Service from the Sea/ Nga Mahi No Te Moana
By Kelly Ana Morey
Penguin NZ
Beautifully illustrated with images of ships, weapons, navy personnel, and memorabilia, Service from the Sea is a comprehensive history of the Navy in New Zealand, starting with Captain James Cook’s arrival in1769 and ending with the configuration of our present day Royal New Zealand Navy. Service from the Sea captures the diverse nature of Naval service in New Zealand - from patrolling our EEZ to contributing to security in far away oceans; from search and rescue efforts to ceremonial duties; from exercises with Allied navies to survey and research work. Kelly Ana Morey also details the Navy involvement in the two World Wars, and discusses the HMNZS Canterbury as one of the two ships sent to Mururoa Atoll in 1973 to protest French nuclear testing. The book is published by Penguin Group (NZ), with support from the Royal New Zealand Navy and the Navy Museum. The launch of Service from the Sea took place on board the ship HMNZS Canterbury, when she was alongside at Devonport.
Kelly Ana Morey has worked at the Navy Museum as an oral historian since 2002. She is also the author of How to Read a Book and several fictional work, including On an Island, with Consequences Dire. She has been awarded a Montana first novel prize and the Janet Frame award for fiction.
The Devil’s Own War
By John Crawford (Ed)
Exisle Publishing
Edited by Defence Force historian John Crawford, The Devil’s Own War contains the diary of Brigadier-General Herbert Hart. The book includes fascinating descriptions of both combat and life behind the front lines during World War I. Brigadier-General Herbert Hart left New Zealand in 1914 as a Major in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force and returned in 1919 as a much decorated Brigadier General. Hart commanded the Wellington Battalion during the closing stages of the Gallipoli campaign, and then served as a battalion and brigade commander on the Western Front between 1916 and 1918.
John Crawford is the New Zealand Defence Force’s fourth official historian, a position he has held for more than 20 years. John became interested in Hart more than ten years ago after writing a biographical entry of him for the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. When asked how he approaches his writing John says, “humbly - I treat my sources with sensitivity and like a detective I weigh up all the available evidence before coming to any conclusions.”
Hobsonville: Portrait of a Seaplane Station
By Bee Dawson
Random House
Hobsonville: Portrait of a Seaplane Station is a meticulously researched history of New Zealand’s only seaplane station by social and oral historian Bee Dawson. Situated on the upper Waitemata harbour and purchased by the government in 1925, the RNZAF station at Hobsonville opened in 1928. It was the only station to have been built primarily for seaplanes. A defining characteristic for the air men and women and their spouses stationed at Hobsonville seems to have been its isolation, being nine miles from Auckland by boat and 25 miles by road. With a strong focus on the people that lived and worked there, Dawson’s book covers mess and barrack life, recreation, and the lifelong friendships forged through “a strong cooperative spirit - everyone minding everyone else’s offspring”. Much of the material for the book was derived from interviews with both military and civilian men and women who spent time at Hobsonville.
Bee Dawson is a social and oral historian employed by the Royal New Zealand Air Force. She has written three books on the RNZAF and is currently writing a history of gardening and a history of Wigram Air Base.