Lytham St Annes Spitfire Memorial

In the early part of World War II, many local communities in the United Kingdom collected funds to purchase planes for the war effort. The planes were called Presentation Aircraft.

In February 1942, the English town of Lytham St Annes, just south of Blackpool, funded one of these aircraft, a Submarine Spitfire with the designation W3644.

A man with connections to the area piloted the Spitfire. However, the aircraft and the pilot were lost in the English Channel just a few months later, in June 1942.

In 2009, John Coombes, the then-leader of the local Council, was looking through town hall records when he found a photograph of the community-funded Spitfire.

Inspired by the plane and its tragic end, Coombes helped form a volunteer organization called the Lytham St Annes Spitfire Display Team. The team collected funds for a memorial commemorating Royal Air Force personnel based in Blackpool and the Spitfire funded by Lytham St Annes locals.

After raising over £80,000, the memorial was built in 2012 at Fairhaven Lake, a recreational lake near the community’s shoreline.

Formally named the Lytham St Annes RAF Fighter, Bomber & Coastal Command Memorial, the memorial consists of a full-scale replica of the Spitfire Lytham St Annes funded.

The plane is mounted several meters above the ground on a pole, giving the appearance that the fighter is just about to fly over the lake. Several plaques around the base of the memorial describe the history of the Royal Air Force in the area and the history of the aircraft.

The Spitfire Display Team also established the Spitfire Visitor Centre at the Blackpool Airport, which had been a major Royal Air Force facility during World War II.  Both the center and the memorial at Fairhaven Lake serve as reminders of how the war was a major part of local history.