North Head tunnels?

[Pumba]

But now, as for fuel tanks, don't buy a property anywhere the Navy base.
Big ones underground thar...

Personally would not worry about that, a few people seemed to get pretty pissed off a few years ago when they found out there very expensive house were floating on a thin crust of eath above thin air. The fuel tanks were filled with soil up to the curent boundary of the base, it was an interesting process and the size of the tanks quite suprising. I still have an IPENZ article floating around somewhere about the way the went about it with some interesting photos.

[jagman]

great place the hill of holes shes riddled with them sum only meters above the rocks by the ocean spent heaps a time exploring as a teen ager beck in 85 86 lots a locked passages great place ta scare the pants off ya misses to,there be stuff in there i dont think a plane unless in pieces,still must go back for alook

[Ixion]

I guess there are a couple of generations or more who have no idea of the defense efforts during both World Wars....and other wars.
..
There is another mystery I never found out much about - the Van Dam's.We spent a lot of time there as kids,a real hidden space to have adventures.We got to it though a pipe in Ireland Rd,that drains into the Panmure Basin,or though the Back of Alex Harvies where you crossed the rail lines to get to Panmure Station.

The Van Dams was a small lake with a big pipe going over top...lots of frogs and eals and french letters.And there were tunnels!.Several tunnels cut into the bank by a path that went around the lake....they were dark,and we didn't have torches,scary shit.The tunnels went in maybe 30 ft,say 20metres or more and had short side tunnels off them.I have no idea who made them or why,but we were told the Yanks did it.Access could be hard these days,the culvert is grated and access blocked from Mt Wellington Highway.

Ixion,does your Mrs remember them?

Yes, not only does she remember them (it) she was , and is it's self appointed guardian. Her parents house was right up above Van Damme's.Her grandparents beside it. When you sneaked through from Alex Harvey's it was their fence line you sneaked along. And now the shade of her father has found out who one of the young buggers was, he's coming back to haunt you.

Van Damme's is still there. With another hat on I am President of the local ratepayers association, and we spend a lot of time haranguing the city council about it. Making sure they fully appreciate it. Yes, the old pipe is fenced off. But, if you go a little along Mt Wellington Highway, you will find a car park. With a sign. And a nice set of wooden steps, leading down to the lagoon area. Which has a nice gravelled path round it, and a wee bridge so the elderly do not have to walk over the pipe.

A few things are gone. No longer does the local florist row out in a boat each morning to harvest waterlilies. And once, there used to be ducks and geese there. Until shortly before each Christmas anyway, when Mrs Ixion's father and uncle would go down early with shotguns.

The tunnels are still there, though we are fighting with the council at present , who want to fill them in, because, gasp, horror, they discovered that small children were using them to hide in. They long predate the Yanks, they were dug by none other than Mr Van Damme! The original owner of the site. An eccentric gentleman who was obssesed with the notion that there was gold to be found everywhere, and who dug the tunnels, in pursuit of his auriferous dreams, in the 1930s. Mrs Ixion's grandfather knew him well.

As to defence efforts- when I was a young lad, just after the war, the primary school I attended had a large concrete air raid shelter. Built into the lee of a hillside, with , guess what, yes, tunnels leading back from it into the hillside, and rooms at the end of the tunnels. In the event of an air raid, the children were to rush to the air raid shelter and , if bombing started they were to be shepherded through the tunnels into the subterranean rooms.

When I was there the signs detailing what to do in the event of an air raid were still on the walls. And we still had air raid drills! The minor event of VJ day seemed to have escaped the principal. We didn't get to go through the tunnels though, they had been fitted with doors and were used by the caretaker. I did get to go into them a few times.

I imagine they have long since been sealed off, and people will nowdays say they are a myth.

Almost all schools had some such arrangement. It was a government requirement. New Zealand fully expected air raids as well as 'hit and run' bombardment by the Jap navy, even after the likelihood of actual invasion had been discounted.

A more complacent generation that has never known war too lightly discounts the efforts the country was prepared to go to when , or if, it came to fighting for our survival. I am glad we never had to fight and I hope today's young people never have to either.

(By the by - Mrs Ixion says you owe her for any frogs you took. Her father kept ducks , as many folk did then. And one of Mrs Ixion's childhood duties was to raise tadpoles in old washing machine bowls with wire netting over the top, until they turned into frogs , to be fed to the ducks. But the frogs would regularly escape (sneaky little buggers that they are, as any boy who has tried to take one to school will agree), and hopped off down to the lake. So those were HER frogs . She is willing to settle for sixpence a frog)

[Swoop]

Personally would not worry about that, a few people seemed to get pretty pissed off a few years ago when they found out there very expensive house were floating on a thin crust of eath above thin air. The fuel tanks were filled with soil up to the curent boundary of the base, it was an interesting process and the size of the tanks quite suprising.

Yes, quite large indeed!
When they cleaned them out (1980's) I believe there was about four foot of scum on the bottom of each tank.
With the advent of Endeavour, the tanks were useless.

The tunnel from the base to Ngataranga. The small tunnel that heads away to the east... That was used for the "great rum theft" or at least the storage of the barrels of rum, or so the story has it.

[Motu]

Wow,thanks for that Les.....so whose were the condoms? We used to climb up from the pipe and look into that back yard.The pipe had a rolling gantry,and you could climb down to a platform underneath.It was just a fantastic mystical garden,something from another world dropped down into a suburban/industrial landscape.Outside were cars going past,factories working,a railway line,and houses...but at the Van Dammes we were transported into another world.I bet your wife has some fond memories of the place over many years.We used to go to the movies in Panmure,and would cross over the railway at Alex Harvies,pocketing some spoils from the scrap bins on the way.On the way home we would stop at the Van Dammes if there was time.

I'm really,really pleased to know it's still there,so keep up the good work,and will see if I can get to it next time I'm in Auckland.On friday I walked around the Basin,we used to hang out there too,but you couldn't walk all the way around.I used to pushbike to Panmure going down to the basin at the Yacht Club and riding a dirt walking track to Lagoon Drive,then up to the Library.

So not built by the Yanks....seemed an odd thing for them to do anyway - it's just that anything out of the ordinary in that area must of been done by them...they had the run of the place for years.

[Forest]

What no talk of the HUGE bunkers underneath the Auckland University Epsom campus?? Hmm...

Are you talking about the bunkers under the old Auckland Teachers Training College?

They're old Civil Defence shelters. You can see the ventilation stacks rise up in a couple of places. I had a look inside one of them a few years ago - it was basically an empt concrete room.

[terbang]

i heard the first or Boeing ( 001 ) is in there somewere ? God alone knows how i think the US was hiding it from the japs... but I think they lost it in there ?

Dunno if it was S/N 001 but it was definitely the first Boeing to be exported from the USA. My Grandfather flew it.

[Ixion]

Nothing to do with the Japs. Long before that. The first two planes made by W E Boeing were brought to NZ in 1918 and used by the NZ Flying School in Kohi, until the school folded up in 1923. That much is certain fact.

Anecdotal reports say that after the school folded, the planes were taken across the harbour and stored in the Navy yard at Torpedo bay, which used to be under North Head. (EDIT 'under' in the sense of 'at the foot of') Further reports say that they were eventually put into a tunnel at athe rear of the yard which was subsequently blocked off. One suspects that if they were indeed thus entombed, it was because they were by then junk and the old tunnel was a convenient dumping place.


I have found rather an interesting thing though, this very early (1930s) aerial photo of North head. Which clearly shows a now non existent road going up the mountain and a vehicle size tunnel entrance going into the mountain. (same photo, different magnifications)

So there was SOMETHING under that hill which was large enough for trucks to drive into

[Swoop]

So there was SOMETHING under that hill which was large enough for trucks to drive into

There is a photo still around, taken from outside the Masonic pub, looking towards NH. Clearly evident are three entrances large enough to take an entire truck in height and width. How far they extended into the hill, goodness only knows.

[rwh]

The more people involved in a big engineering project, the likelier it is that one will be a talkative soul, another might be an amateur photographer, etc etc.

Good point, that - perhaps the less trustworthy majority are still in there?

Richard

[Eddieb]

http://www.doc.govt.nz/templates/page.aspx?id=34069 Shows an aerial photo taken in 1942, however it's a very small picture so no real detail.

[Forest]

http://www.doc.govt.nz/templates/page.aspx?id=34069 Shows an aerial photo taken in 1942, however it's a very small picture so no real detail.

Interesting article. Can't have been much fun sleeping in the tunnels:

At the start of WW II there was not enough accommodation to house everyone on North Head and the gunners and searchlight crews had to bunk down in tunnels

[barty5]

Nothing to do with the Japs. Long before that. The first two planes made by W E Boeing were brought to NZ in 1918 and used by the NZ Flying School in Kohi, until the school folded up in 1923. That much is certain fact.

Anecdotal reports say that after the school folded, the planes were taken across the harbour and stored in the Navy yard at Torpedo bay, which used to be under North Head. (EDIT 'under' in the sense of 'at the foot of') Further reports say that they were eventually put into a tunnel at athe rear of the yard which was subsequently blocked off. One suspects that if they were indeed thus entombed, it was because they were by then junk and the old tunnel was a convenient dumping place.


I have found rather an interesting thing though, this very early (1930s) aerial photo of North head. Which clearly shows a now non existent road going up the mountain and a vehicle size tunnel entrance going into the mountain. (same photo, different magnifications)

So there was SOMETHING under that hill which was large enough for trucks to drive into

that tunnel shown in your pics looks like its not far round to the north side from the large gun that is still there be rather hard to cover up the road as well kindashown on this photo

[marty]

From today's Herald:

The air force's bombs, torpedoes and depth charges were stored by the navy in tunnels at Whangaparaoa north of Auckland.

[geoffm]

There are always the tunnels under Albert Park
http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/other/albert/
http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourk...t/journey.html

Be nice if they could open them up one day