Waiouru Military Camp

Waiouru Military Camp
Waiouru, New Zealand
New Zealand Army soldiers with NZLAVs during "Exercise Hellfire" at Waiouru Army Camp in 2009
Waiouru Military Camp
Coordinates	39°28′13″S 175°40′49″E / 39.4704°S 175.6803°E / -39.4704; 175.6803
Type	Army Camp
Site information
Owner	New Zealand Defence Force
Controlled by	New Zealand Army
Site history
In use	1939–present

Waiouru Military Camp is a camp of the New Zealand Army in the central North Island of New Zealand near Waiouru.

Formally all New Zealand Army soldiers complete their initial basic training, the All Arms Recruit Course (AARC), at Waiouru Military Camp. The camp is also the site of the army marae. The marae is the home of Ngati Tumatauenga, literally 'the tribe of the God of War', the Māori phrase for the New Zealand Army.

The New Zealand government chose the sheep station at Waiouru as the location of a North Island training area for its Territorial Forces in the 1930s. The sheep station had large areas of inexpensive open land, and existing road and rail access to the North Island coastline. The artillery was the first branch of the New Zealand Army to use Waiouru. In 1937, Waiouru farmhand Cedric Arthur wrote:

A month after the declaration of World War II in 1939, most of the leasehold Waiouru run was taken back by the Crown.

At the beginning of the winter of 1940, 800 construction workers from the Ministry of Works built a training camp with capacity for 7,000 Territorial soldiers. Within six weeks 25,000 tons of building materials had arrived at Waiouru Railway Station. 450,000 tonnes of earth was shifted to make a flat area for the camp. At the same time, hundreds of soldiers camped under canvas in the snow and completed extensive field training.

By Christmas 1940, there were 230 buildings erected, served by 20 km (12 mi) of streets, and 8 km (5.0 mi) each of water mains, power lines and sewers. By mid-1941, seven regimental camps housed 7,000 soldiers. There was a bakery, a hospital, two film theatres and five "institutes", each with a concert hall, library, writing room and tearooms. However, there were no bars; soldiers had to go to Taihape to buy a beer. An Armoured Fighting Vehicle School and a Command and Staff School at Waiouru were established in August 1941. By the end of the war, £1.2 million (NZ$2.4 million) had been spent on developing the camp, and 340 km² (130 sq mi) of land had been acquired for training.

More land was required for the camp by 1949. Plans were made to upgrade the Desert Road track through the artillery range to a major State Highway and build a high-voltage power line to transfer power up the Moawhango valley. The Army Schools at Trentham were to be transferred to Waiouru, compulsory military training was about to commence and, as defence responsibilities shifted to South-East Asia, the Army needed forests for jungle warfare training. These considerations resulted in another 250 km² (97 sq mi) of land to the north and east of the camp being acquired by the New Zealand Government. In 1955, the 1st NZSAS Squadron started jungle training in Paradise Valley, part of the newly acquired area.