KĀPITI COAST US Marines Group – 1942-43
The Yanks are coming! Images supplied courtesy of Kāpiti US Marines Trust and US Embassy, Wellington.
Looking up at the world in early 1942, New Zealand braced for the worst. Singapore had fallen, Darwin had been bombed, and the threat of attack by Imperial Japan seemed real and imminent. And yet the invasion of the Kāpiti Coast that came in June was a welcome one – and for many Kiwis the friendly force of US marines who came as allies not conquerors would become part of the family.
Now, nearly eighty years after the arrival of the Marines, who would go on to see some of the bloodiest battles of the war, the Kapiti U.S. Marines Trust (marinenz.com) is keeping their memory – and the bonds built between them and New Zealand – alive and well. What’s more, they’ve created a great way to relive the past and carry it into the future at the same time. A I R C H AT H A M S . C O . N Z // W I N T E R 2 0 1 9
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