BLENHEIM
Perfectly-placed farm used for defence purposes during WW2
A hangar (centre building) saved at the end of WW2, now used for farm purposes.
While New Zealand had numerous air training bases throughout the country at the start of WW2, Marlborough can lay claim to a historic farm adjacent to the Woodbourne Air Force Base in Blenheim becoming a very strategic focus for Royal New Zealand Air Force training purposes. WORDS: Robyn Burgess and David Watt
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his year sees the Royal New Zealand Air Force celebrate 85 years of service, providing the opportunity to glance back at those early locations where they first established their new-found existence.
Charles Kingsford ‘Smithy’ Smith, watched by a large excited crowd gathered at the farm, got airborne for his return trip to Australia from New Zealand in the Southern Cross. This was the first flight from our shores to Australia.
Category 1 heritage listed Woodbourne Homestead and Historic Farm, on New Renwick Road in rural Blenheim, not only tells stories of early Pākeha settler history in Marlborough from the 1840s, but has also been associated with aviation in New Zealand since the 1920s, particularly with the establishment of a satellite air training and defence station at the start of WW2.
Kingsford Smith required a particularly long runway for his aircraft, so fences were removed between paddocks to allow more than 200 acres for take-off purposes. His flight from Woodbourne to Sydney took an incredible 22 hours 51 minutes, becoming a landmark moment in New Zealand aviation history.
In the 1920s, the Marlborough Aero Club, the first such flying club formed in New Zealand, started using part of the property as a flying field, and in October 1928 8
IMAGES: John Walsh collection
Heritage Quarterly
Three families have been involved with Woodbourne Farm since the 1840s — beginning with the Godfrey family up to 1907, the Fairhall family from 1907 to 1946, and the present owners, the Walsh family.
In 1939, the New Zealand Government leased the farm property from the Fairhalls to create a satellite air training and defence station. With the Japanese moving quickly to occupy the Philippines and Singapore, providing them with the opportunity to attack Australia from these vantage points, there was the very real threat that New Zealand would be the next target. In the area at the far north and northeast of the Fairhall property some 300 acres were established as RNZAF Base Woodbourne, a permanent military base that remains to the present day. The rest of the farm land was also occupied as a satellite Air Force training station for the war. Fairhall Base, as it was named, was first occupied by a newly established 16 Fighter Squadron, which had P40 Kittyhawk fighter-bombers and some armed up HŌTOKE • WINTER 2022
