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Wrights Hill Fortress
Wrights Hill Fortress is a counter bombardment coastal artillery battery in the Karori suburb of Wellington, New Zealand. It was built between 1942 and 1944 and is predominantly underground, with numerous tunnels linking the war shelters, gun emplacements, magazines, plotting rooms and engine room - which are, at some points, over 50 feet underground. The fort was intended to house three 9.2" Mk. XV guns, but only two guns were installed and the fort never saw action. After World War II was over, fort commanders fired both of the guns (Gun number one in 1946 and the second in 1947). The fall of the shot was observed in Cook Strait and these test firings (three rounds on each occasion) were deemed a success. In 1960, somewhat ironically, both of the guns were sold to the Japanese as scrap metal, the very nation Wrights Hill Fortress was constructed to defend Wellington against. The design of the fort is similar to the Stony Batter and Whangaparaoa 9.2" Mk. XV batteries, near Auc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wellington
Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by metro area, and is the administrative centre of the Wellington Region. It is the world's southernmost capital of a sovereign state. Wellington features a temperate maritime climate, and is the world's windiest city by average wind speed. Legends recount that Kupe discovered and explored the region in about the 10th century, with initial settlement by Māori iwi such as Rangitāne and Muaūpoko. The disruptions of the Musket Wars led to them being overwhelmed by northern iwi such as Te Āti Awa by the early 19th century. Wellington's current form was originally designed by Captain William Mein Smith, the first Surveyor General for Edward Wakefield's New Zealand Company, in 1840. The Wellington urban area, which only includes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coastal Fortifications Of New Zealand
Coastal fortifications were constructed in New Zealand in two main waves: around 1885 as a response to fears of an attack by Russia, and in World War II due to fears of invasion by the Japanese. The fortifications were built from British designs adapted to New Zealand conditions. They typically included gun emplacements, pill boxes, fire control or observation posts, camouflage strategies, underground bunkers, sometimes with interconnected tunnels, containing magazines, supply and plotting rooms and protected engine rooms supplying power to the gun turrets and searchlights. There were also kitchens, barracks, and officer and NCO quarters. The "Russian-scare" forts of 1885 In the 1870s New Zealand was a young self-governing colony of Britain. It had developed no coastal defences of any consequence and was becoming increasingly sensitive to how vulnerable its harbours were to attack by a hostile power or opportunistic raider. Fears of invasion by the expanding Russian Empire wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruston (engine Builder)
Ruston & Hornsby was an industrial equipment manufacturer in Lincoln, England founded in 1918. The company is best known as a manufacturer of narrow and standard gauge diesel locomotives and also of steam shovels. Other products included cars, steam locomotives and a range of internal combustion engines, and later gas turbines. It is now a subsidiary of Siemens. Background Proctor & Burton was established in 1840, operating as millwrights and engineers. It became Ruston, Proctor and Company in 1857 when Joseph Ruston joined them, acquiring limited liability status in 1899. From 1866 it built a number of four and six-coupled tank locomotives, one of which was sent to the Paris Exhibition in 1867. In 1868 it built five 0-6-0 tank engines for the Great Eastern Railway to the design of Samuel Waite Johnson. Three of these were converted to crane tanks, two of which lasted until 1952, aged eighty-four. Among the company's output were sixteen for Argentina and some for T. A. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heritage New Zealand
Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga (initially the National Historic Places Trust and then, from 1963 to 2014, the New Zealand Historic Places Trust) ( mi, Pouhere Taonga) is a Crown entity with a membership of around 20,000 people that advocates for the protection of ancestral sites and heritage buildings in New Zealand. It was set up through the Historic Places Act 1954 with a mission to "...promote the identification, protection, preservation and conservation of the historical and cultural heritage of New Zealand" and is an autonomous Crown entity. Its current enabling legislation is the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act 2014. History Charles Bathurst, 1st Viscount Bledisloe gifted the site where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed to the nation in 1932. The subsequent administration through the Waitangi Trust is sometimes seen as the beginning of formal heritage protection in New Zealand. Public discussion about heritage protection occurred in 1940 in conjunction with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lions Clubs International
The International Association of Lions Clubs, more commonly known as Lions Clubs International, is an international non-political service organization established originally in 1916 in Chicago, Illinois, by Melvin Jones. It is now headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois. , it had over 46,000 local clubs and more than 1.4 million members (including the youth wing Leo) in more than 200 countries and geographic areas around the world. Introduction Lions Clubs International was founded in Evansville, Indiana, on 24 October 1916 by William Perry Woods. It subsequently evolved as an international service organization under the guidance and supervision of its secretary, Melvin Jones. In 1917, Jones was a 38-year-old Chicago business leader who told members of his local business club they should reach beyond business issues and address the betterment of their communities and the world. Jones' group, the Business Circle of Chicago, agreed. After contacting similar groups around the U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tunnel In Wrights Hill Fortress
A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube construction techniques rather than traditional tunnel boring methods. A tunnel may be for foot or vehicular road traffic, for rail traffic, or for a canal. The central portions of a rapid transit network are usually in the tunnel. Some tunnels are used as sewers or aqueducts to supply water for consumption or for hydroelectric stations. Utility tunnels are used for routing steam, chilled water, electrical power or telecommunication cables, as well as connecting buildings for convenient passage of people and equipment. Secret tunnels are built for military purposes, or by civilians for smuggling of weapons, contraband, or people. Special tunnels, such as wildlife crossings, are built to allow wildlife to cross human-made barriers safely. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spark New Zealand
Spark New Zealand Limited is a New Zealand telecommunications company providing fixed-line telephone services, a mobile phone network, internet access services, and (through its Spark Digital division) ICT services to businesses. It was known as Telecom New Zealand until it was rebranded with its current name in 2014. It has operated as a publicly traded company since 1990. Spark is the second-largest wireless carrier in New Zealand, with 2.3 million subscribers as of July 2017. Spark is one of the largest companies by value on the New Zealand Exchange (NZX). As of 2007, it was the 39th largest telecommunications company in the OECD. The company is part of New Zealand Telecommunications Forum. Telecom New Zealand was formed in 1987 from a division of the New Zealand Post Office, and privatised in 1990. In 2008, Telecom was operationally separated into three divisions under local loop unbundling initiatives by central government – Telecom Retail; Telecom Wholesale; a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Zealand Post Office
The New Zealand Post Office (NZPO) was a government department of New Zealand until 1987. It was previously (from 1881 to 1959) named the New Zealand Post and Telegraph Department (NZ P&T). As a government department, the New Zealand Post Office had as its political head the Postmaster General, who was a member of Cabinet, and, when it was a separate department, the Minister of Telegraphs. The NZPO was similar to the British Post Office or ''GPO'', and so was similar to European ''PTT'' or postal, telegraph and telephone services, which were government monopolies. History 19th century Official postal services started in New Zealand after Captain William Hobson arrived in the Bay of Islands and took up his role as Lieutenant-Governor. Hobson appointed William Clayton Hayes as Clerk to the Bench of Magistrates and Postmaster and the first official post office was opened at Kororareka, now called Russell. Hayes holds the distinction of being New Zealand's first civil servant to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Civil Aviation Authority Of New Zealand
The Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand (CAA; Māori: ''Te Mana Rererangi Tūmatanui o Aotearoa'') is the government agency tasked with establishing civil aviation safety and security standards in New Zealand. The CAA also monitors adherence to those standards and is responsible for enforcement proceedings. The authority "investigates and reviews accident and incident investigations in its capacity as the responsible safety and security authority, subject to the limitations set out in section 14(3) of the Transport Accident Investigation Commission Act 1990" (TAIC). CAA is also responsible for managing civilian pilot, aerodrome and aircraft licensing in New Zealand. The CAA has its headquarters in the Asteron Centre in Featherston Street, Wellington. Ministers of Civil Aviation Before a Civil Aviation portfolio was created in 1946, ministerial authority had rested with the Minister of Defence. The position of Minister for Civil Aviation was abolished just before the 1990 e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cook Strait
Cook Strait ( mi, Te Moana-o-Raukawa) separates the North and South Islands of New Zealand. The strait connects the Tasman Sea on the northwest with the South Pacific Ocean on the southeast. It is wide at its narrowest point,McLintock, A H, Ed. (1966''Cook Strait''from An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, updated 18-Sep-2007. Note: This is the distance between the North Island and Arapaoa Island; some sources give a slightly larger reading of around , that between the North Island and the South Island. and is considered one of the most dangerous and unpredictable waters in the world. Regular ferry services run across the strait between Picton in the Marlborough Sounds and Wellington. The strait is named after James Cook, the first European commander to sail through it, in 1770. In Māori it is named ''Te Moana-o-Raukawa'', which means ''The Sea of Raukawa''. Raukawa is a type of woody shrub native to New Zealand. History Approximately 18,000 years ago during the Last G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pacific War
The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the Theater (warfare), theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast Pacific Ocean theatre of World War II, Pacific Ocean theater, the South West Pacific theatre of World War II, South West Pacific theater, the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the Soviet–Japanese War. The Second Sino-Japanese War between the Empire of Japan and the Republic of China (1912–49), Republic of China had been in progress since 7 July 1937, with hostilities dating back as far as 19 September 1931 with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. However, it is more widely accepted that the Pacific War itself began on 7 December (8 December Japanese time) 1941, when the Japanese simultaneously Japanese invasion of Thailand, invaded Thailand, attacked the British colonies of Malayan Campaign, Malaya, Battle of Singapore, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
3rd Division (New Zealand)
The 3rd New Zealand Division was a division of the New Zealand Military Forces. Formed in 1942, it saw action against the Japanese in the Pacific Ocean Areas during the Second World War. The division saw action in the Solomon Islands campaign during 1943–1944, during which it undertook landings on Vella Lavella, the Treasury Islands and the Green Islands. Due to manpower shortages, for most of its existence the division consisted of only two infantry brigades in addition to support personnel, with its third brigade being disbanded shortly after formation. In 1944, manpower shortages in the New Zealand economy became acute led to the disbandment of the division. The majority of its manpower was returned to civilian employment, although around 4,000 men were sent to Italy to reinforce the 2nd Division, seeing further action before the end of the war in May 1945. History Formation The 3rd New Zealand Division began forming from New Zealand Military Forces units in Fiji in May ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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