In November 1942, Māori came under the authority of Industrial Man-power Emergency Regulations.

In April 1942, Te Waka Karaitiana stated “Last month a dispute broke out between the workers of the Auckland meat works and their employers.

[Image: Girls from Raukōkore Native School hanging up seaweed, 1941  [2, wh. 203]. Seaweed Wealth   Seaweed was essential to the war effort.

The photograph above shows the first parade of the Tuahiwi Home Guard on 19 December 1940.

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The Second World War seems to dominate our perceptions of the “war period”. Television programmes show us families reading the newspaper with apprehension or gathered around the radio to hear the latest news, eager men enlisting to fight, and the sweated brows of those left behind pulling together in common to defeat the enemy.

In mid 1940, the Germans was in the ascendancy and it seemed that Britain might fall.  Such was the sense of peril that King George VI called upon his subjects to pray together on Sunday, 26 May for deliverance.  This “day of national prayer” was met with great enthusiasm in Britain, and also in New Zealand where churches recorded large congregations for the day.

At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, New Zealand had a population of 1.6 million people, 90,000 of whom were Māori. Women were directed into employment alongside men. Women were particularly prominent in hospitality, the manufacturing industries, and professional occupations.