Pilot Officer Cecil Hight - St Peter - Bournemouth, Dorset - Specific Veteran Memorials on Waymarking.com

A kauri hardwood board, RAF wings with NZ in the centre carved at the top of the board.

Inscription -

IN MEMORY OF PILOT OFFICER CECIL HIGHT OF/ STRATFORD NEW ZEALAND WHO DIED IN/ DEFENCE OF THE EMPIRE AT BOURNEMOUTH/ 15TH AUGUST 1940./ THIS MEMORIAL WAS DESIGNED AND PROVIDED/ BY THE STRATFORD TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL

"Pilot Officer Cecil Henry Hight (6 September 1917 – 15 August 1940) was a New Zealand born fighter pilot who served with the Royal Air Force during World War II. He was killed in action during the Battle of Britain.

On Thursday 15 August 1940 a massive German raid of 70 bombers escorted by around 200 fighters was spotted off Portland in Dorset. The warning sirens sounded at 5.20pm in Bournemouth. 234 Squadron, including Pilot Officer Hight, was scrambled to repel the attack. Around 6pm his Spitfire, R6988, was hit over Bournemouth.

It appears that in order to avoid inflicting casualties on the ground, Hight piloted his stricken plane away from the built up area of the town and towards Meyrick Park. He bailed out as the plane came down but his parachute did not open. His body was found under a hedge in the grounds of Hambledon on Leven Avenue. He may well have been already dead from machine gun wounds before he hit the ground. He was 22 years old. His plane crashed less than fifty yards away and created a crater on the corner of Leven Avenue and Walsford Road.

Canon Hedley Burrows, vicar of St Peter's, arrived and said a prayer for the dead pilot where he lay. The owners of Hambledon, Alfred and Edith Hoare, created a garden of remembrance on the spot where Hight had landed.

A memorial service for Cecil Hight was held at St Peters church on 7 April 1943. The New Zealand High Commissioner unveiled a plaque of RAF brevet wings with 'NZ' in the centre, designed and carved from Kauri wood by the pupils of Hight's old school, Stratford Technical High, in New Zealand. The service was broadcast live to New Zealand and heard by Hight's mother."

SOURCE - (visit link)

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