An article appeared in Friday’s edition of our local newspaper, which told of a secret WW2 tunnel entrance being discovered in Whangarei’s Harbour entrance.

It is no secret that I have a border-line obsession when it comes to secret WW2 tunnels, so you can imagine my elation when I was told about the article.

Apparently, WW2 researchers recently uncovered Defense Dept. papers which confirmed the existence of the long-rumored  tunnel under Whangarei’s extremely narrow and shallow harbour entrance.  The top-secret tunnel was  constructed to transport troops and equipment under the harbour in case of an invasion by Japanese forces.

“Obviously nobody had been down there for more than 60 years, as it was kept pretty hush-hush at the time and only a handful of people in Defence knew about it and were sworn to secrecy,” The researcher said.

When I read the article, and re-read it a few things came to mind (apart from obvious envisaging myself with bull-whip in hand and fedora on head spending my holiday in search of the said tunnel that is)…

• There are some defense fortifications in the area of the said tunnel entrance, so the story had some (albeit minute) credence.
• It sounded just too good to be true.
• Did technology exist in WW2 to excavate tunnels under bodies of water?
• How could a wartime feat of this size be kept secret and undiscovered for so long?
• The “big enough for a 4 lane road and cycle track” comment sound a bit too fishy.
• Friday April 1st.

Ah, yes… the article appeared on Friday, April first.

I then did two things in quick succession (although it being nearly midnight)… Firstly, I emailed the journalist with the following very brief 9-word email:

“This has got to be an April Fool’s stunt”

Secondly, I contacted a good (and like-minded) friend of mine who lived in close proximity to tunnel in question and told them to go looking (just in case ;-) .

I received a reply from the journalist today.

His reply verbatim:

“Look at the first lettter of each paragraph and translate the Maori researcher’s name to English and all will be revealed…”

Click here to read the article online.

Very very clever (and cruel).  I must admit… I desperately wanted this to be true.  Alas.  It just goes to show you can’t believe everything you read in the media.

Judging by the number of Facebook links to the story, it is creating quite a stir.  I wonder how many people have gone in search of the tunnel entrance already?  I wonder if stories like this are the stuff that urban legends are made of?

Oh well, at least the Albert Park tunnels aren’t imagined.