Blumine Island
| Blumine Island | ||
|---|---|---|
| Waters | Queen Charlotte Sound , Pacific | |
| Geographical location | 41 ° 10 ′ 29 " S , 174 ° 14 ′ 22" E | |
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| length | 4.2 km | |
| width | 2.5 km | |
Blumine Island (also, Pig Island , on Māori Oruawairua ) is a forested island in Queen Charlotte Sound , one of the Marlborough Sounds of New Zealand's South Island . The island is administered by the Department of Conservation .
The closest large island is the elongated island of Arapawa Island , which stretches around Blumine Island and the smaller Pickersgill Island from southwest to northeast . Between Blumine Island and Aarawa Island is the Patten Passage, which is only a few 100 m wide .
The island is under protection as the Blumine Island Scenic Reserve and is only accessible by boat. There is a simple campsite on it.
The island was reserved for a pilot and signal station in 1865, but was then used for sheep breeding. In 1912, 0.46 km² in the south of the island was declared a " Scenic Reserve ".
Gun batteries
During the Second World War, the island was administered by the military. As part of a 1941 concept for the defense of the Marlborough Sounds and the creation of an anchorage protected from the Japanese for the US Navy on Blumine Islands, two gun emplacements for 6-inch guns of the 84th Heavy Battery were built on it.
Construction was completed in mid-June 1942 and was hampered by the island's steep slopes and soft rock. Finally, a quay, two gun batteries with observation post and storage room, a warehouse for the crew and facilities for electricity and water supply were built from material brought in with two barges. The positions were ready to fire in September and were tested for the first time on March 9, 1943. A team of 2 officers and 20 men, from the end of 1943 a non-commissioned officer and 7 men were stationed on the island.
After the threat from the Japanese subsided after the Battle of Midway , the battery was withdrawn from active service in September 1943 and the cannons dismantled and taken to Auckland in October . Most of the facilities had been dismantled by December 1945. The gun emplacements were never actually used.
Web links
- Blumine Island / Oruawairua - History . Department of Conservation ,accessed August 8, 2014.
- Map 42 - Tory Channel to Blumine Island . (PDF 983 kB)Marlborough Regional Council, archived from the original onOctober 15, 2008; Retrieved on August 8, 2014(English, original website no longer available, link to the Wayback Machine of the Internet Archive from October 15, 2008).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Blumine Island / Oruawairua campsite . Department of Conservation , accessed January 14, 2015 .
- ↑ Blumine Island (Oruawairua) gun battery . (PDF 333 kB) Department of Conservation , accessed on August 8, 2014 (English).