PALMER HEADS FORTRESS AREA

- ARTICLE -

6" Coastal battery on the Hills above Strathmore,
 Wellington,  New Zealand.

© Darcy Waters 1999

        In June of 1934 the site got approval by the War Office as a location for a two gun battery using 6" Mk XXI guns.  The preliminary site work was started in January of 1935.  The contract for the emplacements was given to M.G. Templeton and Sons on the 23rd of March 1936.
        From January of 1936 parts of the guns started arriving and were temporarily stored at Fort Dorset.  In June that year the two guns themselves arrived and were stored on site.  One of the guns during the haul up the hill went over the bank due to the road sinking.  It took a day to get it back on the road.
        The emplacements were finished on the 12th of January 1937.  Minor contract work was still being done up until June.  Then the site was cleared and prepared for the installation of the guns.  The 1st of September saw work on installing the first gun started.  Work on installation of the guns was done over four work days per week.  The first gun took 16 working days and the second gun a further 12.    By the 19th  October the guns were complete except for their sights.
        The battery manned as the 13th Heavy Battery was placed on a war footing on the 4th of September 1939.  At this time the men were accommodated in tents.  With the only buildings in existence being the Battery Observation Post, Command Post, Plotting rooms and a army barracks.  Over the next few years more buildings were erected including more barracks, laundry and drying rooms, new Command Post (with the Command Post hill lowered), recreation room, new mess and officers quarters, reservoirs, new cook house and segments mess as well as radar stations.  Also searchlights had been installed near the foreshore near the battery.

        In 1941 the battery had two name changes.  The first was on 30th June to the 73rd Heavy Battery and then on the 31st August it was changed to the 70th Heavy Battery.
        Work started on underground plotting rooms on the 7th January 1942.  These became operational on the 12th July 1943.  Later unfortunately due to leaks developing in the underground plotting area early in 1944 the equipment was dismantled and stored in the Fortress plotting room and the rooms stripped to allow work to be undertaken to remedy this problem.  This work had not been finished by February 1947
        It was decided that the guns were to have overhead covers and so work started on them on the 9th March 1942.  The covers were never finished as it was decided to remove them which was done on the 30th August to enable the guns to fire landward if need be as well as seaward.
        Work on an emplacement and underground magazine for a third gun was started on the 30th December 1942.  Its pedestal was mounted on the 9th September 1943.  This gun was installed by the 12th September 1943 except for the bracket connecting the gun to the cradle hadn't arrived.  This bracket arrived and was fitted in November 1946.  This gun was proofed on the 13th August 1947.

        On the 27th March 1944 the battery was put into Care and Maintenance.  One of the radar stations -C8 remained operational in a  early warning capacity.  Due to the surrender of Japan as at 0800hrs on the 6th September 1945 the 10Th Coast Regiment ceased to be operational.  All of the regiment's still active units were put into care and maintenance.  Search lights 15 and 16 along with the No.2 engine room were dismantled and sent to the Gracefield Stores on the 11th October 1945 while the remaining two searchlights and No.1 engine room were put into care and maintenance.  Radar station C8 was put into care and maintenance at 0600hrs on the 31st October 1945.  All ammunition except 30 minutes worth and three years practice worth was sent across to the Belmont Magazine area.
        A No.10 wireless set was installed for F.C. Communications in early March 1947.  This provided a communications link with the fortress at the top of Wrights Hill above the suburb of Karori.  This link was in fact a microwave link.  Microwave communications had been developed as a spin-off from the development of radar.

 1952 saw the officers mess being shifted down to Fort Dorset in the nearby suburb of Seatoun  In 1957 the Government deemed that the coastal defences built during World War 2 were no longer needed and so In the 1960's all the coastal batteries were stripped and some demolished.
        The guns were scrapped early in the 1960's along with the guns from Fort Dorset and the battery on  Wrights Hill.  This was done by an Australian contractor who then sold the scrap metal to the Japanese - The people that the guns were installed to defend us from!
        The abandoned gun pits were dangerous and so were either filled in or blown up in the late 1960's.

        The only remains of the structures that formed the Palmer heads battery are the underground plotting rooms which are closed off for safety reasons (I have been able to obtain access into them and photograph inside them), part of the parade ground, The concrete shell of the radar station above Moa Point and part of the original sealed access road.    I have been told that the underground magazine for the third gun still remains although I have been unable to find any sign of it (Although I may try again).  The ridge line is Airways Corporation land and has beacons and other stuff relating to aircraft navigation and the airport.  The nearby Palmer Heads subdivision is creeping toward the battery site and has already been built over part of the original access road that runs up from the coast below.
Bibliography

         * Palmer Heads Fort Record Book
             AD 88 item ref 3
             National Archives, Wellington.

         * Palmer head layout of Guns, services etc. plan
             AD 66 Folder 7
             National Archives, Wellington.

         * Official War History of the Public Works Dept
             F.G. Grattan.

         *  Site visits 30/7/1995, 19/10/1998, 23/11/1998