On 11 December 1940 the Navy received Cabinet approval for the occupation of the old quarantine station on Motuihe Island in the Hauraki Gulf on 14 January 1941. The station was commissioned as HMS TAMAKI.
Training began almost immediately with 178 men under training and a ship's company of 42. A building programme was begun which was designed to give TAMAKI a training capacity of 600 "hostilities only" men a year and 120 "continuous service" ratings. This programme was completed within eighteen months. By the end of 1943 more than 1000 men a year were being trained and of the 10,000 men in total who served in the RNZN and RNZNVR, 6000 passed through TAMAKI.
The wartime establishment at Motuihe Island was in need of major refurbishment by the 1960s, but when the costs were reviewed, the Government directed that TAMAKI be relocated to an under-utilised Army facility at Narrow Neck, Devonport.