Riding off protests in the late ‘60s against the Vietnam War, the ‘70s and ‘80s marked a wave of social and political consciousness, using protest as a means for voicing collective concerns. The protest movements of this time, in particular the nuclear-free movement and the 1981 Springbok Tour, have been itched into Aotearoa’s collective history and identity. Anglican’s took part (and were, at times, central) in these protest movements.
One such protest movement was the Peace Squadron – a flotilla of small, private boats and vessels that would seek to blockade the arrival of nuclear warships and submarines from the United States into Aotearoa. The idea was inspired by similar protests by Quakers in the United States who blockaded a ship exporting arms to Pakistan in 1971. The Rev’d George Armstrong brought this idea to a group of students and staff at St John’s Theological College who had already written telegrams to Prime Minister Rowling requesting that the nuclear warship visits cease. In October 1975, the first Peace Squadron set sail beginning with a Peace Eucharist followed by a procession led by children to Mission Bay in Tāmaki Makaurau where a Blessing of the Water was held.1
Subsequent Peace Squadrons got bigger, more popular, and more theatrical. In October 1976, the Peace Squadron comprising of 150 boats, canoes and surfboards protested the arrival of the USS Long Beach. Though the Long Beach made it to port, the Peace Squadron brought the ship to a stop twice on its way into the Harbour. The next Squadron in January 1978 protested the arrival of the USS Pintado nuclear submarine. This time the Peace Squadron of 100 or so boats was expected by New Zealand forces who provided the Pintado with an escort: the HMNZS Waikato and helicopters flying low at mast-level. Perhaps the climax for the Peace Squadron was with the arrival of the USS Haddo nuclear submarine in January 1979. This time, the Peace Squadron of 200 vessels waited for the Haddo to enter the inner Auckland Harbour, in part to reduce the risk of high-speed charges and low-flying helicopters by New Zealand police and navy but with the added effect of giving those on the shore a better view of the spectacle. The Peace Squadron held-up the Haddo in the Harbour channel for a time, and at one point a protestor jumped onto the hull of the Haddo.2 It is images like this, as well as the juxtaposition of small boats and canoes alongside nuclear warships and submarines and of New Zealand forces attempting to get local protestors out of the way of American submarines that stand out in the mind and would have been provocative at the time. Throughout this time, the Rev’d George Armstrong remained the spokesperson for the Peace Squadron, carrying through its Anglican roots, though it became something much bigger that helped to move public opinion in favour of a nuclear-free New Zealand.3
In another form of political activism, some Anglican churches, including St Matthew-in-the-City in central Tāmaki Makaurau, declared themselves Nuclear Weapons Free Zones to publicly declare in a simple yet effective way their support for the nuclear-free movement.4
Quotes from the Rev’d George Armstrong:
"After much over-speaking by churches and religious people, we recognised that it was now time for some straightforward doing: to do the truth rather than just speak it."5
“I felt 'at last, I had a real Church. At last, I had a real crowd of people who were practicing what they preached.'... quite a few of the Peace Squadron people looked at me twice and said 'oh, maybe there's something in this Christianity that I've abandoned that I missed.’”6
"It wasn't me [who had the idea], it was those people [the Quakers in the United States] who did that action. And it wasn't them either because they got the idea from the Bible - they got the idea from their Christianity. So,... if you say 'where did the Peace Squadron come from?,' you could say 'pretty directly through Christianity, in a way.'"7
Bibliography
Armstrong, George. "The Peace Squadron Revisited." In Pursuing Peace in Godzone: Christianity and the Peace Tradition in New Zealand, edited by Geoffrey Troughton and Philip Fountain, 56-72. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2018.
Burford, Lyndon, and Lucy Stewart. Stories of Peace - Rev. George Armstrong and the Peace Squadron. From Vimeo. Video, 10:07. Posted by "Stories of Peace NZ," July 17, 2018. https://vimeo.com/280459125.
Disarmament & Security Centre Aotearoa / New Zealand. "The Peace Squadrons." Accessed March 8, 2022. http://www.disarmsecure.org/nuclear-free-aotearoa-nz-resources/the-peace-squadrons.
Gregory, Justin. "The Peace Squadron." Eyewitness, October 26, 2016. Podcast, website, 12:58. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/eyewitness/audio/201820402/the-peace-squadron.
Guy, Laurie. Shaping Godzone: Public Issues and Church Voices in New Zealand 1840-2000. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2011.
Matheson, Peter. “Revolution at the Kitchen Tables: Churches and the 1980s Peace Movement.” In Pursuing Peace in Godzone: Christianity and the Peace Tradition in New Zealand, edited by Geoffrey Troughton and Philip Fountain, 73-85. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2018.
Newnham, Tom. Peace Squadron: The Sharp End of Nuclear Protest in New Zealand. Dominion Road, Auckland: Graphic Publications, 1986.
Victoria University of Wellington. Pursuing Peace in Godzone - The Peace Squadron Revisited. From YouTube. Video, 6:06. Posted by "Victoria University of Wellington," March 16, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_cQ3Ybf2Qk.