Most of the Corps and Regiments of the New Zealand Army observe a day significant to the respective Corps or Regiment

• The Royal New Zealand Artillery celebrates “Gunners Day” on 26 May, marking the formation of the Royal Regiment of Artillery in 1716.
• The Royal New Zealand Armoured Corps celebrates “Cambrai Day” on 20 November, marking the Battle of Cambrai in 1917, which saw large numbers of tanks first employed.
• The Royal New Zealand Corps of Transport celebrated “RNZCT Corps Day” on 12 May, which marked the formation of the New Zealand Army Service Corps in 1910.

For the Royal New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps (RNZAOC), the day of significance was 12 July and as “Corps Day” commemorated the day in 1947 when the New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps (NZAOC) was granted Royal Status.

The granting of Royal Status to the NZAOC was an acknowledgement of New Zealand’s Ordnance services from 1912 and the valuable contributions of the NZAOC during the Second World War.

1 May 1912 – New Zealand Ordnance Corps

For a military force to remain effective, the ability to maintain and repair firearms is an essential function. From the 1860’s Armourers and Arms Cleaners of New Zealand’s Defence Stores Department, in conjunction with civilian gunsmiths, kept New Zealand’s stock of weapons maintained and repaired. With the introduction of Bolt Action rifles and Maxim Machine Guns, the increasing complexity and quantity of weapons systems available to New Zealand’s Military Forces required the secondment of Armourer Sergeants from the United Kingdom’s Army Ordnance Corps in 1900.[1]  Arriving in New Zealand in 1901, AOC Armourer Sergeants Bertram Buckley and John Hunter immediately set to upskilling New Zealand’s military armourers.[2]  Providing further support to Buckley and Hunter was the secondment 2^nd Class Armourer Sergeant William Edward Luckman to New Zeeland from the AOC in 1903, who was appointed as the Chief Armourer of New Zealand’s Military Forces.

By 1911 Armourer Sergeant Major Luckman, having had his secondment extended several times, was well established as the Chief Armourer of New Zealand’s Military Forces. His Armourers provided inspection, maintenance, and repairs in Armourers workshops in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. Although on secondment to the New Zealand military, Luckman, Buckley, and Hunter were still Armourers in the AOC and required to maintain their professional proficiency. New Zealand Armourers trained under Luckman’s supervision required a trade structure and recognition of their ability in sync with the AOC. To provide this structure, General Order 118 was released on 1 May 1912, establishing the New Zealand Ordnance Corps (NZOC) and providing a career path from Apprentice to Armourer Sergeant Major for Armourers of the Defence Stores Department. [3]

1 April 1915 – Royal New Zealand Artillery, New Zealand Army Ordnance Section

While the Defence Stores Department were responsible for Small-Arms and associated ammunition, the Royal New Zealand Artillery was responsible for supplying and maintaining the various types of Ordnance (Artillery) and associated ammunition utilised by the Regiment of New Zealand Artillery, New Zealand Garrison Artillery and New Zealand Field Artillery.[4] This functional separation between the Defence Stores Department and Artillery had existed since the 1880s, remaining extant in 1915. While the Colonial; Ammunition Company factory at Mount Eden in Auckland allowed a measure of self-sufficiency in Small Arms Ammunition, the same could not be said for artillery ammunition. In 1911 The Artillery Stores Accountant, Lieutenant Robert George Vining Parker, produced a cost-benefit analysis of the virtues of locally made-up Artillery and imported artillery ammunition. It was estimated that by cleaning and refilling casings, inspecting and refurbishing propellant bags, and manufacturing new ones as required, savings of £3,333 (2022 NZD$633,605) could be made. To achieve these savings, a recommendation that a specialist Artillery Ordnance Corps Section be established to manufacture and modify ammunition was made. [5] Approved by the Commandant of the New Zealand Military Forces, General Alexander Godley, in mid-1914, formal authority was not granted until 1 March 1915, with New Zealand Defence Forces General Order 90 authorising the raising as a component of the Royal New Zealand Artillery, the New Zealand Army Ordnance Section with effect from 1 April 1915.[6] The NCO and six Gunners of the New Zealand Army Ordnance Section were based at Wellingtons Fort Balance.

1 February 1917 – New Zealand Army Ordnance Department and New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps

On 31 May 1917, regulations constituting the New Zealand Army Ordnance Department (NZAOD) and NZAOC, backdated to 1 February 1917, were approved and published in the New Zealand Gazette on 7 June 1917, concluding forty-eight years of service provided by the Defence Stores Department.[7]

From January 1917, the legacy Defence Stores Department remained in existence only in name as the Director of Equipment and Ordnance Stores, Major Thomas James McCristell, put the pieces together for the final establishment of New Zealand’s military Ordnance Services. Ordnance Procedures for the New Zealand Defence Forces drafted in 1916 were released on 23 January 1917, providing the New Zealand military with regulations concerning Ordnance Services.[8]  These procedures were a forward-looking document and can be considered the foundation of New Zealand’s military store accounting procedures.

In line with the British AOC organisation, the New Zealand Ordnance Services were to consist of the,

• Officers organised into the NZAOD as,
  • Directing Staff.
  • Executive Staff.
  • Inspectorial Staff.
• Warrant Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers and soldiers organised into the NZAOC,
  • Clerical and Stores Section.
  • Armourers Section.
  • Armament Artificers Section. [9]

Included in the establishment of the NZAOC were Artificers of the Royal New Zealand Artillery, the Artillery Ordnance Corps Section and the Armourers of the NZOC.

It must be noted that from 1917 the New Zealand Military now maintained two NZAOCs whose only relationship was in name and had no technical relationship. These were,

• The New Zealand Expeditionary Force NZAOC was formed as a unit of the NZEF in 1915 and was disestablished in 1921.[10] This NZAOC consisted of Officers, Warrant Officers, NCOs and Other Ranks.

27 June 1924 – Reconstitution of the New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps

On 3 July 1924, a notice published in the New Zealand Gazette revoked the regulations that established the NZAOD and NZAOC on 1 February 1917. Backdated to 27 June 1924, the NZAOD was reconstituted as part of the NZAOC, resulting in one Ordnance organisation serving as part of the New Zealand Permanent Forces.[11]

1 November 1940 – New Zealand Ordnance Corps

Unlike the New Zealand Army Service Corps, which consisted of the New Zealand Permanent Army Service Corps (NZPASC) as part of the Permanent Army and the NZASC as its Territorial Army component, the NZAOC did not maintain a Territorial Army component of part-time citizen-soldiers. With the onset of war in 1939 and the mobilisation of the Territorial Army in 1940, the Quartermaster General, Colonel Henry Esau Avery, decided that Light Aid Detachments were an Ordnance responsibility and established the NZOC as the NZAOC Component of Territorial Army as of 1 November 1940.[12]

As in the First World War, the 2NZEF also maintained Ordnance units. 2NZEF Order 221 of March 1941 set NZOC as the title of Ordnance in the NZEF.[13]  1942 saw the separation of maintenance and repair functions from the Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC) with the formation of the Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (EME) in the Brutish Army. The New Zealand Division followed suit and formed the New Zealand Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (NZEME) on 1 December 1942, placing repair and maintenance elements into the NZEME with the Ordnance Stores and Services functions remaining as the NZOC. However, as the NZEME was a 2NZEF element and not formed as part of New Zealand’s Force at home and in the Pacific, men posted to the NZEME were still listed as part of the NZOC.

The NZEF NZOC was disestablished along with the NZEF in 1946.

1 September 1946 – NZAOC Reorganisation

On 1 September 1946, the NZAOC underwent its first major post-war reorganisation with several significant changes reshaping the NZAOC, including,

• MT Workshops, Ordnance Workshops, and Armourers Workshops separated from the NZAOC to form the NZEME.[14]
• The Distinction between Regular and non-Regular soldiers in place across the army since 1909 was removed. The NZOC was disestablished, and its Officers and Soldiers integrated into the NZAOC.[15]

12 July 1947 – Designation as a Royal Corps

In recognition of the valuable services provided by New Zealand’s Military Forces during the Second World War, King George VI approved in 1947 the addition of the prefix “Royal” to be granted to the following Corps of the New Zealand Military Forces

• The New Zealand Armoured Corps
• The New Zealand Engineers
• The New Zealand Corps of Signals
• The New Zealand Infantry Corps
• The New Zealand Army Service Corps
• The New Zealand Army Medical Corps
• The New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps
• The New Zealand Electrical and Mechanical Engineers
• The New Zealand Army Dental Corps
• The New Zealand Chaplains Department.[16]

Taking effect from 12 July 1947, the Royal New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps, further embraced this honour by adopting 12 July as the RNZAOC Corps Day.

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Notes

[1] “Two armourer sergeants imported from England,” Archives New Zealand Item No R24403217  ( 1902).

[2] “Buckley, Bertram,” Personal File, Archives New Zealand (Wellington) 1900,.

[3] NZ Armourers, New Zealand Military Forces, General Order 118/12, (Wellington, 1 May 1912), 44-45. ; “Boyce, John – WWI 35094, WWII 4239 – Army,” Personal File, Archives New Zealand (Wellington) 1914.

[4] In 1914 the stocks of New Zealand Artillery consisted of a variety of obsolete, obsolescent and current field and fixed coast artillery pieces, including  6-Pounder Hotchkiss gun; QF 6 pounder Nordenfelt; QF 12 pounder 12 cwt gun; Ordnance QF 18-pounder; QF 4.5-inch howitzer; BL 6-inch Mk VII naval gun, 6-inch gun Mk V; BL 8 inch Mk VII naval gun.”(Capt J O’Sullivan Director of Stores – Return of Ordnance and Ammunition in New Zealand),” Archives New Zealand Item No R24750839  (14 March 1906), .; Peter Cooke, Defending New Zealand: Ramparts on the Sea 1840-1950s (Wellington, NZ: Defence of New Zealand Study Group, 2000, 2000), 833.

[5] Major J.S Bolton, A History of the Royal New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps (Trentham: RNZAOC, 1992), 54-56.

[6] Formation of Army Ordnance Corps Section, New Zealand Defence Forces, General Order 90, (Wellington, 1 April 1915).

[7] “New Zealand Army Ordnance Department and New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps Regulations,” New Zealand Gazette, No 95, June 7, 1917.

[8] organised into five sections covering all the Ordnance administrative and accounting required of the New Zealand Military:                Section 1 – Administration, Section 2 – Charge of Storehouses, Magazine and Workshops, Section 3 – Charge of Stores, Section 4 – Small-arms and machine guns, Section 5 Supply and Receipt of stores and clothing, Section 6 – Transmission and consignment of Stores, Section 7 – Stocktaking, survey and sales of stores, Section 8 – Receiving, issuing and Accounting “Regulations

[9] “New Zealand Army Ordnance Department and New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps Regulations,” New Zealand Gazette No 95 (Wellington), June 7 1917, 2292-93.

[10] Robert McKie, “Ordnance at the Front – The New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps in the NZEF, 1914 to1920,” The Volunteers: New Zealand Military Historical Society 46, no. 1 (2020): 7-24.

[11] “NZAOD and NZAOC,” New Zealand Gazette July 3 1924.

[12] “Formation of New Units, Changes in Designation, and Reorganization of Units of the Territorial Force. ,” New Zealand Gazette, No 127, 19 December 1940, http://www.nzlii.org/nz/other/nz_gazette/1940/127.pdf.

[13] Designation of Units – Ordnance Corps, 2NZEF Order 221, (March 1940).

[14] “Organisation – Policy and General – Royal New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps 1946-1984,” Archives New Zealand Item No R17311537  (1946).

[15] “Formation of Unit of the New Zealand Permanent Force,” New Zealand Gazette No 60, 29 August 1946, http://www.nzlii.org/nz/other/nz_gazette/1946/60.pdf.

[16] “Designation of Corps of New Zealand Military Forces altered and Title ” Royal ” added,” New Zealand Gazette No 39, 17 July 1947, http://www.nzlii.org/nz/other/nz_gazette/1947/39.pdf.