About this title.

The story of HMNZS Irirangi, the Naval Radio Station at Waiouru and of the people who served there in war and peace. This is the story of New Zealand’s most strategically important naval shore establishment and also, arguably, the most important radio station in the South Pacific. It is also the story of a naval community who were sent to the furthest point away from the sea in New Zealand under wartime conditions and the people who welcomed them into their midst. It is a story of hardships, and of happy times, of a will to do the job as well as possible under very stringent financial conditions. It is the story of a group of sailors and their families, well outside their natural environment, who learned to make their own amusements and learned to survive the harsh winters of the Central Plateau of the North Island. This is the story of HMNZS Irirangi, Waiouru, from it’s building to it’s final de-commissioning when technical developments made it no longer necessary for the station to operate as a fully manned establishment. Most of all, it is a story of servicemen and women who took great pride in being members of the Senior Service and in the uniform they wore as they went about their business among the tussock of Waiouru.

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About this Author.

David Davies is Welsh by birth and came to New Zealand 34 years ago. He joined the Royal Navy as a Boy Seaman at age fifteen and a half, served a total of 33 years in the British and New Zealand Navies retiring as a Lieutenant Commander. He married Pauline and they have two children. His book "Morse Code and Snowflakes" is a delightfully different naval history of HMNZS Irirangi, and of several generations of sailors and Wrens who found themselves unceremoniously sent to the furthest point possible from the sea amid the totally rural community of the Central North Island.

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