Spitfire Appeal PDF Print E-mail
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Help us buy this replica Spitfire to form part of our Memorial to all those who flew with 58 Operational Training Unit at RAF Grangemouth during the Second World War.

Part of the Air Cadet Organisation, 1333 (Grangemouth) Squadron, a Scottish registered charity, number 24675, seeks donations from the public to add to those it has already received.  You are respectfully invited to send contributions, by cheque or postal order, to ‘the Scottish International Spitfire Memorial Appeal Fund’, c/o 1333 (Grangemouth) Squadron, The TA Centre, 56 Central Avenue, Grangemouth FK3 8HZ.  Monies received will go directly and exclusively to the purchase of the Spitfire and the completion of the Memorial, and the names of donors will be inscribed at the site.

altOn Saturday, 13th September 2008, the Cadets of 1333 (Grangemouth) Squadron opened to the public a Memorial Wall. The Wall commemorates the young Spitfire pilots of 58 Operational Training Unit who perished at RAF Grangemouth during the Second World War while learning to fly the Spitfire, perhaps the greatest icon ever manufactured in Great Britain.  They had come not only from Britain but all over the globe (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Holland, Belgium, Ireland, India, and the United States) to fight on Britain’s side.

Having completed the Wall, the Cadets, boys and girls aged 13 – 18, are trying to finish the Memorial by buying and plinth-mounting a replica Spitfire opposite the Wall (see artist’s impression above), and surrounding the tribute in attractive garden grounds.  Hearing of the Cadets’ project, GB Replicas Ltd have produced a replica of a Spitfire Mark 1 which is painted in the colours of 58 OTU, RAF Grangemouth and which carries the markings PQ-N.  This aircraft is an authentic copy of the one in which Sergeant Eugeniusz Lukomski died in 1941.  Eugenuisz had come to Britain on the invasion of Poland and became a pilot with the Royal Air Force, one of many young Poles who did so.  At the height of the War, RAF Grangemouth was training every Polish Spitfire pilot, many of whom went on to become ‘aces’.  

altJust before being sent on operations, Eugeniusz was killed in a flying accident, a fate that befell so many young pilots in the pressure of wartime flying.  The Cadets’ tribute is to Eugeniusz and all those like him who came to fight with the RAF and who sadly never made it home again.
PQ-N is in our hands on loan at the moment, by kind permission of GB Replicas Ltd, to help with the appeal.  The Appeal is necessary in order to raise the monies to acquire the Spitfire, plinth-mount it, make the Memorial area attractive to visitors, and tell the story of the aircraft and RAF Grangemouth on tablets surrounding the site.  It will hopefully be a site of significant Scottish national heritage.

altHearing of the project, Squadron Leader Bill Green, a Battle of Britain veteran and former Hurricane and Spitfire pilot, said, “ It’s an honour for me to see boys and girls of the 21st century commemorating the sacrifice of young pilots of my generation. Please consider supporting their appeal for the Scottish International Spitfire.”