A CALL TO ARMS

Marlborough has a long and profound history of military service. It is a story told not just in the fading photographs of overseas campaigns, but right here in the concrete bunkers, memorial gates, and grassy airfields of our own backyard. From the early volunteer militia mustering during the New Zealand Wars to the sheer scale of the 12th (Nelson and Marlborough) Regiment deploying for the Great War, our local people have consistently stepped up when the call went out.

The cost of this service to our small region was immense. By 1928, the community of Blenheim had rallied to build the Seymour Square Clock Tower, a soaring stone monument erected to honour the 419 Marlborough residents who never made it back from the mud and wire of World War I. Even for those who did return, the battle was rarely over; many spent years recovering in the wards of Wairau Hospital, further tested by the devastating impacts of the 1918 influenza epidemic.

When the Second World War broke out, the home front transformed entirely. Woodbourne wasn't just a quiet strip of grass; it became a roaring RNZAF flying training facility under the Empire Air Training Scheme, pumping out thousands of pilots for the Pacific and European theatres. As the men left to fight, the women of Marlborough stepped into the breach. The Women's Land Service deployed across the Awatere Valley and beyond, driving tractors and managing flocks to ensure the agricultural boom kept Britain fed.

At the same time, the threat of invasion loomed large. We built massive six-inch gun emplacements out on Blumine Island in the Marlborough Sounds. Workers hauled materials up steep, scrubby hillsides to create a fortress anchorage intended for the US Navy - though, ironically, the American fleet never actually used it.

Today, this timeline traces that journey. We look at the mud, the machines, and the sheer grit of a community pulling together when it counted.