training by the local fire brigade.
Its main entrance – an easy-tomiss door off a private driveway – is locked by the current landowners, who use the rooms mainly for storage.
The RNZAF itself never used the bunker.
The threat from Japan subsided throughout 1942, as American, New Zealand and Australian forces pushed the Japanese back up towards Singapore.
But it was important to learn from history, Neal said.
‘‘We have had 80 years now without having to worry about being invaded or tormented.
‘‘But it will happen again if you don’t keep an eye on events around the globe.’’