1942: Musick Point

January 12, 2024

By AHNZ

Today in history, 12 January, 1942, the Labour 1.0 Prime Minister Peter Fraser officially opened Musick Memorial Radio Station.

“For 40 years most of Auckland’s aviation and maritime radio communications were routed through this site.”- memorial plate on the site

The station is named ‘Musick’ after Captain Edwin Musick who was chief pilot for Pan American World Airways. He was in the business of opening up the Pacific, including New Zealand, for international air travel. Australia had already been reached by Imperial Airways (Britain) so the ‘race’ to get to New Zealand was being run and the Americans were winning it.

Musick Point is symbolic of New Zealand drifting away from our British ‘Home’ and further into the sphere of America.

Fraser made sure to mention the new Lend-Lease arrangement  by which our new Superpower Big Brother country pumped us up with resources during World War 2 where Britain no longer could. The Americans had been working at this move since at least 1908 when they sent the Great White Fleet of ships. Ref. 1908: The Great White Fleet, AHNZ (2019)

Musick was a celebrity hero, attracting thousands to see his sea plane land in Auckland harbor in 1937 twice. However, on his way back early in the near year, on 11 January, 1938, around Samoa, his plane exploded killing all aboard. That set back the American take-over of our air connections for a couple of years. Busy with war by this point, Britain did not take advantage of the opportunity¹.

Musick and Musick point were the opening act of New Zealand being invaded by America later on in 1942.

“Imperial Airways had already connected Australia by air with Britain, leaving Auckland as a Pan American airway destination, a four-day trip from California.” – musickpointradio.org

“The part already played in the war by the United States, through the lease-lend procedure, was acknowledged by Mr. Fraser. He also paid a tribute to President Roosevelt in steering the course he had decided to follow. Japan’s ruthless and treacherous attack on Pearl Harbour was a misuse of air-power, but since this attack the United States and Britain were bound in stronger bonds than ever before.” – musickpointradio.org

“The fact that large 72-passenger flying-boats will shortly be in service on the air route across the Pacific to New Zealand was revealed yesterday by Captain Edwin C. Musick, commander of the Samoan Clipper, in an interview after his arrival in Auckland…Our arrival in Auckland marks the conclusion of our second flight across the South Pacific,” Captain Musick said. “The purpose of the flight over this important aerial trade route between the United States and New Zealand has been to make a final survey and to inspect ground facilities constructed at various points on the line since our first round trip survey flight last March. That important stage of our work is now finished.”- NZ Herald (1937,) Papers Past

:Between 1942-4 New Zealand’s warriors were fighting WW2 on the other side of the world. While our braves were away from home, tens of thousands of American servicemen flowed through our lands, our hospitality services, and our women. A social invasion, an economic invasion, a cultural invasion. All but a military invasion.” – 1943: Eleanor Roosevelt Aggravates Unrest, AHNZ

“The ‘invasion’ began in Auckland on 12 June 1942, when five transport ships carrying ‘doughboys’ of the US Army sailed into Waitematā Harbour. Two days later Marines (‘leathernecks’) landed in Wellington. They had arrived as a result of the outbreak of war in the Pacific six months before.” – American invasion, 1942–1944, NZ History.gov

The opening today of Musick Point put the stamp on a new New Zealand era, the Millennial Saeculum, which we are still living in today. Unlike the Colonial Saeculum before we had now become a cultural colony of the USA and dependent on it’s say-so for security and trade arrangements. New Zealand surrendered British Citizenship later that same decade. Ref. 1948: Extinguishing British Citizenship, AHNZ

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1 Fun to speculate that the American plane was sabotaged by a patriot seeking to keep The British Empire together. MI5 wouldn’t do anything that dirty but it must have crossed their mind, right?

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Image ref. AHNZ Archives (2018)

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