The Kāpiti US Marines Trust has launched an ambitious new project to conserve and enhance two important World War II United States Marine Corps heritage sites on the Kāpiti Coast. The project focuses on Camps Russell and Mackay, two former US Marine camps established near Paekākāriki during World War II when more than 15,000 American Marines lived and trained in the district.
The initiative builds on the success of the Camp Paekākāriki Memorial, opened in 2022, and forms part of a wider vision to create a connected heritage experience across the Kāpiti Coast.
With the aid of a Lotteries grant, the Trust has begun work on the first stage of the project, upgrading the U.S. Marines Memorial (also known as Camp Russell) in Queen Elizabeth Park.
While Camp Russell was the last of the three Paekākāriki Marines’ camps to be built, it was the first to host a memorial to the Marines WWII engagement in New Zealand.
Built by the Kapiti Coast District Council (KCDC) and the Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) and opened in 1992 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Marines encampment in Paekākāriki, it was named after New Zealand WW1 military strategist, Major General Sir Andrew Russell.
A Sailors’ Memorial was added to the site for the 70th Anniversary in 2012 and a restored U.S. Marines Hut, opened in 2015. The Memorial remains an important ceremonial and storytelling site for the district.
As part of the upgrade, infrastructure at the Memorial has been repaired, re-configured and painted to display new interpretive signage. The signage will align with the ‘look and feel’ of Camp Paekākāriki. QR-code enabled panels will connect visitors directly to online stories, photographs and archival film footage from the Trust’s extensive digital collection.
The new facades will display rare wartime photographs from the prestigious Norm Hatch Collection, recently digitised and purchased from archives in the United States with support from the U.S. Embassy in Wellington.
Subject to further funding other improvements will include resurfacing the memorial area, upgrading pathways, landscaping, replacing flagpoles and other signage in the memorial precinct.
When the Camp Russell site is finished, the Trust plans to re-develop aging signage at Camp Mackay in Whareroa Farm.
Trust Chair Major Larry Keim said the project aims to bring more context, history and reverence to the site.
“Effectively this is a memorial to over 1,000 men, sometimes known to locals as ‘our boys’ who trained on our land and lived among us. Only 72 hours after leaving New Zealand they were killed in the Battle of Tarawa".
“It is also a memorial to 10 U.S. Sailors who lost their lives in as failed training exercise off Whareroa Beach in June 1943.”