FIGHTER PLANES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 July 1941, Page 6

FIGHTER PLANES

BEQUEST TO THE EMPIRE

MR C. A. BAKER’S WILL. CONTINUING CONTRIBUTION. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, This Day. A. legacy to the British Empire of Spitfire and Hurricane fighters is contained in the will of the late Charles Alma Baker, of the Federated Malay States, a rubber estate and tin mine owner. Mr Baker, who is widely known in 'New Zealand as a stock and station owner and big game fisherman, died at Penang in April last. Probate of his will relating to his Nev/ Zealand estate of two stock runs at Waikato Heads, valued at under £50,000, has been granted. Mr Baker was the owner of properties' in England, Australia and New Zealand in addition to rubber and tin mine interests in the Federated Malay States, where he settled in 1889.

In a codicil to his will. Mr Baker relates that since the commencement of the present war he had made provision in cash to the utmost limit, of his means for the purchase of fighter aircraft for the Empire, through the Air Ministry in London, for which he had to curtail a portion of his expenditure, which otherwise would have been applied to personal needs. Because of his regard for the Empire and concern for its ultimate victory in the war, he desired that after his death his executors and trustees should continue, as far as possible, to apply the proceeds of the estate in a like manner. It was his desire that a sufficient income should, be made available in this way to meet the cost of a fighter aircraft every three or four months.