In June of 1940, realising that voluntary enlistments in the armed forces were fewer than expected, the New Zealand government enacted the National Service Emergency Regulations which enabled men between twenty-one and 41 to be conscripted into military service overseas. As with similar regulations enacted during the First World War, all eligible men were required to serve if called upon. Conscripts could appeal their recruitment on the grounds that they were employed in work that was essential to the community or to their family’s livelihood, or that they held a “genuine belief that it is wrong to engage in warfare in any circumstances”. Initially, conscripts were deemed to hold such a “genuine belief” only if they belonged to an established Christian sect with a creed of pacifism and military non-involvement. The regulations closely followed those introduced in 1916, and only members of the Quaker and Christiadelphian churches were automatically considered exempt by reason of conscience.

During the interwar period, however, a number of new spiritualist churches and philosophical movements had taken root in New Zealand, many of them professing non-violence and pacifism. Among them was Herbert Sutcliffe’s School of Radiant Living, a liberal Christian spiritual movement incorporating aspects of Jungian psychology and Anthroposophic holism, which professed that illnesses and other evils could be overcome through a programme of healthy diet, physical exercise and by studying the “emotional content of the human mind” in order to overcome anxiety and conflict.

The Hillary family of Remuera was among the first to join the Auckland branch of Radiant Living when it was established in 1938, and all five members of the family quickly became active members of the congregation: Gertrude Hillary was the branch’s first secretary, her husband Percival briefly served as vice-president, daughter June led the communal singing, while sons Edmund and Wrexford (known as Rex) demonstrated physical exercises and read essays on physical and mental self-improvement. With the introduction of conscription in 1940, both Edmund and Rex appealed as conscientious objectors, citing their adherence to Radiant Living as evidence of their beliefs.

Thousands of men called up for service appealed on conscientious grounds. Some identified as Christiadelphians or Quakers, others (like the Hillary brothers) as members of the Bretheren, Seventh Day Adventists or the various New Thought spiritualist sects. Still others objected as communists, anarchists, Irish nationals, or for myriad political or ethical positions. The appeals board, hand-picked by the Minister of National Service, rejected four out of five of the appeals it heard. Objectors whose appeals had been rejected by the board but who still refused military service faced a fine of £100, twelve months’ imprisonment, and a lengthy stay in one of seven detention camps around the country.

Conditions in the detention camps were not as deplorable as they had been for objectors during the First World War, when dissenters had been shipped to the front lines and subjected to field punishment (spending a long period of each day tied to a post), hard labour, and often brutal hazing by soldiers and petty officers. The detention camps, on prison land and remote farms near Shannon, Reporoa, Turangi and North Canterbury, put inmates to work in farming and manufacturing jobs, for which they received a small weekly wage. The threat of solitary confinement was reserved for those who refused to do work or follow camp rules. Although officially forbidden from any form of socialising beyond bible study groups or having personal posessions beyond a bible and pyjamas, in practice the inmates were allowed to entertain themselves as they pleased – a group at Hautu detention camp near Turangi even staged its own adaptation of ‘Of Mice And Men’ in 1945. Perhaps the greatest hardship imposed upon dissenters was a complete lack of contact with the outside world. Inmates at the camps were allowed virtually no communication with friends and family during their detention (which, in some cases, lasted into early 1946). All mail to or from detainees was subject to inspection and censorship – in 1944, two brothers detained at Hautu camp were sentenced to hard labour for receiving letters with concealed invisible-ink messages.

Many objectors found military service preferable to indefinite detention and deprivation, even if it conflicted with their beliefs. By late 1943, Edmund Hillary’s interest in Radiant Living and his objection to the war effort began to wane, and in February 1944 the young adventurer enlisted in the Royal New Zealand Air Force, where he piloted flying-boats in the Pacific theatre of war. His brother Rex’s name was drawn from the ballot in December 1941, and had his appeal on the grounds of hardship and conscientious objection dismissed by the board in late January 1942, but the younger Hillary remained steadfast in his opposition to the war and was detained as a military defaulter for the duration of the war. In the last months of the war, the government established a board to review the appeal board’s decisions. Rex Hillary was among the objectors whose case was considered by the Revision Authority in July 1945. Several witnesses, including Rex and his father Percival, gave evidence at the hearing of the Hillary brothers’ humanitarian views and involvement in the Radiant Living movement, but the Authority declined to overturn the appeal board’s rejection and Rex was returned to the detention camp.

The Second World War ended soon after the Revision Authority made its decision, with the Japanese surrender in early September. For conscientious objectors like Rex Hillary, detained in isolated work camps, the war lasted several months longer. Parliament deliberated for months about when to release defaulters, deferring its decision until a majority of New Zealand soldiers had returned from overseas. Even after detained foreign nationals were released on the grounds that New Zealand was no longer at war, objectors were still confined to the detention camps until early 1946.