GIFT OF £5000

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21231, 30 September 1940, Page 8

GIFT OF £SOOO

TRIBUTE TO BRAVE AIRMEN ASSISTANCE FROM FIJI BEAVERBROOK’S GRATITUDE (United Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyright) (Received Sept. 30, 3.15 p.m.) SUVA, Sept. 30 Mr Samuel Howard Ellis has received the following message from Lord Beaverbrook: “Frorp across the world you have sent a 'message of the highest encouragement to the Air Force, the men and women in 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 have sent 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 which Mr Ellis telegraphed Lord Beaverbrook was as follows: “My wife and I have cabled you £SOOO 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 are now again serving in the Empire air scheme. Twenty-two from Fiji have already joined the scheme and others hope to follow.”