Military History in Featherston

Moving on from Eketahuna to stop at Featherston for a couple of nights, we didn’t know that our next stop was originally named Burlings after an 1840s pioneer.  It was renamed Featherston in 1854 after Dr Isaac Featherston, Wellington’s first provincial superintendant.  Featherston may well be a sleepy little town these days, but it is full of military history.   During WW1 it was the site of New Zealand's largest military camp, with only a memorial to show for it after all these years.   The camp housed 4500 men in huts, and 3000 men in tents, known as Canvas Town.   Most of the men were gunners and signallers, but infantrymen came to the camp for their final eight weeks of training.  It was a self contained small town,  with shops, a post office, and 16 dining halls.   The camp served  for a “Hardening Up” process and departure point prior to the long Rimutaka route march over the hill and final embarkation from Wellington.

Featherston Military Camp during WW1

Featherston Military Camp Memorial

The magnificent Anzac Hall on the corner of Birdwood and Bell Streets was built in 1916 after public fundraising  as a place to entertain the troops in training. The building included reading and writing rooms, billiard tables, a large refreshment bar, and hot and cold baths.  The hall was donated to the Featherston Borough Council in 1919 as a memorial to fallen soldiers of the Wairarapa.

Anzac Hall, built for the use of the soldiers in Featherston Camp

Featherson boasts a very striking War Memorial in the town centre to honour soldiers killed in the Great War.  The cupola and fence surrounding the memorial were made from stones brought from the nearby Tauherenikau River.  The use of stones is symbolic of the first fatigues of new recruits at the Featherston Military Camp, picking up stones. 

Featherston War Memorial

At the request of the United States, the camp was re-established as a P.O.W. camp in September 1942.  About 800 prisoners from the Battle of Guadalcanal were housed there, many of them conscripts.  The early prisoners  spent their days making furniture, operating a jute mill, and working on farms and a piggery.  The camp's most infamous event was on 25 February 1943 during a sit-in of 240 new prisoners, who refused to work. The exact sequence of events is not known, but Lieutenant Adachi was shot and wounded by the camp adjutant. This led to the prisoners either charging or appearing to charge the guards, who opened fire with rifles and sub-machine guns. Thirty seconds later 31 prisoners were dead, with another 17 dying later of their injuries, and 74 wounded. On the New Zealand side, a ricochet from a burst of the gunfire killed Private Walter Pelvin and six others were wounded. A military court of enquiry exonerated New Zealand. It blamed the incident on cultural differences that were made worse by the language barrier, but also accused two Japanese officers of inciting their fellow prisoners.  Among the issues was that the Japanese did not know that under the Third Geneva Convention compulsory work was allowed. The event remains a testimony to cultural misunderstanding for the Featherston community today. (Don’t mention the War).   After the end of the war the prisoners were worried that they could be attacked in New Zealand over the conditions of Japanese prisoner of war camps. The prisoners embarked on 30 December 1945, travelling to Japan on two large American LSTs (tank landing ships).

These days the memorial is a peaceful place, planted with a grove of cherry trees and memorial seats are dotted around which were donated by the New Zealand RSA,  the Japanese Embassy, and Featherston’s “Twin City”, Messines.