The U.S. Marines - a friend in need

Photo by Wellington Museums.

Kiwis and Americans have known each other for a long time. They worked together in the Gold Rush days of the 19th century. They worked side by side - as well as against each other - during the whaling and mining days.

But nothing cemented the friendship more than the large presence of U.S. Marines in New Zealand during World War II.

The Kiwis has always played an outsized role in the military events of the world, beginning as far back as the Boer War, when they sent thousands of troops to South Africa. New Zealand declared war on Germany early and, in 1940, sent her army to the Middle East. Then came Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the Japanese capture of Singapore in 1942. The Brits, on whom the Kiwis had depended for protection, were now otherwise engaged. The Japanese were on the march and New Zealand was virtually undefended.

So the arrival of the 1st U.S. Marine Corps in New Zealand in 1942 was a welcome development. Over the next couple of years, tens of thousands of Marines were stationed in New Zealand - and wove themselves into the fabric of a generation of Kiwis.

The Marine presence and the relationship it strengthened was marked in a simple but lovely ceremony in Paekakariki today. A permanent exhibit, entitled "A Friend in Need," was opened and dedicated in the little train station where many Marines stationed on Kapiti Coast disembarked.

For many at the ceremony the U.S. presence was just a footnote of history. But for some it was part of their lives. There were a number of Kiwi widows who had married Americans. One man told me of the American Marine who had befriended his family, only to be killed at Guadalcanal.

Thousands of Marines rotated through New Zealand, many of them on the way to or from various jungled hellholes. Many of those returning from the fight were riddled with disease and trauma. Those camped in Kapiti on a spot of heaven known as Queen Elizabeth Park, below, must have thought they had died and gone to paradise - especially on days as heartbreakingly beautiful as today. For many of those who left from here it was, indeed, the last happy place they saw.



When "A Friend in Need" debuted in Wellington, the director of Wellington museums said, "This show’s a little cracker. It reminds us that the Marines left more than a few broken hearts. In the brief times before they were hurled into battle they introduced jazz, coca cola and more sophisticated standards of behaviour. Wellington would never be the same again."

Most Kiwis took the Americans into their homes and their hearts. Naturally, there were some tensions, especially with some of the local lads who were not part of the fight. But for the most part, the friendship was deep and mutual.

There are few places which today mark the presence of the U.S. Marines in New Zealand. There's a waterfront plaque in Wellington harbor. Tarawa Street in Paekakariki was named after one of the Marines' infamous battles. In Queen Elizabeth Park, a God-kissed spot, the buildings and barracks that housed the leathernecks have long since been deconstructed.

At one point there were 20,000 Americans stationed near Paekakariki, a place with a couple of thousand local inhabitants - if you cast a very wide net. There was much training, but more socializing and relaxing before the dread of war.

It was the socializing, of course, that led to some ill feeling. Most eligible Kiwi men were themselves at war overseas. As in Britian - where the Yanks were said to be oversexed, overpaid and over here - the relative wealth of the Americans and their luster as mysterious foreigners put the local bachelors at some disadvantage. Things worsened when one of the New Zealand military detachments returned home. "The battle of Manners Street," in 1943, saw a couple of hundred servicemen from the two countries duking it out.

But for the most part, the U.S. presence here was an overwhelmingly positive one.

To tie today's events to the long line of history, four current day U.S. Marines were at the presentation. They must have been proud by the many tributes to their former brothers in arms.