Manakau’s War Memorial, located opposite the old post office on Honi Taipua Street, was built in 1921 to commemorate the men from the Manakau Township who had fallen in World War One (1914-1918), and later those killed in World War Two (1939-1945). The memorial is of historical, aesthetic, and social heritage significance. It is a place for the community to commemorate not only the men from Manakau, but all men from New Zealand who fought and died in the two world wars. Its uncommon sarcophagus style is a powerful symbol for the loss that comes with war.

Manakau’s War Memorial was built by J. W. Fisher & Co Ltd. and said to be designed by Major Charles Tatum, whom the nearby Tatum Park is named after. Constructed over the summer of 1920-1921, it was completed in March 1921 with its official unveiling commencing on April 25 1922. The site for the war memorial was debated throughout several public meetings, with various places including around Manakau School grounds being discussed. The chairman of the School Committee decided that it would be inappropriate to have a tombstone erected outside a school, and so by a vote 12-10, the road reserve outside the Post Office was agreed on.

The monument is rare in the fact that it is one of only 33 out of 505 war memorials nationally that were built in the cenotaph, or tomb-like, style. New Zealanders generally considered this style to be ‘too gloomy’ and too powerful a reminder of the cost of war. The concrete cenotaph at Manakau is in the shape of a sarcophagus on top of a shallow stepped base, and has inscribed black granite panels on all four sides; originally it was planned to have two machine guns allotted to Manakau as war trophies flanking either side. A low metal and concrete fence surrounds the monument. It was decided at a public meeting that the names that would go on the memorial would be only those of the Manakau men who had died during the war; there were 12 names.

In 1929, the Manakau Soldiers Memorial Committee gained permission to use land on the road frontage for beautification purposes; later in 1959, Horowhenua County Council leased the land behind the memorial from the New Zealand Railways for the same purposes. After World War Two, three more names were inscribed on a black granite plaque added to the front at the bottom of the memorial. In 1993, the Horowhenua District Council leased extra land from the New Zealand Railways for the development of the Driscoll Memorial Gardens adjoining the War Memorial; these gardens were completed in 1995 along with a beautification of the general area. Sometime between 2008 and 2009, the two further names (S.R. Jones and P.M. Te Hiwi) were added to the World War One plaque.