“HONOUR TO OWN HEROES”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 687, 12 June 1929, Page 9

“HONOUR TO OWN HEROES”

BRITISH FLYERS WHO FIRST FLEW ATLANTIC SIR C. WAKEFIELD’S VIEWS LONDON, June 3. “Who first flew the Atlantic? Ninety per cent, of the people of America would reply, Lindbergh/’ say Sir Charles Wakefield, in a. letter to “The Times.” “I fear that much the same ignorance exists here,” Sir Charles added. Sir Charles Wakefield said he doubted if such national modesty was altogether a virtue, because British “prestige abroad and our own morale might suffer by excessive modesty.” He suggested that Britons should put the matter right by erecting a permanent memorial to Sir Arthur Whitten Brown and the late Sir John Alcock, who first flew the Atlantic from Newfoundland to Ireland on June 14, 1919. They certainly had been knighted, Sir Charles said, but they had lived before their time, and consequently they had not been truly appreciated. The Atlantic had not been flown again until eight years afterwards. “As the tenth anniversary of the achievement of these airmen is imminent, it is high time that the prior achievements of our own heroes should be nationally commemorated,” he said. “There should at least be a monument at Clifden (Ireland), where they alighted. “Surely the time is ripe for such a cardy act of justice which, incidentally, would do much to reaffirm our prestige in the eyes of the civilised world.”