I learned that the US Marines were in New Zealand during World War Two quite recently. I had a vague idea that the American army was in my home country in the 1940s, mostly because my mother always claimed to have had “opportunities” when she was living alone with my brother during the war. My father fought in the Pacific, including a stint in the Solomon Islands, but as far as I know, she did not take advantage of those opportunities. I was born in Pahiatua in 1946 and knew nothing about the internment camp, which became a camp for refugee Polish children in 1947. Children we called Displaced Persons, or DPs, were familiar to me at that time. 

I was researching an idea for a book set in World War Two when I came across the tragedy of the drownings in Paekākāriki on the west coast of the North Island, and I knew immediately that I had to write a book that included the event. 

I was not the first person to think that the US Marine Corps in New Zealand would be a good idea for a book. In 1953, Leon Uris published Battle Cry, based on his own experiences in WW2, which included a time in New Zealand. He would not have known about the accident with the landing craft, however, because it was hushed up until some years after the war. 

Don Adams of Get Smart fame also spent time in New Zealand during the war. After enlisting at fifteen, he caught Malaria on Guadalcanal and recovered in an American hospital in Lower Hutt, outside Wellington.

 

THE US MARINE CAMPS IN NEW ZEALAND

Watch a video of the US Marines operating landing craft on the beach at Paekākāriki during their time there here.

Some images of Camp Russell, including the wool shed that was used as the PX, are available here. More photographs of the US Marine Corps camps are here, as well as some great videos.

You can view a terrifying hill where the Marines used to train, including a view of Kapiti Coast and Kapiti Island here. This one is enough to make you afraid of heights.

Saving the best and saddest for last: The story of the accident on June 20, 1943, is here and includes a first-person account from one of the few survivors.

 

SUBMARINES OFF THE COAST

One final note. It may seem unlikely that there was a German submarine off the coast of New Zealand in 1943, and in fact, there was not. But in 1944, a German submarine was spotted off Gisborne, north of where the submarine in this book appears. Several Japanese submarines were also spotted off the coast, and you can read about those here.

In 1940, the German navy sank two boats off New Zealand. The first, the Turakina, was sunk 300 miles off the west coast of the North Island on the way from Australia. The ship was carrying, among other things, racehorses, which Hamlet mentions at some point. Read about the sinking of the Turakina here.