SOUTH Yorkshire is to be at the centre
of a £600,000 national monument plan to remember the war heroes of the Battle
of Britain.
One of five memorials to the fighter
pilots who fought the Germans in the skies over Britain in 1940 will be based
in Doncaster, it has been announced by the Battle of Britain Historical
Society.
The monument will be built at the
Aeroventure museum at Doncaster Lakeside.
It will be five metres high with a
bronze statue at the centre, depicting an aircraft involved in a dogfight. It
will incorporate busts of wartime commanders, stained glass windows and picture
panels depicting Battle of Britain scenes. It will also have an outdoor
widescreen display upon which footage from the Battle will be shown and the
names of all 2,950 Allied aircrew who flew will be inscribed on large granite
slabs.
There is already a memorial in London.
The new ones will be built in the Scottish borders, Wales and Northern Ireland
as well as Doncaster.
The South Yorkshire structure will be
the first to be erected, with construction expected to start next January.
Building work is expected to last for eight months. A campaign to raise the
money to build the memorial is already under way.
Originator of the project, Bill Bond
MBE, said: “The Battle of Britain changed the course of world history,
and should be remembered throughout the land.”
Several of the aces who fought were born
or brought up in South Yorkshire.
The most famous was Douglas Bader, who
flew despite having both legs amputated as a result of a flying accident before
the war. Bader was the stepson of the rector of Sprotbrough and, before he
joined the RAF in the 1930s, spent some of his boyhood living in the rectory
– where evidence of his presence can still be found in the windows
damaged by potshots from his air rifle.
George ‘Grumpy’ Unwin, son
of a miner from Bolton-upon-Dearne, was also one of the RAF’s top aces
and eventually rose to the rank of Wing Commander.
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