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Graphic: An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand 1966.

Warning

This information was published in 1966 in An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, edited by A. H. McLintock. It has not been corrected and will not be updated.

Up-to-date information can be found elsewhere in Te Ara.

DEFENCE – ARMED SERVICES: NAVY, ROYAL NEW ZEALAND

Contents


Organisation

The third phase came in 1913 when New Zealand decided to prepare her own naval organisation. The Naval Defence Act authorised the Government to establish naval forces which would pass to the control of the Admiralty in the event of war. A Naval Adviser was appointed and a light cruiser, HMS Philomel, was obtained as a training ship from the Royal Navy. The First World War intervened and it was not until 1921 that the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy was constituted. Its first ship, HMS Chatham, arrived the same year. New Zealand's naval organisation took shape slowly over the succeeding years. In 1939 the Division consisted of two cruisers, a minesweeping trawler, and a small base and dockyard. The Division had a strength of eight officers and 716 ratings (with 74 officers and 541 ratings on loan from the Royal Navy), and a Volunteer Reserve of 70 officers and 600 ratings.

The Second World War brought expansion to a 1945 peak of 10,649 officers and ratings. The Navy's cruisers fought from the River Plate in 1939 to the final operations against Japan in 1945. And minesweepers worked around the New Zealand coast (one was sunk sweeping mines in the Hauraki Gulf) and as far north as the forward areas in the Solomon Islands. In addition, close to 7,000 men served with the Royal Navy in every major battle area of the war, and in every type of unit from aircraft to submarines.


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