Auckland's 11 Anti-Aircraft Batteries

Comments · 32

• AN

  @AntipodeanWanderer · 5 days ago · pinned

  Other Episodes you may enjoy:<br>The French Almost Beat Capt. Cook to New Zealand <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtR2ATN2fwA">https://youtu.be/XtR2ATN2fwA</a><br>Mass Graves in Auckland <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEAw-feYkKU">https://youtu.be/QEAw-feYkKU</a><br>The Power Station That Swallowed Another Power Station <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB2NvNw77ig">https://youtu.be/CB2NvNw77ig</a><br>A Lake With A Wall Through The Middle Of It <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX3cL5wM4h8">https://youtu.be/hX3cL5wM4h8</a><br>The Dam with 2 Large Holes Cut in it <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EM8qFFLAAw">https://youtu.be/0EM8qFFLAAw</a>

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• MU

  @mudmud2 · 4 days ago

  cheers mate. That was awesome

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• YA

  @yarraman8595 · 4 days ago

  Thanks, I had no idea of these, except for north head and mt Victoria

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• OR

  @orbitboi63 · 4 days ago

  I have driven past the Orakei Reserve many times &amp; have always wonder what that stone structure is in there.

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• TY

  @tyr5502 · 4 days ago

  That was awesome 🙂 I remember as a kid on a school trip going up to the underground tunnels at Northhead and exploring them this is like 40 odd years ago now hasn&apos;t looked like it&apos;s changed to much either haha but I&apos;m sure there was or maybe still is if you drive along the waterfront and somewhere near Kelly Tarltons and missionbay there&apos;s some gun towers built into the hill, I kind of remember them and climbing up to get in but yea I haven&apos;t been back to Aucks in many years so dunno if they are still there or not lol.. Keep up the great work man look forward to the next one..

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• ES

  @escort1970 · 3 days ago

  Great video! a bit of a shame most of them have disappeared. I&apos;m from wellington, and as you alluded to in your video, there are quite a few gun emplacements, magazines, pillboxes etc scattered around wellington that you can fairly easily go and have a look around, Wrights Hill Fortress is one of the best, A team of people have spent many years doing restorative work and they have open days there on most public holidays so you can walk through the hundreds of meters of tunnels and see things like the radio room, engine room, command post and the gun pits

• RB

  @RB-qq1ky · 3 days ago (edited)

  At &lt;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SPV7kYNQbA&amp;t=353">05:53</a>&gt; the rebar you speak of are most likely there to attach camouflage to. Total concealment is not the aim, rather just enough to obscure the distinctive outlines of the installation consistent with being able to bring the gun into action quickly without having to remove elaborate camouflage first.<br> <br>The small structure neighbouring the gun pit itself I reckon would be where the electrohydraulic power units for the gun were housed. The 3.7 was power traversed and elevated, being outside practical limits of weight for manual operation. <br>The gun crew would have a designated shelter elsewhere (although ofc in an emergency situation, either this structure, or one or more of the eight ready use lockers could be used). <br> &nbsp; &nbsp; <br>Regarding the heavy foundations, 3.7 QF was a state of the art heavy AA gun, and according to sources typically weighed in at around 13 ton(ne)s for the gun and mountings, well over its design weight, and appreciably heavier and larger than the contemporary German 88mm dual purpose. <br>It should also be remembered, particularly in the late war configuration with an auto loader, and VT (proximity fused)projectiles (which eliminated the time taken for the fuse setting operation), continuously firing a high chamber pressure, heavy projectile at an elevation also added a downward force component to the foundation, so this had to be factored in as well; although much later in the War the Brits found when they had to quickly reposition their 3.7s to combat the V1 onslaught, a quickly built structure made of railway sleepers and rails (the&apos;Pile&apos; mounting)was perfectly satisfactory. <br>As an example of the downward force component, &nbsp;in Peter Cooke&apos;s &apos;Defending New Zealand&apos; &nbsp;he mentions that when the Endeans Building on the corner of Quay and Queen Sts was being considered for a single roof mounted 40mm Bofors, the downward force even for this modest weapon was found to be in the order of 6 ton(ne)s at 32 deg elevation and subsequently the roof had to be reinforced. <br> <br>&apos;Defending New Zealand&apos; also mentions two other HAA Auckland sites, whether &apos;proposed&apos; or actual isn&apos;t clear; <br> <br>1. A Glenfield site for a single 3.7 QF, the site was to be &apos;on property owned by Mr Wilson&apos;. The reproduced wartime sketch maps in this book are rudimentary and somewhat conflicting, in that one shows the proposed emplacement a little to the north of the Archers Road/Coronation Road intersection, and another shows the emplacement further along Coronation Road itself towards Sunnybrae Rd, but on the south side of Coronation. Some on line sources suggest that it may have been emplaced in either what is now the Birkdale Reserve, or what is now the Oruamo Reserve. <br> <br>2. A Greenhithe/Paremoremo site for 4 x 3.7, sited on the &apos;Paremoremo Ridge&apos;. Once again the contemporary sketch maps aren&apos;t detailed, but online sources I found posit the site was on the corner of Trig and Spedding roads. &nbsp; <br> <br>The Belmont site you mention, yes one of the emplacements was repurposed post war, Cooke says &apos;as a wine cellar&apos;. The Belmont site was also a dual purpose Coastal defence/Anti aircraft site.<br> <br>The Clarence St, Ponsonby site was also a brickworks at one stage, possibly what you see in the aerial may be an artefact of that era? <br>The Ponsonby Rugby &amp; League Clubs both used that area as playing fields pre-1976, I used to play for the Rugby Club back in the late 50s-early 60s, and I am pretty sure the derelict former cookhouse for the battery was still in existence at that time (behind the Blake/Dignon St clubrooms ).

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• EG

  @eggsbox · 3 days ago

  miss sliding down northhead on cardboard boxes as a kid. nowadays my back could never lol

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• MA

  @markbrooke1439 · 4 days ago (edited)

  The Belmont pit has a home built over it, if I remember correctly in the late eighties/early nineties.<br>It looked like the pit was utilized as a sort of basement in the design.<br>Half of the pit has a glass roof and the other half is covered by the house.

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• KI

  @kidscode3702 · 4 days ago

  Awesome vid as per!

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• BR

  @briannainthemaking · 4 days ago (edited)

  I grew up in Howick. Around the cliffs between Eastern Beach and Cockle Bay, there were a number of pillboxes. I don&apos;t know whether they were larger gun emplacements or set ups for machine guns. As a kid I remember playing in them. There may alos have been one at Music Point. What were they for, do you know?

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• MA

  @magillanz · 4 days ago

  What about those in the cliff face on Tamaki Drive below Bastion Point

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