The “Bromley” Plane
Cheque for £5,870 handed over
The Mayor (Councillor H. Lynch-Watson, J.P.) and Mr. A.F. Hobbins, hon. secretary and treasurer of the Bromley Fighter Fund, attended at the Ministry of Aircraft Production on Monday and on behalf of the very numerous subscribers handed over a cheque for £5,870 to cover the cost of a fighter plane.
In absence of Lord Beaverbrook they were received by the Right Hon. R. B. Bennett, former Prime Minister of Canada and now principle adviser to the Minister of Aircraft Production. With Mr. Bennett was Mr Mash, a senior officer of the Public Relations branch of the Ministry.
Mr Bennett expressed Lord Beaverbrook’s and his own intense gratification for the gift, which he characterised as considerable and generous, and the appreciation felt for the very substantial amount. He said that he realised that the total was contributed by a large number of people in sums both great and small, and he assured the “deputation” that all were most gratefully received and that the contribution would have the effect of reducing the taxation necessary to pay for the war.
He promised that a plane should be named “Bromley, Kent” and that the arms of the borough should be emblazoned on it, and he intimated that he hoped that the contribution to the national effort would be publicly acknowledge in a B.B.C. broadcast.
Each Spitfire cost £12,604 to build in 1939. That’s around £681,000 in today’s money. Compared to the astronomical cost of modern fighter aircraft, this seems like a snip.
The cost of a British produced F-35 fighter jet is said to be more than £100 million!
Source:
Bromley & District Times, January 1941
