Anzac feature: Lifelong friends made in navy

Zoe Ball joined the navy straight from school, stayed for three years and recommends the experience.

“I didn’t really know what to expect when I joined. But yes, I definitely would tell anyone to, because it was definitely a good experience,” she said speaking from her parents’ home in Te Kūiti.

Zoe joined the Royal New Zealand Navy from Te Kūiti High School.

“I left straight from school, so I was only 18 when I joined up, and then left when I was 21.”

There were quite a few people her own age in her intake. There were some older, but the majority around her own age.

“I had a cousin that was in the navy already and I kind of was a bit unsure on what I was wanting to do, and she recommended it highly and said that I would love it,” Zoe said.

“So I joined up and, and yeah, I did love it. I made heaps of cool lifelong friends for sure, and it was definitely a good experience for that time of my life. I was in for three years, but I’m still in the reserves.”

Reservists commit to a minimum of 20 days’ service a year, and are expected to maintain fitness levels and to pass academic and other requirements at the same level as full-time navy personnel.

Zoe started at the Devonport Naval Base HMNZS Philomel before being posted to HMNZS Canterbury, the disaster relief ship.

“I was on there for about just a little bit over a year and got to go around Australia,” she said.

Hobart, Gladstone and Sydney, she amended. HMNZS Canterbury took some troops over for a joint exercise, and the ship’s crew did their own exercises which involved Zoe’s own area of expertise as a hydrographic systems operator – surveying.

RNZN hydrographic systems operators help gather information about sea and land features for navigational charts and research, and for military purposes.

Tasks and duties can include operating and monitoring survey equipment, recording measurements of sea and land features, helping to set up and operate survey stations at sea and onshore, surveying the seabed in and around New Zealand coastal waters and the Pacific.

HMNZS Canterbury’s hydrographic crew had to determine how and where the ship could operate in its multi-role mission. The ship can deploy personnel, vehicles and cargo using conventional port infrastructure or directly ship-to-shore using landing craft, boats or helicopter airlift.

“So while I was on ship, we would go out and survey and pretty much figure out where our landing craft could bring up army vehicles to drive them onto the beaches. And then we worked alongside the navigators,” Zoe said.

“You can get qualifications, but I never got that far to go and get qualifications.”

Hydrographic systems operators also got to clean and maintain survey equipment, crew survey boats, keep survey records up to date, and work as part of the ship’s crew.

Mostly on ship it was a seaman’s role. Helping out the gunners with their maintenance, the ongoing rust chipping and painting around the ship, helping with dock lines when the ship was coming alongside or leaving a berth, and bridge watches – where Zoe got to steer the ship as well.

HMNZS Canterbury has a core crew of 78, plus 10 flight personnel, with room for four government agency people, seven army ship staff, 24 trainees and an embarked force of 243, a total of 366.

Canterbury can transport and deploy supporting military vehicles and equipment by landing craft, helicopter or ramps.

As well as being able to deploy personnel, vehicles and cargo with or without a conventional port, the ship has the ability to provide medical support to military or civilian operations from a self-contained hospital with surgical capability.

Canterbury is regularly deployed to the Pacific where she has provided sealift support for military exercises and humanitarian aid and disaster relief. She is also a regular visitor to the sub-Antarctic islands where she assists government agencies such as the Department of Conservation, MetService and GNS Science to conduct important scientific and research work.

Highlights of Zoe’s navy career include being part of the ceremonial guard in Wellington for Prince Harry and Megan’s visit in 2018.

“You had to put on all your best uniform stuff. Put on our ones and then we have our guns with us. That was down in Wellington, that was one of my highlights probably.”

She didn’t know if she was on TV, but they stopped right next to her.

“One of my other most proudest moments in the navy was being a part of the ceremony of 27 New Zealand servicemen and one child being returned from Malaysia and Singapore in August 2018,” she said.

Zoe was also involved with Operation Protect, which involved her working in the hotels during the Covid pandemic when travelers were having to isolate before being permitted to mingle with the New Zealand population.

Since coming ashore Zoe has been working as dispatch team leader at a plant nursery in Kihikihi, while she decides what to do next.

This piece was one of a four-part Anzac feature, focusing on the next generation to serve and protect. Others in the feature include the benefits Joel Bradley got out of his time in the army, Hannah Searancke's decision to leave university for the New Zealand Defence Force, and a look at the knitted poppies that have been donated for local services.