Sipitifaea Skies: S'Pacific Spitfires for Britain
From Bananas to Dogfights: The Empire’s Island Nations and Their Forgotten WWII Fighters
As Nazi Germany advanced across Europe toward Britain in the early days of World War Two, Britain needed hundreds of Spitfire fighter aircraft.
This prompted press baron and aircraft production minister Max Atkins, aka Lord Beaverbrook, to launch a Spitfire Fund in which assorted entities around the world could “buy” a Spitfire for Britain. The South Pacific, then coloured red for the British Empire, keenly took part.
Each Spitfire Mark 5b cost £12,604 to manufacture. Adjusting for inflation and exchange rates that’s around NZ$1.3 million today. Beaverbrook’s fund set an arbitrary cost of each new plane at £5,000 (NZ$506,000). It was so successful that 1500 Allied Spitfires ended up flying with what amounted to a sponsors' logo some where on the airframe.
Among them was “Queen of Sālote” and another “Western Sāmoa”. The Gilbert and Ellice colony (now Kiribati and Tuvalu) funded one Spitfire which went to the Royal Air Force’s 302 Squadron - the first Polish unit in Britain. The plane was wrecked in a training crash, killing its pilot. Fiji provided seven Spitfires, and more importantly provided the most significant part of any Spitfire, a pilot, one Isikeli Doviverata Komaisavai.
Sipitifaea
Tonga, nominally independent but actually a dependency of Britain, was enthusiastic about World War Two, having been somewhat circumspect about the Great War (Nuku’alofa felt it was obliged to honour its 1876 Treaty of Friendship with Berlin). Leading cheerleader was Queen Sālote Tupou III who was head of the Tonga Spitfire Fund. Recalled in song and tapa print, her committee raised £15,000 (approx NZ$1.5 million) - enough for three Spitfires, or in Tongan Sipitifaea. Local businessman Willy Cocker gave £2,000 towards the first aircraft.
Tonga’s three Spitfires were named Queen Sālote, Prince Tungi and Tupou I. The sign-makers got the first plane’s logo wrong, writing “Queen of Sālote”. People were, for a time, too busy to notice and then when the War Office spotted it, the preposition was roughly painted over.
