MOVING TRIBUTE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21065, 9 April 1943, Page 3

MOVING TRIBUTE

N.Z. FIGHTER PILOT BATTLE OF BRITAIN HERO BOURNEMOUTH MEMORIAL tßy Telegraph—Preaa Assn.—Copyright.) (Special Correspondent.) 110.30 a.m.) LONDON, April 8. High over Bournemouth, one sunny lay in August, 1940, 12 Spitfires fought igainst German raiders. The Spitfires ,vere heavily outnumbered, but that ,vas nothing unusual those days. The 3attle of Britain was being fought. In Bournemouth hundreds of people .vatched the fight and saw an aircraft shot down. It crashed within Bournenouth borough. It was a Spitfire. Its pilot, Pilot Officer Cecil Henry Flight, )f Stratford. He was buried in Bos:ombe cemetery. Canon Burrows, of Bournemouth, read the burial service ind then wrote a letter to Pilot Officer Bight’s mother. She handed it to ;he Stratford Technical School, of which her son was a pupil. The ichool sent wings carved from kauri [or a memorial in St. Peter's Church, Bournemouth. To-day, nearly three years after 3 ilot Officer Flight’s death, the New Zealand High Commissioner, Mr. W. r. Jordan, unveiled the wings in the iresence of a packed church. Beside lim stood the New Zealand Minister if Defence, Mr. F. Jones, and the ffayor of Bournemouth and the Earl rnd Countess of Malmesbury. There were present 206 New Zeaand airmen who recently arrived in 3ritain, many members of the Royal \ir Force, Royal Navy, soldiers in jattledress, firemen, school children, in American soldier, and an Ameri:an nurse. Eloquent of Feelings Canon Burrows conducted the ser/ice and dedicated the memorial. It was a simple but impressive cerenony, symbolical ol what British neople feel for all who died in one of ;he most important battles in Britain’s listory. To many of the congregation New Zealand, perhaps, was little more ;han a name, but they gathered to lonour a boy who had travelled 12,000 miles to help to defend them n their hour of need. It was fitting hat Mr. Jordan should have been nvited to unveil the memorial by an >ld boy of the Stratford School, PilotDfflcer B. Smith, who said: “On Dehalf of the masters ’and boys of the Stratford Technical School we invite mu to unveil in this church of St. D eter our memorial to Cecil Hight, >nce a student of our school.” Mr. Jordan, who is the only free :hurehman ever to speak in St. D eter’s —where Gladstone attended he last communion before he died ind Disraeli frequently worshipped—;aid Pilot Officer Hight had the spirit )f the Crusaders. The Battle o! 3ritain would be classed with [Trafalgar and Waterloo. Previous jattles were associated with a few jreat generals and admirals, but the 3attle of Britain was fought by small (roups of individual men of whom D ilot Officer Hight and his Spitfire were a part. “We are proud of him and thank 3od for his services to us, to this and ,o future generations,” he added.