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:
“In all sincerity, we offer to the loved ones of all innocent victims over the past 25 years, abject and true remorse. No words of ours will compensate for the intolerable suffering they have undergone during the conflict.”
—Combined Loyalist Military Command. New York Times, p. A12 (October 14, l994)
“Men consort in camp and town
But the poet dwells alone.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)