The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior was an event that led the news for weeks, with many saying it was a time that saw the country lose its innocence.
Former Greenpeace chief executive Bunny McDiarmid was a deckhand aboard the Rainbow Warrior in 1985.
The crew, based in the Pacific Ocean, campaigned against nuclear testing and relocated Marshall Islanders from an atoll polluted by radioactive fallout.
“It was our home – it was all of our home,” McDiarmid said.
On the day of the bombing, McDiarmid remembered being awoken by a call from first mate Martini Gotje at around 2am telling her to come down to the dock.
“It wasn’t until we saw the Warrior leaned over on his side at the dock that it became real and also the fact then that Fernando had been murdered by the bombing.”
The July 1985 sinking of the Greenpeace vessel in Auckland was an event that shocked the nation. (Source: 1News)
French agents had attached two limpet mines to the Rainbow Warrior as it was berthed at Marsden Wharf.
The first bomb detonated at 11.38pm, blasting a hole in the ship that was the size of an average car.
Some of the crew returned to the ship to investigate and film the damage before the second bomb went off seven minutes later.
Photographer Fernando Pereira went below deck to retrieve his camera equipment and drowned in the rapid flooding that following.
Two people posing as Swiss tourists were later arrested and unmasked as French agents, kickstarting a series of events that saw the French defence minister resign.
McDiarmid said she felt a “certain naivety” had been pulled back by the bombing.
“I don’t think until then that we had realised the strength or the power of what we were doing with other people to try and stop nuclear testing.
“It didn’t just happen to Greenpeace, it happened to New Zealand.”
