GIFT FROM FIJI

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 October 1940, Page 3

GIFT FROM FIJI

MONEY FOR HURRICANE. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) SUVA, September 30. Mr Samuel Howard Ellis today received the following cablegram from the Minister of Aircraft Production, Lord Beaverbrook: —“From across tho world you have sent a message of the highest encouragement to the Air Force, the men and women of the aircraft industry, and all who today stand in Britain in the front line of battle. To you and your wife I send an expression of heartfelt gratitude for the gift you send me for the purchase of a Hurricane fighter. You strengthen the power of the Empire and stand forth among the Empire’s foremost champions.” The message Mr Ellis telegraphed to Lord Beaverbrook was as follows:— “My wife and I have cabled you £5OOO to purchase a Hurricane. May its name

be ‘Spirit of the Royal Flying Corps.' That spirit lives on vital and ardent in today’s airmen, who accomplish so brilliantly their more arduous and hence more glorious task. You may care to know that Fiji sent five airmen in 1914, of whom two arc now again serving in the Empire air scheme. Twenty-two from Fiji have already joined the scheme and others hope to follow.”