Snapshot of Paekākāriki when Marines came

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A snapshot of history of Paekākāriki village, where almost 15,000 US Marines found a home away from home during World War II, can now be found at a new website.

The Kāpiti US Marines website, documenting the US Marines in Aotearoa between 1942 and 1944, was developed by volunteers from the Kāpiti US Marines Trust. It was launched by former US Ambassador Bill McCormick, the patron of the trust, yesterday.

The online portal connected eight heritage sites in Queen Elizabeth Park, Whareroa Farm and Paekākāriki. Each told a story of the young Marines’ stay in Paekākāriki, at a time when there were only 500 residents of the village.

Trust chair Richard Benge said it was the largest public source of written and visual information on the WWII encampment of Marines in New Zealand.

It also included information about the Marines encampments in other parts of the Wellington region and New Zealand

“It’s a brilliant resource for visitors, students, teachers, historians and interested members of the public both here and overseas,” Benge said.

The website included stories of the day, photographic collections, short films, oral history interviews, maps and a diverse collection of reference material. It was also designed to help visitors plan walking, cycling, car or train trips to visit a variety of sites, all of them linked to walkways and cycleways and accessible via Transmission Gully, and SH59.

The sites included three former Marines’ camps (Paekākāriki, Russell and Mackay), a restored Marines’ hut, a memorial to 10 US sailors who died in an exercise off the Kāpiti Coast in 1943, an exhibition at the Paekākāriki Station Museum and the remains of a brick aviation fuel tank – recently designated a Category 1 Heritage site by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.