Aircrew remembered with memorial statue

The memorial will be kept in the Spitfire Gallery until a permanent site is found. Photo / Dean Purcell

A memorial statue was unveiled yesterday to commemorate 2000 New Zealand Bomber Command crew who died while serving in the Royal Air Force in World War II.

The bronze statue is being housed at the Auckland War Memorial Museum and was unveiled and blessed in a ceremony with full colour guard.

Veterans raised $100,000 for the memorial, which is 1.2m wide and 1.8m high. It was produced by Weta Workshops, which was behind the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The memorial, which depicts seven aircrew, was almost not made after the museum board decided last year it would not display such a large statue, and would instead pay for a plaque in the Hall of Memories.

Protests by veterans and supporters led the museum board to reconsider.

The memorial will be kept for the moment in the Spitfire Gallery on the museum's third floor.