RNZAF Station Weraroa was a
Royal New Zealand Air Force
The Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) ( mi, Te Tauaarangi o Aotearoa, "The Warriors of the Sky of New Zealand"; previously ', "War Party of the Blue") is the aerial service branch of the New Zealand Defence Force. It was formed from New Zeala ...
station located southeast of
Levin, 44 km southwest of
Palmerston North
Palmerston North (; mi, Te Papa-i-Oea, known colloquially as Palmy) is a city in the North Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Manawatū-Whanganui region. Located in the eastern Manawatu Plains, the city is near the north bank of the ...
,
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
. Originally established on Kimberley Rd in 1935 as a small local airstrip, it was commandeered as an air force base by the RNZAF at the outbreak of the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
in 1939.
Weraroa was made up of two distinct sections, namely the airfield on the northern end of the site, along with a ground training station located on the former site of a Government Research Farm.
Airmen knew the place by both names of Levin and Weraroa. Ground radar operators, pilots, and crew were trained there and although uniformed as RNZAF or
WAAF WAAF may refer to:
* w3af, (short for web application attack and audit framework), an open-source web application security scanner
* Women's Auxiliary Air Force, a British military service in World War II
** Waaf, a member of the service
* WAAF (AM ...
s they did not come under Air Force control.
World War II
Stationed Units
* Initial Training Wing – conducted basic military training for recruits. This unit was based in Levin from 1939 to February 1942.
* No. 1 (Bomber) Operational Training Unit trained pilots for the
Lockheed Hudson
The Lockheed Hudson is a light bomber and coastal reconnaissance aircraft built by the American Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. It was initially put into service by the Royal Air Force shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War and prim ...
reconnaissance and bomber aircraft.
*No. 10 (Bomber) Operational Training Unit – trained pilots for the Lockheed Hudson reconnaissance and bomber aircraft.
*Officers' School of Instruction – This moved back from
Omaka to
Levin when the
South Island
The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman ...
base had closed down in April 1944 when sufficient accommodation had become available
Postwar
In the late 1940s, the site became the Kimberley Colony for Mental Defectives, later renamed the Kimberley Hospital and Training Centre. It was closed in 2006.
Little remains of the current site today. The runways have been turned back into farmland, while the Speldhurst Country Estate has largely been developed over the training station. However, as of early 2021, several buildings remain on the East of the site.{{citation needed, date=February 2021
References
Royal New Zealand Air Force bases