National Spitfire Project

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Royston Smith]

I agree with everything my hon. Friend has just said. In fact, I was about to come on to that very point.

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman will accept that when he talks about Southampton, he means both sides of the city. Indeed, it is a pleasure for me to be here this afternoon to support him in what he is saying about the Spitfire, provided that the word “Southampton” is completely underlined in proceedings so far as the national monument is concerned.

[Royston Smith]

I am happy to agree with the hon. Gentleman, my neighbour and friend. Southampton is the home of the Spitfire. It just so happens that the Supermarine factory was located in my constituency. However, I am referring to Southampton in general.

Returning to the comment made by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak), sheds, garages, bus stations, industrial units and a hotel were used for production in and around Southampton—including Hendy’s garage, Seaward’s garage, Sunlight laundry, which were in the constituency of the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), and the Hants and Dorset bus depot—before the aircraft were assembled and test flown at Eastleigh airport.

Within a few weeks, the Spitfire was back in production all over Southampton and the neighbouring towns and villages, including Salisbury, Reading, Newbury and Trowbridge. It was an enormously challenging business building the Spitfire in that way, and we should not underestimate that. The work was carried out at the height of the blitz, often by unskilled labour. A large part of the workforce was women, girls and retired men, because most eligible men were in the armed forces fighting for their country.

The effects of the war touched the lives of almost every family in Southampton, and they continue to do so today. In fact, Flight Lieutenant James Brindley Nicolson was awarded the Victoria Cross in 1940 for his bravery in a dog fight over Southampton. His bravery has been studied and recognised by children from Sholing Junior School in my constituency. The pupils designed and raised funding for a memorial to commemorate his achievements.

Once assembled, the Spitfire was delivered to air bases across the country by the Air Transport Auxiliary. Many of those pilots were women. One of note is Mary Ellis, who celebrated her 100th birthday last month. Her extraordinary milestone was marked by a flight in an extraordinary aircraft, the Spitfire, one of the aircraft types she flew during the war. In 1943 the women of the Air Transport Auxiliary were awarded equal pay to their male colleagues, making the ATA the first equal opportunities employer.

On 1 April 2018 the Royal Air Force will celebrate its centenary, commemorating 100 years of devotion and duty to our country. As a former Royal Air Force engineer, I am enormously proud to be standing in this place today promoting the National Spitfire Project and the tribute to the Royal Air Force in the shape of the Spitfire monument. Perhaps the RAF’s finest hours—they were certainly those of the Spitfire—were during the battle of Britain, when against the odds our brave pilots and engineers repelled the might of the largest air force the world had ever seen. I do not think anyone would say that the battle of Britain won the war, but it certainly prevented a German invasion and was a turning point in the fortunes of Hitler and his ambitions to occupy Great Britain.

The Spitfire played a central role throughout world war two, and our British pilots were joined by allied pilots from all over the world. In fact, up to 20% of pilots who flew in the battle of Britain were not British. Most notably, the Royal Air Force was joined by Poles, Czechs, New Zealanders, Belgians, Canadians, Australians, Norwegians, Greeks, Swedes, Italians, Indians and Pakistanis. Tomorrow the Prime Minister will write to Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council, informing him of the UK’s intention to leave the European Union. One of the first priorities of our withdrawal negotiations must be the status of European Union nationals living in this country and British nationals living in European Union countries. As the negotiations begin, it is important to take a moment to remember the significant contribution that those countries of the European Union made to our war effort.

A total of 145 Polish fighter pilots served in the RAF during the battle of Britain, making up the largest non-British contribution. By the end of the war, around 19,500 Poles were serving in the Polish Air Force in the UK and in the RAF. One Polish pilot of note was Stanislaw Skalski, who came to England after the fall of Poland. While flying with 501 Squadron, he shot down seven enemy aircraft before being shot down himself. After recovering in hospital, he joined 306 Squadron in February 1941 and by October he had claimed a further five enemy fighters.

Of course, this country produced its own heroes and the pilot credited with bringing down the most enemy aircraft from the cockpit of a Spitfire was Air Vice-Marshal Johnnie Johnson, who had 38 confirmed kills—that might well have been more, if he had not missed the beginning of the battle of Britain due to a rugby injury. Flight Lieutenant Eric Lock became the RAF’s most successful battle of Britain pilot, shooting down 16 German aircraft. In one week alone, Flight Lieutenant Lock managed to shoot down eight German aircraft—an impressive tally that earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross.

In November 2016 a new memorial was unveiled in Grimbergen, Belgium to honour the fallen Norwegians who flew Spitfires during the war. In the UK we have many monuments, including that to the women of world war two on Whitehall, the RAF Bomber Command memorial in Green Park and the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. It would therefore be fitting to further commemorate, in the Royal Air Force’s centenary year, those who dedicated their lives to protecting our freedoms.

In order to celebrate the fantastic achievements of the RAF over the past 100 years, the RAF 100 committee has a selection of events planned. Those national events will raise the profile of the RAF across the whole of our nation, enhance its reputation and promote a better understanding of what it does. It will showcase the RAF’s people, their depth of talent and their diversity. The events will celebrate the history of the RAF, but they will also demonstrate why it remains, and will continue to remain, vital to the security and prosperity of the UK. The national tribute to the Royal Air Force will be the only physical legacy to recognise and commemorate the RAF’s centenary. It will serve to remind everyone who visits the monument what a significant contribution the RAF and the Spitfire have made far into the next 100 years.

The project for the Spitfire monument has been led for many years by my very good friend and colleague, Councillor John Hannides. He is joined in his endeavours by retired Air Commodore Gordon Moulds, Paul Lester and Tony Edwards, and the president of the trust, Sir Ralph Robins.

Everyone in Southampton has grown up knowing the story of our brave pilots and the iconic Spitfire. As a constant reminder, a fully functioning Spitfire is still the major attraction at the excellent Solent Sky aviation museum in Southampton, run by the determined and dedicated curator Squadron Leader Alan Jones. The legend of the Spitfire lives on in countless films, documentaries, essays and books. My right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), who is unable to be here today due to his duties chairing the Defence Committee, is a keen supporter of the project and has himself written an acclaimed account about a highly decorated pilot, Kink Kinkaid, who died in Southampton water trying to break the airspeed record in a forerunner of the Spitfire, the Supermarine S.5.

We now have a site on Southampton’s historic waterfront, generously donated by Southampton City Council, where the more than 1.8 million passengers on one of the 450 cruise ships that visit Southampton each year will pass. We have a detailed design for a stainless steel monument 1.5 times the size of the original Spitfire, which will soar 130 feet above the ground—nearly as high as the Statue of Liberty and twice as high as the Angel of the North—and be visible for miles around. We also have all the planning permissions in place. All that is missing now is the funding required to bring the project alive.

Since 2012, the Government, through the Financial Conduct Authority, have levied fines on the banks of more than £973 million for fixing LIBOR rates. Much of that has been allocated to worthy causes, and rightly so. The Chancellor has made clear his intention to use the remaining fines for armed forces and emergency services charities. I completely agree with that approach and I suggest that this project fits those criteria perfectly.

Sir Winston Churchill, one of our nation’s greatest ever leaders, summed up the debt of gratitude we owe to the Royal Air Force, when he said:

“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”—[Official Report, 20 August 1940; Vol. 364, c. 1167.]

It is time for the many now properly to honour the few, and what better way than to immortalise them and their most famous aircraft in a fitting monument to the Spitfire.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

I rise briefly to support the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) in his debate this afternoon, which I congratulate him on securing. I also congratulate him on his tenacity in pursuing this aim of a national monument for the Spitfire in Southampton. The bottom line of what we are talking about today is a request for money. We need the money—ideally from the Government. The hon. Gentleman’s suggestion for where that money might come from would be an appropriate source for the rest of the funds. Many people have already contributed small and varying amounts to the fund to secure the aim of a memorial for the Spitfire on Southampton Water.

Why is the memorial so important? There are three things we might say along with all the other things that have been said about the Spitfire. In this context, I want to offer the story of my father, who was an aeronautical engineer with the Fleet Air Arm. He spent most of the war repairing aircraft, never leaving these shores. Unfortunately, the story does not neatly end with Spitfires, because he worked on Swordfish. As some hon. Members may know, Swordfish were in service at the same time as the Spitfire, but they looked like a completely different generation of aircraft. They were held together with bits of string, sealing wax and various other things. Although they did a good job, if we put the Spitfire next to the Swordfish, the Spitfire design appears to have been from the future and an imagination from I do not know where. They brought this amazing aircraft into being at a time when those aircraft were the staple—

[George Kerevan]

On that point, it is worth remembering that R. J. Mitchell also designed the Walrus biplane seaplane, which picked up so many downed RAF pilots. It looked as antediluvian as the Swordfish, but equally it was very efficient.

[Dr Whitehead]

Indeed. That underlines what I was about to say: R. J. Mitchell designed a plane that was never equalled throughout the whole of the second world war. Not only did the Spitfire save our bacon during the Battle of Britain but it went on to play all sorts of other roles across Europe and the world as the second world war progressed, due to its unique capacities and design and the way it stood head and shoulders above any other aircraft. Later in the war it was not only employed in a fighting capacity but was the first effective reconnaissance aircraft for the RAF. It could fly high at speed and take reconnaissance photographs. Indeed, it got the first reconnaissance photograph of German radar, the first photographs of the Peenemünde works for the V-1 rockets, and was instrumental as the war progressed in all sorts of other fields as well as in the battle of Britain.

Secondly, hon. Members have paid tribute today to the few who fought in the battle of Britain and the fact that they were an international cohort of pilots. Hon. Members have mentioned the large number of Polish pilots: 15% or so of the total number of pilots. They not only made a great contribution, but I understand that the particular way in which they flew the Spitfires was unlike anybody else’s, and they tested the aircraft to destruction. It did not get destroyed, it still flew, and the things they could do with that plane, as was proved throughout the war, is another tribute to the genius of the aircraft design.

Thirdly, for all those reasons, Southampton as a city is proud of its heritage as the progenitor and manufacturer of the Spitfire. As the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen has said, the Spitfire was not only manufactured at the Supermarine works in Woolston. There was a remarkable arrangement subsequently whereby shops, factories and sheds produced that amazing aircraft literally in people’s back gardens in and around Southampton. The people from the city worked so hard to get the aircraft in the air and doing the job that they knew it could do.

So Southampton has an indelible and deep bond with the Spitfire. It is therefore absolutely appropriate that the site that has been chosen for the memorial faces out to Southampton Water, exactly under the path where the Spitfire pilots flew the planes from Southampton—or Eastleigh—airport, depending on your point of view. They flew over Southampton Water, absolutely at the centre of everything that happened that was part of the Spitfire legacy. The idea of a monument with a Spitfire soaring above Southampton Water seems absolutely the right use for the money that I hope will come in for that monument.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen on his efforts to make sure that the money comes our way. I am confident that his further efforts and hopefully those of the Members gathered here today will nudge the Government in the direction of making sure the money is available and will lead to an early and successful conclusion to this project. I will be first to applaud the successful completion of a long mission to get a monument to provide the recognition for the Spitfire that we in Southampton know is absolutely deserved, which can then go to a wider world.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jane Ellison]

I assure my hon. Friend that that has not been lost on me this afternoon. Rarely have I sat through a debate with such genuine passion felt across the House. His point about timeliness and the anniversary is well made, and as I said, we have already made moneys available to mark that for the RAF. I look forward to seeing some of those projects come to maturity. His point is extremely well made. I assure him that I will make the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), who is responsible for sport, tourism and heritage, fully aware of both the project—I am sure she is aware of it already—and the ambitious plans to mark our heritage; and, indeed, of the passion expressed for the project today in Westminster Hall.

I hope that all hon. Friends will understand that the process for allocating LIBOR funding must be transparent and objective. There is a process that all bids must take, so although I know that friends and colleagues would wish me to go further, sadly I cannot commit further at this stage.

[Dr Whitehead]

I appreciate that the Minister is in some difficulty as far as allocating funds off the cuff is concerned, and I would not advocate a further banking scandal in order to try to release more funds for that purpose. Will she indicate, today or in future, and in particular to my colleague the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith), whether she can think of any other avenues in her area of competence that might be used to facilitate the process of, shall we say, coughing up for this monument? I am sure that she will be happy to undertake that with the hon. Gentleman for the good cause that we have all talked about this afternoon.

[Jane Ellison]

I am more than happy to commit to talk to my colleague in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, who is the lead Minister on heritage, about the debate and to relay that request. I will reflect on whether there is more we can do in due course to direct my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen to other sources of funding that might be available. I will reflect on whether it is possible for me to do that subsequent to the debate, or indeed to ask another Minister to do that from sources other than LIBOR funding.

However, I reassure all colleagues that, should further LIBOR funding opportunities arise, any application from the National Spitfire Project that falls within the published scope will be given full consideration along with other applications. In the meantime, I extend my good wishes to my hon. Friend and all involved with this project in its noble aim of creating a lasting memorial to a truly British icon.