NATIONAL SPITFIRE MONUMENT TO GO UP IN HAMPSHIRE

A FUNDRAISING campaign has been launched to construct a national monument to an aircraft designed in North Staffordshire.

The initiative - to pay tribute to the iconic Spitfire has been launched just after the 77th anniversary of VEDAY.

It will commemorate all the men and women from more than 30 allied countries who designed, built, flew and maintained this aircraft during the Second World War – honouring the past and inspiring future generations.

It was designed by Butt-lane born Reginald Mitchell, above, who went to Hanley High School but the National Spitfire Monument will be built in Southampton.

The Hampshire location has been determined by both the aircraft’s production birthplace (the Vickers-armstrongs Aviation Supermarine Works at Woolston, previously known as the Supermarine Aviation Works) and its maiden flight (from Southampton Municipal Airport in Eastleigh, now Southampton Airport, on March 5 1936).

Standing 40m tall - on a par with the scale of the Statue of Liberty the monument will be a stainless-steel structure.

It is expected to be seen by more than seven million people every year.

The monument has official backing at national and local levels – with £3m match funding promised by the UK Government and the support of Southampton City Council.

Royston Smith GM MP, one of the Trustees of the National Spitfire Project, said: “The iconic Spitfire was instrumental in defending our country during WW2 but particularly during the Battle of Britain. This country and our lives would have been very different but for the heroism of the pilots who bravely took to the skies in R J Mitchell’s magnificent feat of engineering.”