Kauri Wrngs Memorial For Stratford Hero In Battle Of Britain

Northern Advocate, 9 April 1943, Page 3

Kauri Wrngs Memorial For Stratford Hero In Battle Of Britain

(Special) LONDON, April 3 High over Bournemouth one sunny day in August, 1940, 12 Spitfires fought against Gennan raiders. The Spitfires were heavily outnumbered but that was nothing unusual those days. The Battle of Britain was being fought. In Bournemouth, hundreds of people watched the fight and saw an aircraft shot down. It crashed within Bournemouth borough. It was a Spitfire .and its pilot was Pilot-Officei Cecil Henry Hight (of Stratford). He was buried in Boscombe cemetery. Canon Burrows, of Bournemouth, read the burial service and then wrote a letter to Pilot-Officer Hight’s mother. She handed it to Stratford Technical School, of which her son had been a pupil. The school has sent wings carved from kauri for a memorial in St. Peter's Church, Bournemouth.

Today, nearly three years after Pilot-Officer Hight’s death, the New Zealand High Commissioner (Mr Jordan) unveiled the wings in the presence of a. packed church. Beside him stood the New Zealand Minister for Defence (Mr Jones), the mayor of Bournemouth and the Earl and Countess of Malmesbury. There were also present 206 New Zealand airmen recently arrived in Britain, many members of the Royal Australian Air Force and Royal Nacy, soldiers in battlcdress, firemen, school children, an American soldier and an American nurse. Canon Burrows conducted the service dedicated to members. For All Who Died It was a simple impressive ceremony symbolical of what Britishers feel for all those who have died in one of the most important battles in Britaims history. To many of the congregation. New Zealand was perhaps little more than a name, but there they gathered to honour a hoy who travelled 12,000 miles to help defend them in their hour of need.

It was fitting that Mr Jordan should be invited to unveil the memorial by an old boy of Stratford School "(PilotOfficer B. Smith), who said: “On behalf of the masters and boys of Stratford Technical School we invite you to unveil, in this church of St. Peter, our memorial to Cecil Hight, once a student of our school.” Spirit Of Crusaders

Mr Jordan, who is the only Free Churchman ever to speak in 'St Feter’s—in which Mr Gladstone attended his last Communion before he died and Mr Disraeli frequently wor--shipped—said that Pilot-Officer Hight had the spirit of the Crusaders. The Battle of Britain would be classed with Trafalgar and Waterloo. Previous battles were associated with a few great generals and admirals. The Battle of Britain was fought by small groups of individual men, of which Pilot-Officer Hight and his Spitfire were a part. “We are proud of him and thank God for his services to us. to this and to future generations.”