I REFER to a letter from Mr Martin (Letters, November 19) criticising the intention to create a tribute to the Spitfire aircraft in Mayflower Park.

Twenty-two thousand Spitfires were built by the end of the Second World War, 8,000 in Southampton.

The workforce involved a total of over 20,000 nationwide by 1945.

These people built this aircraft, working long hours in the most difficult conditions and at the height of the Blitz. One hundred and ten people were killed in two raids at the Woolston factory alone.

The proposed tribute is as much to honour these people as it is to the gallant young men who flew the aircraft in combat, many of whom gave their lives for this country.

Mr Martin suggests it would be better to have a Spitfire in a museum as a memorial.

It is worth mentioning that we have had such a Spitfire in the Solent Sky Museum in this city for the last 40 years.

The Spitfire was designed by the genius |R J Mitchell. It is an amazing piece of engineering, it looks wonderful, sounds right and was the right aircraft in the right place at the right time, something we should all be proud of, along with the fact, of course, that it belongs to Southampton.

We did not start the Second World War. However, the Spitfire and the people who built it played a significant role in bringing that hideous conflict to an end, a fact that I will shout from the rafters so long as there is breath in my body to do so.

ALAN JONES MBE, director, Solent Sky Museum, board member, National Spitfire Project.