There are many advantages that come with a natural shipping refuge as well-provisioned as Dunedin’s Otago Harbour. But the threat of war — particularly, in Dunedin’s case, from the Russian Scare in the 1880s and World War II in the 1940s — can unexpectedly turn those advantages on their head. The seriousness with which these threats were taken is clear from the scale of coastal defence infrastructure that remains in Otago today.
The Russian Scare was initiated in 1885. Emergency timber and sandbag emplacements were rapidly constructed at Taiaroa Head at the harbour entrance, and at Lawyers Head and Forbury Head on the south coast. These defences were later upgraded to concrete. Prior to 1900, additional batteries (clusters of defence and support buildings) were built at Ocean Beach and Harington Point, and the Taiaroa Head emplacement — the most strategically critical — was extended. Around a dozen gun emplacements and related defence facilities were built at Harington Point Battery during the late 1800s.
During World War I (1914-1918), New Zealand was relatively remote, defence technology was geographically constrained, and the threat to national security was low. As a consequence, only the defences at Taiaroa Head, Ocean Beach and Harington Point were revitalised for active service during this period, and they were all soon abandoned, once again, when the war was over.
The World War II years (1939-1945) were a different matter, with the defence infrastructure at Taiaroa Head and Harington Point both reactivated during this time. But it wasn’t until 1941 that construction of Otago’s additional coastal defence facilities got under way.
The first — Rerewahine Battery, just south of Taiaroa Head and now on private land — was initiated in 1941 and completed in early 1942. Facilities there included two gun emplacements and adjacent shelters, a magazine and barracks buildings at the main site, and searchlight emplacements, observation post, plotting room, engine room and shelter at the point.
Harington Point Battery was among the last facilities completed during the Russian Scare period, with construction under way from 1890 and the facility armed with a single 7-inch rifled muzzle loader (RML) gun. A second gun was subsequently transferred from St Clair and re-emplaced at Harington Point.
A rifled gun has rifling grooves inside the gun’s steel barrel. These are spiral grooves within the bore that spin and centre each shell when fired to ensure it flies nose-first at the target.
There is an extensive tunnel system at the Harington Point Battery, incorporating a magazine (ammunition store), living quarters for twenty soldiers, and an engine room. A searchlight emplacement was built down near the water’s edge between 1904 and 1906, along with an engine room and long access and cable tunnels connecting the two.
New emplacements were built during World War II, initially for 15-pound Quick Firing guns and later a pair of 6-pound Nordenfelt Quick Firing guns to prevent small vessels from entering the harbour. A new searchlight emplacement was constructed closer to the harbour entrance, and the old searchlight emplacement was re-occupied. New buildings were also erected in one of the old rifled muzzle loader gun pits.
Harington Point Battery was abandoned, again, before the end of the war.
A short distance from Harington Point on the city side, the main road passes through a pair of large concrete barriers. There are two large concrete cylinders nearby. These are the remains of a roadblock from the war. In the event of an invasion, the cylinders were to be rolled on to the road between the barriers to prevent enemy forces from attacking the main defence position.
Six gun batteries were installed at the Head during the thirty years through to 1905. These were equipped with eight guns, including three 64-pounder rifled muzzle loader guns, one 7-inch rifled muzzle loader gun, a 6-inch disappearing gun, and two batteries of quick firing anti-torpedo boat guns (one 6-pounder and two 12-pounders).
By 1900, over 100 people were living permanently at Taiaroa Head.
The gun emplacements at Taiaroa Head Battery are concrete, with the galleries made from stone. A musketry parapet (defensive wall) contained barracks, and stores provided defence against land-based attack. As it turned out, the parapet was too high for personnel to fire or sight weapons over, and so was lowered. Leftover stone was repurposed for tunnels for the disappearing gun installation.
Two rudimentary batteries were constructed near the harbour entrance in 1885, at the height of the Russian Scare. Channel Battery, an improvised timber and earthwork structure, housed two guns with a central magazine between them. It was upgraded to concrete in 1893 but was partially destroyed after the end of World War II.
Howlett Point Battery was also originally built from timber and upgraded to concrete in 1903. It housed a 64-pounder gun and the nearby cliff was shaved to provide an improved arc of fire. Work to build a second, 12-pounder, battery at Howlett Point was started in 1908. The guns for both batteries were installed in 1911, but were removed to Dunedin’s Central Battery to serve as training equipment in 1919. They were relocated to Auckland in 1921.
During World War II, Taiaroa Head’s sole searchlight was emplaced in a wooden structure with concrete base at Howlett Point. The engine to power the light was housed in its own wooden structure with concrete base. Howlett Point Battery remains intact but is inaccessible to the public.
Other important defence locations around Dunedin were constructed at Lawyers Head, Ocean Beach, Wharf Street and Forbury Head at St Clair. None of these fortifications remain visible in the landscape.
Lawyers Head Battery was constructed from earthworks and timber in 1885. Ocean Beach (later Central) Battery was built in 1886 — the only South Island structure constructed to a standard fort design by Engineer for Defences Lieutenant Colonel Edmond Meyer Tudor-Boddam (b. 1851). Tudor-Boddam was an Indian-born British Royal Artillery officer whose fort designs were simple concrete structures much less expensive and time-consuming than brick or stone masonry to construct. Concrete could also be made on location so long as suitable aggregate (small stones or equivalent) was available, thus also reducing or avoiding transport-related costs and delays. The battery was abandoned in the 1920s.
The Anti-Aircraft Battery at Wharf Street was Dunedin’s only anti-aircraft facility. It was constructed in 1942 to the Type-A design, with four emplacements and one command post, and was decommissioned in 1944.
The St Clair Battery at Forbury Head was built in 1885. It housed a 7-inch rifled muzzle loader gun plus, from 1888, a 6-pounder Nordenfeldt gun. An 8-inch disappearing gun was planned for the site but never eventuated.
On the north side of Otago Harbour, at Deborah Bay, a torpedo boat mole can still be seen and marks the site where a torpedo boat station was established in 1884.
Further north at Cape Wanbrow, the Oamaru Battery defence works were installed to protect the Port of Oamaru following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941. At its peak, the camp was staffed by two officers, 40 non-commissioned and enlisted personnel, and a medical support. Completed in 1942, the battery included a standard ‘Gloucester’ type gun emplacement complete with former US Navy 5-inch gun and supporting magazine, observation post and military camp. A rectangular gun mounting block was used instead of the more common round block to align with American Navy specifications.
The book
Take Me With You Too!: A Self-Drive Guide to Dunedin’s Engineering Heritage, by Karen Wrigglesworth, published by Cliff Creatives, RRP $48.
— Text and photography
© Karen Wrigglesworth, 2022
