Heritage et AL

70 years ago the Patumahoe State Gardens were established in the Franklin District. Bountiful supplies of vegetables were to be grown there for the remainder of the war years. From the early to mid 1940s parts of the NZ countryside were acquisitioned by the Department of Agriculture and used for the purpose of increasing large scale vegetable production. The department implemented its Services Vegetable Production Scheme in 1942. These farms were established to address the need to feed US troops stationed here during WW2. The gardens became known as 'State Farms' or 'Government Gardens'. Within six months the NZ government had established 7 state farms totalling 663 acres; the total later grew to 27 farms covering 5,200 acres. A significant number of these were based in the South Auckland region from Mangere to Pukekohe and Waiuku. By the end of 1945 all of state farms had closed down. Ref: AWNS-19431222-15-1, American and NZ soldiers at the wedding and harvesting...

We have in the Central City Library an old but most gorgeous book that I would love to have a copy of. 'Pilots of Fighter Command ' (1942) is a book of 64 charcoal portraits of fighter pilots drawn by Cuthbert Orde , an artist and a pilot in the First World War. Over a one year period in 1941, Orde spent time living on RAF bases to draw pictures of the men who would become known as the “Few” -  the airmen of the RAF who flew in the Battle of Britain . The term had come from Winston Churchill’s phrase "Never, in the field of human conflict, was so much owed by so many to so few" and as Orde wrote: “I went off to find myself in the middle of  a world that was the talk of the world.” As well as the portraits themselves, the book includes Orde's thoughts on the pilots and gives an account of life on a fighter station during the Battle of Britain – “ordinary chaps doing an extraordinary thing.” Ref: Bendan 'Paddy' Finucane, from 'Pilots of Fighter ...

The International Commission for the International Tracing Service (ICITS)  is handing over management of the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen to the German Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv) after over 50 years. The ICITS will continue to give technical expertise, helping the ITS serve the victims of Nazi persecution and their families. Ref: T7129, North Auckland Research Centre The archives cover civilians detained in Nazi concentration or labour camps and people who had to flee their homes because of World War II. They house over 50 million card files relating to more than 17.5 million civilians persecuted by the Nazis.

Sixty years ago, the 2nd Battle of El Alamein , the battle that turned the war towards the allies' favour, was fought in North Africa. Recent commemorations saw New Zealand veterans invited to the El Alamein Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery in Egypt to remember New Zealand and allied forces; fortunately many of their stories now live on in the written and oral histories. George Mackay from Westport fought at Tripoli and in The Desert Rd  recounts the thoughts that go through one’s mind leading up to battle. “You don’t know what to expect.. . It’s an uncanny moment, zero hour. Everything’s going through your mind, whether you’ll survive, whether you’re going to get killed, blown up or shot at, or anything like that. What’s going to happen? What’s it going to be like? You don’t know. All those things are going through your mind and then finally its zero hour and the shelling starts. Then you’re waiting for the Germans to retaliate with their shells.  That’s what it’s all ab...