SPITFIRE AS MEMORIAL

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30095, 1 April 1963, Page 17

SPITFIRE AS MEMORIAL

Brevet Club’s Proposal A Supermarine Spitfire—outstanding single-seat fighter of World War II —may stand as a memorial to New Zealand airmen who served during the war, in front of the Canterbury Brevet Club’s proposed centre on the corner of Russley road and Memorial avenue. The aircraft has been given by the British Air Ministry, and is due to be shipped from Liverpool on April 19. The president of the club (Mr L. R. Murray) said last evening that the Government had refused an import licence to get the aircraft into the country, but he added that further representations were being made to Government officials. The licence had been refused, he said, because the £lOOO freight charges had to be paid in sterling. ‘‘However, I didn’t expect the thing to leave before we had a licence,” he said. The aircraft, Mar 16 No. TE2BB, was built at the Vickers-Armstrong factory in May, 1945, and has recently been on display at the entrance to the R.A.F station at Dishforth, Yorkshire. It bar no engine. The Spitfire Mark 16 entered service in 1944 with fighter-bomber squadrons of the 2nd Tactical Air Force and was the last major production version powered by a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, a Packard-built 266 series of 1720 horse power. The Brevet Club’s proposed memorial centre is expected to cost about £20,000. It will comprise a hall and club rooms, and will be erected on the north-east comer of Russley road and Memorial avenue. Mr Murray said he did not know how the Spitfire would be mounted. A similar aircraft in Perth was mounted on top of a 20ft steel pole, he said. Financial assistance would probably be required to complete the project, said Mr Murray.