The Military Camp
When the Government needed a training area in the North Island for its Territorial Forces in the 1930s, the Waiouru sheep station was ideal, with vast areas of cheap open land, and with ready road and rail access to all the North Island coastline.
Artillerymen were the first soldiers to use Waiouru. In 1937 Waiouru farmhand Cedric Arthur wrote:
- The Military (artillery) Camp is here again for its annual big shoot, so Waiouru is exceedingly busy with huge lorries, tractors, guns and horses, not to mention soldiers galore.... It has been rumoured around here that the Minister of Defence has bought 15 miles of Waiouru to make a permanent Camp here. (Arthur 1984)
The rumour was correct. A month after the declaration of World War II in 1939, most of the leasehold Waiouru run was taken back by the Crown.
Read more about this topic: Waiouru Army Camp
Famous quotes containing the words military and/or camp:
“There are many examples of women that have excelled in learning, and even in war, but this is no reason we should bring ‘em all up to Latin and Greek or else military discipline, instead of needle-work and housewifry.”
—Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733)
“When the weather is bad as it was yesterday, everybody, almost everybody, feels cross and gloomy. Our thin linen tents—about like a fish seine, the deep mud, the irregular mails, the never to-be-seen paymasters, and “the rest of mankind,” are growled about in “old-soldier” style. But a fine day like today has turned out brightens and cheers us all. We people in camp are merely big children, wayward and changeable.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)