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Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 17, 2014 20:18:28 GMT 12
I had not realised till I saw this excellent aerial shot by V.C. Browne and Sons, from their Facebook page, just how enormous the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition complex was. This photo is before the exhibition closed and the RNZAF took over many of the buildings to form the Technical Training School (TTS) and other units there, as RNZAF Station Rongotai.  So does anyone know which parts of this complex became the RNZAF Station? Were the men and women stationed there billeted in the buildings too or did they live off Station? I know that the buildings were never meant to be permanent and were to come down after the exhibition period but other uses were found for them (much like the excellent Cloud at Auckland nowadays). So being temporary they were not well lined and the well known Rongotai wind whistled through all the cracks in the woodwork. In 1946 some jerk set part of the buildings on fire and destroyed several RNZAF instructional airframe aeroplanes including the Tomtit. But not all was destroyed and the RNZAF continued to use Rongotai till at least 1948 I believe, in some capacity. The TTS moved from there in 1944 to Nelson though. By the way the TTS at Rongotai trained fitters, riggers, drivers, vehicle mechanics, and I think armourers and machinists. Were other trades trained there too? |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 17, 2014 22:54:55 GMT 12
Compare it to the size of the nearby homes and it's absolutely massive. It's hard to believe a Government that was just coming out of the Great Depression would spend such money on something so huge that was only designed to last a year. Well, in those days anyway, these days it would be par for the course....
I wonder if the exhibitors had to pay to be there, to expose their products?
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Post by Peter Lewis on Jul 18, 2014 9:09:54 GMT 12
In 1946 some jerk set part of the buildings on fire and destroyed several RNZAF instructional airframe aeroplanes including the Tomtit. The Howard DGA-15P ZK-AHP of the Superior Oil Co was also a victim of the fire. |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Aug 29, 2016 19:05:23 GMT 12
I found these in the Evening Post from 5th of July 1940 showing the RNZAF renovations to Rongotai, and all the shelving being installed for what as to become No. 2 Stores Depot (later to move to RNZAF Station Mangaroa)  |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 4, 2017 23:46:38 GMT 12
Here's an article from the EVENING POST, 26 OCTOBER 1940
AIR FORCE TRAINING AT RONGOTAI
RONGOTAI, between the Moa Point hills and Onepu Road, and between the Seatoun tram route and Lyall Bay, is going through its third transformation in ten years. From wild sandhills and rough waste land it changed first to the beginning of this city's aerodrome, a small affair once regarded as unsuitable for commercial flying, and, nearer Onepu Road, to playing fields. But commercial flying came, and Rongotai became the busiest field in New Zealand, but still was placed outside the possibility of use for Air Force training. That came, too, in a small way, two years ago, in Air Force Reserve and Territorial Squadron training. All flying activity grew, and last year de Havillands opened their New Zealand aircraft factory there.
The Centennial Exhibition, for its six months, transformed the western half of the area. Now war necessity has transformed the Exhibition buildings to one of the largest training stations of the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Today there are almost a thousand men at this Rongotai Air Force Station, and it has not nearly finished growing. It is a change that has been made with so little fuss and notice that though the public know generally that Air Force training is going on at Rongotai they do not nearly appreciate the importance of this section of the Air Force training organisation.
Through this station are to pass all newcomers to the mechanical sections of the R.N.Z.A.F., riggers, fitters, and mechanics, to build up the ground staffs here, in Britain, or abroad, as the wide organisation of the Royal Air Force may require from this Dominion. So complicated is the Air Force organisation of distinct trades and professions that training must be divided among a number of specialising stations for only by that division and specialisation can instruction, practical work, and the study that backs all practical training be speeded to the pace demanded by war expansion.
Nine-tenths of the men in the Air Force stay on the ground — the administration staff, the aircraftmen (a splendidly wide and encompassing term), radio men, armourers, meteorological staff, specialists in a dozen or more fine arts, crafts, and professions, all distinct, but working to the one end of keeping the one-tenth, the pilots, observers, and air-gunners, aloft in aircraft built, maintained, and armed to the last degree of achievable efficiency.
Flying training is given at Wigram, Ohakea, and Woodbourne, and at elementary flying training schools before pilots and observers move on to these higher schools; one station concentrates upon armourers' work, another upon radio and communications; another on some one or more special sections of Air Force work.
No flying training is done at either of the two nearer Wellington stations, Levin and Rongotai, but the courses of instruction are none the less intensive and busy from reveille to lights out. Levin is the entrance station through which pass all entrants who will become flying personnel; Rongotai Station is the central station for the training of the riggers, fitters, and mechanics who see to the maintenance, overhaul, and repair of aircraft. When war expansion began last year, multiplying the great expansion earlier decided upon for the R.N.Z.A.F., the need of riggers, fitters, and mechanics became urgent and beyond the capacity of the established Air Force stations and of the instruction staff existing then. The first plan of training the very much larger number of these ground staff workers was to utilise the facilities of the four railway workshops, Otahuhu (Auckland), Eastern Hutt, Addington (Christchurch), and Hillside (Dunedin).
So more or less of a flying start could be made by selecting from the thousands who enlisted for the Air Force men who were expert in similar trades in civil life and topping off their skill with brief courses of special training at the workshops, but only by centralisation of training, of instructional staffs, and particularly of equipment were economy and best speed of training possible as the New Zealand Air Force grew, and as the scheme of training of ground staff widened to include men to go overseas.
It takes room to accommodate a thousand men, working in separate workshops with equipment that spreads itself handsomely, and until the Exhibition closed last May there was no building or group of buildings in the Dominion big enough to serve as a training station for these ground staff men and to house as well a central stores department for the southern part of the North Island (Hobsonville being the store for the northern part) and the South Island. The Exhibition buildings were ready at once to provide the huge floor space needed. It is not an ideal building by a long way—no ready adaptation can be — but the taking over of the Exhibition buildings was better business for the shareholders (dividend, if any, as yet not announced) and quite fair and faster business for the Government and the Air Force.
The station began to take some shape while the exhibitors were still moving out, round about July. There is still a long way to go, but the station is a going concern,, many months ahead of what could have been the earliest possible if buildings had had to be erected.
By far the greater part of the main building is being used. The British Pavilion has gone; the Australian Pavilion does not have any direct part in training, and is used at present as the R.N.Z.A.F. Band headquarters. Playland is just a memory of sixpences (a few) and shillings (a lot) gone in thrills, near-thrills, and just gone. The ornamental pools are torn out, flower beds and shrubberies are there in outline only, but shipshaping of the grounds can wait until the station is fully in its stride.
To minimise fire risk in a wholly wooden building fire breaks have been cut through, dividing the main building into three or four blocks, workshops, stores, quarters, and dormitories. The administrative building of the Exhibition's six months changed over, ready made and furnished, to the station headquarters.
The restaurant, cafeteria, and kitchens likewise, but a good deal of tearing down and interior replanning had to be done to divide and make workable the huge shell that was left when the exhibitors moved out. Maintenance will probably be heavy, for the buildings were designed for a life of a year or so at most, but they will see the job through.
The Technical Training School—the T.T.S.—is the heart of the station; its workshops, lecture rooms, inner store, and offices take up the whole of the former Transportation Court and part of the Dominion Court. The greater part of the General Exhibits Court is used for the central Air Force stores department and for the de Havilland store and for assembly work which has overflowed from the company's factory on the far side of the aerodrome. The Government Court is not yet cleared-of exhibits and fittings, but the cleaning up is well ahead. A wide fire break has been cut between it and the T.T.S. and it will later be used for the assembly and storage of aircraft pending their distribution to flying stations. Dormitories and quarters for officers and men take up most of the north-west sections of the main block.
The Technical Training School course under war conditions crowds into fifteen weeks' study and practice which in peace years cover a much longer time. The days are long and the highest standard of practical work and concentration during study periods are demanded, but the 600-odd young fellows who are going through the course now, and the more hundreds who will follow, are not boggling at what is asked of them: they went into the Air Force as the biggest job of work and the most interesting job of work in sight while the war is on, and they realise, too, that their part in the Air Force, in no way spectacular, is a basic essential of the whole organisation.
The technical trainees do not start at Rongotai, but go through a short course of Air Force introduction, discipline, drill, and so on, at Harewood, Christchurch, just as flying personnel pass through Levin before being passed out to the various flying training schools. There is little parade ground drill at Rongotai, for the working week, Monday to Friday, is packed with workshop and lecture-room business, like this:—
6 a.m., Reveille;
6.30, physical jerks;
7, breakfast;
7.50, parade, roll call, and inspection;
8.15, instruction, with a break at 10 o'clock;
12, lunch;
1 p.m., parade and instruction till 5.30, with a brief break at 3 o'clock;
5.30, dinner;
6.15 to 9.15, study period;
10.15 p.m., lights out.
The Air Force has a discipline of its own. The sergeant-major and the guard room have small part in it; it is a self-imposed discipline, for these chaps are completely interested in their work and on top of interest is the sure and certain knowledge that if they fall down, in practice or in theoretical work, out they go—there is a long waiting list. Not that they rank with the angels of this world; they are just keen enough about a full-time, fully worth-while job to get down, in fifteen weeks, to work and study that takes up to three years in peace expansion programmes.
The majority of these men have already received training in engineering and allied work before joining up, but they all start level at the Basic Training School working with standard tools, the file, the rule and square, gauges; common to every aircraftman's work, whether it will predominantly be upon engines, airframes, fuel tanks, and metal work, or instruments. They file, and they swot, for the old idea that it was good for the farmer's boy to hoe and keep on hoeing does not go down today; he not only hoes but he has to know why he hoes. The "why" in Air Force work goes into mathematics, physics, and a range of applied sciences that fill in a good part of the day in lectures sandwiched between exercises at the benches and the three hours' study course each evening.
Written and oral examinations check the progress made throughout the course. Of the 40-odd instructors some are R.A.F. men transferred to the R.N.Z.A.F. "for the duration"; others are New Zealand Air Force instructors, and others again are civil engineers who have joined up, in many cases at heavy business sacrifice.
The courses are always closely interrelated, for they all aim at the single end of highest aircraft efficiency. Flight mechanics are concerned with the maintenance of engines and instruments, in two courses, elementary and advanced. Flight riggers are concerned with airframes, inspection, maintenance, overhaul and repairs; fitters are advanced riggers, competent when their training is finished to tackle any job on the airframe and to pass aircraft for flight.
The workshops include the engine room, with a range of all types of engines in service craft in New Zealand, lathe and advanced tools section, a carpenters' shop, fabric room, metal trade shop, heat treatment section ("the blacksmith's shop"), carburettor and fuel room, instrument department, airframe departments, leading to the testing hangars where the several courses are brought together for the final checking of competency, to decide who shall figure in the ceremony of passing out. The widening of the scheme of technical training to provide ground staff for British and overseas stations, announced recently by the Minister of, Defence, will entail a great extension of engine and airframe departments and courses of training, for the range of aircraft and engines at the station will be brought up to the minute so that New Zealand-trained aircraftmen going overseas may jump right to it at stations in Britain, Canada, the East, or where it may be.
The first local passing out ceremony at Rongotai will take place on November 11, when airmen who have completed their course will take part in the brief, snappy, and effective ceremony by which the Air Force signifies the success of the trainees and wishes them good fortune in the next stage of work and study to which they are being posted. Many of these men will be back at Rongotai again after experience at one or other of the operating stations in the Dominion to continue in more advanced training.
It is because these 600 odd men in the T.T.S. have set themselves their own goal, to do a stiff job to the limit of their ability and application, that there are not at Rongotai disciplinarians of the old school. It is possible, probable indeed, that that does not suit Colonel Blimp and the civilian diehards who gather round him, but this new discipline of downright keenness for the job suits the Air Force—and this first 600.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 20, 2023 18:08:32 GMT 12
It is interesting to see that the Government attempted to fit out the Centennial Buildings for RNZAF use by recycling building materials and doing it cheaply. Not a bad idea bit that explains where the buildings were so cold and draughty I guess. From the NEW ZEALAND HERALD, 8 MAY 1940.
EXHIBITION BUILDINGS
[by TELEGRAPH — PRESS ASSOCIATION] WELLINGTON, Tuesday
Donations of material included in stalls at the Centennial Exhibition will be gladly accepted by the Government for use in the internal reconstruction of the buildings to make them suitable for defence purposes. Stallholders making such donations will be relieved of their liability to demolish their stalls. The Minister of Industries and Commerce, the Hon. D. G. Sullivan, stated this evening that exhibitors were under an obligation to remove their stalls in accordance with their agreements with the Exhibition Company.
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