The new Whangārei and District War Memorial was unveiled in Laurie Hall Park on 28 March 2015. The striking memorial incorporated Whangārei’s First World War memorial cenotaph, relocated from its original Rose Street site. The cenotaph had been restored with its 130 names freshly picked out in gold leaf. Behind it rose a stark wall of black marble inscribed with the names of an additional 470 men from the district who had died in the South African War, First World War, Second World War, Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan.
Sources: ‘Chapter Closes on City War Memorial’, Whangarei Leader, 28/10/2014, p. 7; ‘Date Set to Unveil War Memorial’, Whangarei Report, 29/1/2015, p. 6; ‘New War Memorial Unveiled’, Whangarei Report, 2/4/2015, p. 1.
Bruce Ringer, Auckland Libraries, 2015