Whenuapai was one of the two big stations begun in 1937 when New Zealand created an independent air force; NZHistory names it alongside Ohakea, and English Wikipedia says the hangars were built in 1939 for Vickers Wellington bombers. As at Ohakea, the bombers never came: they went to Britain in 1939 with their crews. Whenuapai instead became a wartime training and transport base, and on 1 June 1943 No. 40 Transport Squadron was formed there with Douglas C-47s and Lockheed Lodestars.

After the war the air force shared its runway with civil aviation. Wikipedia records that Whenuapai was Auckland’s international airport from 1945 to 1965, when the new airport at Māngere replaced it. The royal tour of 1953–1954 made a ceremonial stop: the official itinerary lists the presentation of a Colour at RNZAF Station Whenuapai on the morning of 28 December 1953. In June 1964 the Beatles landed at what NZHistory calls Auckland’s Whenuapai Airport, where police hurried them through the crash gates away from 300 waiting fans.

1965 remade the base. The first three C-130H Hercules, bought in 1963 with spares for US$13.5 million, arrived at Whenuapai in April 1965, and by July they were carrying New Zealand troops to Vietnam, the Air Force Museum writes; two more followed in January 1969. On 27 October 1965 NZ7003 made the first flight to Antarctica by an RNZAF aircraft. The same year No. 5 Squadron began moving to Whenuapai from Laucala Bay in Fiji to fly the P-3 Orion, and the station was joined administratively with Hobsonville to form RNZAF Base Auckland.

The Hercules served for 60 years. When the fleet retired on 31 January 2025 RNZ put its total at 155,000 flying hours and 100,000 landings; four aircraft went to Woodbourne and NZ7001 was flown to the Air Force Museum at Wigram. Their successors are five C-130J-30s delivered in 2024. In August 2025 a US Air Force C-5M Super Galaxy landed at Whenuapai with the parts of a C-130J simulator, drawing at least 150 spectators, RNZ reported.

Whenuapai’s Orions and Hercules were the air force’s long arm over the sea and the ice. After Air New Zealand Flight 901 struck Mount Erebus on 28 November 1979, No. 40 Squadron flew to Antarctica between 29 November and 12 December in support of the recovery, according to Wikipedia. NZHistory records that the first flight carrying bodies reached Whenuapai on 6 December 1979; pathology teams examined 114 bodies by the time a second flight arrived on 11 December, and in the end 213 of the 257 victims were identified.

On 10 July 1985 the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior was bombed in Auckland harbour and the photographer Fernando Pereira was killed. On 25 July P-3K Orion NZ4203 of No. 5 Squadron flew from Whenuapai to search for the yacht Ouvéa, which police wanted to question. The Air Force Museum’s account says the crew found an empty life raft but never the yacht, which it says was later scuttled after a rendezvous with a French submarine. Two French agents were sentenced in November 1985 to ten years; in 1986 France apologised and paid compensation under an agreement that moved them to Hao Atoll.

The last decade has thinned Whenuapai out. The Orions retired in January 2023 and No. 5 Squadron moved to the new P-8A complex at Ohakea, taking some 250 people with it, according to RNZ. A $30 million upgrade of the main runway and taxiways was completed in 2012, Wikipedia says, but much of the rest of the estate is old. In November 2025, announcing $2.5 billion for defence facilities, the Associate Defence Minister, Chris Penk, said hangar doors at one air force base had failed to open, stopping an operational task; RNZ identified the base as Base Auckland.

What stays is the airlift: the C-130J-30s and the two 757s of No. 40 Squadron, which the government plans to replace with two Airbus A321XLRs from 2028, and No. 6 Squadron’s Seasprites, which are due to give way to the MH-60R if that purchase is concluded. Wikipedia also places the air force’s space operations unit, No. 62 Squadron, at Whenuapai.