Burning of club’s memorial

Press, 10 October 1984, Page 16

Burning of club’s memorial

Sir,—lt is reassuring that the police do not consider that the peace movement at present protesting against the Triad exercise or the Citizens for the Demilitarisation of Harewood are involved in the desecration of a war memorial. However this irresponsible action is an indictment of the antiAmerican and anti-armed services feeling being fostered at present. It is to be hoped that those responsible were ignorant of the fact that the Spitfire was part of a war memorial. The spokesman or spokeswoman (they appear to use both) for the Citizens for the Demilitarisation of Harewood have not yet answered my questions in a letter of September 20 nor justified the increased costs which would follow if the R.N.Z.A.F. was withdrawn from servicing Antarctic research.—Yours, etc., M. JOHNSTON. October 6, 1984.

Sir, — The burning of the Spitfire is an example of violence in our society that the Citizens for the Demilitarisation of Harewood are concerned about. You could contrast the peaceful behaviour of C D H. at the Harewood Camp with

corporal punishment in schools, destruction of rural maternity services, take-over of Maori lands, battering and sexual assault of defenceless children, unsympathetic response to rape victims, possessive behaviour of husbands to wives, bullying of small nations by large nations, and the bringing into a country weapons of immense destruction. — Yours, etc., CHRIS KJELGAARD. October 9, 1984.

Sir,—l express anguish and disgust at the destruction of, the replica Spitfire situated outside the Brevet Club in Christchurch. Our good engineers and workers at the Woodbourne Air Base spent many, many hours of good work to build the replica at great cost. I am the wife of an air crew member and I am proud of him and the service he represented. It really upsets me to think some uncaring people whose fathers or grandfathers mean nothing to them, can willingly destroy such a beautiful monument, which commemorates the bravery of our New Zealand air crew in the last war. It makes me wonder whether young New Zealanders will ever care. — Yours, etc., MARJORIE WARREN. Blenheim, October 7, 1984.