Cape Expedition Cape Expedition was the deliberately misleading name given to a secret five - year wartime program of establishing coastwatching stations on New Zealand ’ s more distant uninhabited subantarctic islands . The decision to do so was made by the New Zealand Government ’ s War Cabinet in December 1940 , with the program terminating at the end of the Pacific War in 1945 . History . It was suspected that the 6 , 000 - ton German merchant vessel " Erlangen " , which had sailed from Dunedin , supposedly for Australia , on 26 August 1939 – shortly before war had been declared in Europe – had , instead , supplemented her meagre coal reserves with timber from the Auckland Islands and headed for South America . The suspicion was later confirmed when the first coastwatchers in the program found areas of newly cut Southern Rata forest at Carnley Harbour on Auckland Island . Moreover , the loss of the ships SS " Holmwood " and MS " Rangitane " to German raiders in November 1940 gave rise to the suspicion that the raiders were using the subantarctic islands as bases . The Cape Expedition program was managed by the Public Works Department ' s Aerodrome Services Branch . The auxiliary schooner " Tagua " , carrying the first contingent of coastwatchers , sailed from Wellington on 5 March 1941 . The ship reached the Aucklands on 10 March and sheltered in the natural harbour of Port Ross before proceeding to Carnley Harbour , arriving there on the 13th . The stations . Three stations were established , at Ranui Cove in Port Ross at the northern end , and at Carnley Harbour at the southern end , of Auckland Island , and at Perseverance Harbour , Campbell Island . The stations were small , with four men ( increased to five in the second year ) at each . At first the coastwatchers were civilians , but all were attested as privates in the New Zealand Army from December 1942 . The stations consisted of portable prefabricated huts with double plywood walls and double windows . Each station also had a dinghy with an outboard motor . Because it was understood that resupplying them could be problematic and sporadic , the stations were provided with three years ' supply of food , clothing and other consumables . A larger vessel , the 57 - ton MV " Ranui " with a crew of four , was based at Waterfall Inlet in the Aucklands to serve as a link between the stations and , in an emergency , the outside world . Coastwatching . Early instructions to the coastwatchers emphasised concealment , with emergency radios set up in the scrub near each station . As well as their primary task of keeping their eyes on the sea for ships , the men ( no women were involved ) carried out surveys , took weather measurements , and made observations on the wildlife of the islands . Each station made radio contact daily with New Zealand , at staggered times to minimise the risk of their presence becoming known . The men were relieved yearly , though a few repeated their tours of duty ; two of them spent three years on the islands , with the naturalist J . H . Sorensen spending four years on Campbell Island . A popular recreational activity , which also supplied fresh meat to supplement the preserved food rations , was hunting the introduced species of wildlife on the islands . On Auckland Island there were wild pigs and , on Enderby Island , wild cattle and blue rabbits . On Campbell Island the feral sheep provided high quality lamb and mutton . Results . Although no enemy ships were sighted during the duration of the program , the secondary work carried out by the coastwatchers proved successful . From June 1942 the stations began reporting weather conditions daily ; the reports were so valuable that in the third year of the program trained meteorologists joined the relief parties . Surveyors , geologists and naturalists also became part of the program , during the fourth and fifth years of which a special party of three completed the survey of the island groups . When the coastwatchers were demobilised on 15 October 1945 and withdrawn , the Campbell Island station was retained as part of New Zealand ' s weather forecasting service . Many of the scientific results garnered through the work of the Cape Expedition ’ s coastwatchers were later published by the New Zealand Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in its " Cape Expedition Series " of bulletins .