Queensland Flier

Moresby Memorial To

Prom a Special Correspondent

Port Moresby, Feb. 2.

SQUADRON Leader “Johnny” Jackson, heroic leader of the first squadron of fighter aircraft to operate in the Territory the Kittyhawk “75,” which flew in from Australia in the pre-AIF dog-days of early 1942 and who lost his life in the ' one-sided engagements against the hordes of Jap air invaders over Moresby, will have his own special memorial in the Territory.

The pre-war drome at Moresby, then known as the Seven-Mile, which belongs to the RAAF but is used by Civil Avia tion, is nowadays always referred to as “Jackson’s” in commemoration of the gallant “Johnny.”

His mates, of the St. George Sub branch of the RSL in Queensland, clubbed together to provide funds for a special memorial to the late “Johnny.”

Their funds being insufficient, they re ferred the matter to the Australian Battlefields Memorial Committee.

Mr, McDonald Richardson, a Moresby contractor who served as a lieutenant in the AIF in Papua during Jackson’s time, has offered to provide all the materials for the memorial; and John Stubbs & Son, local building contractors, are to undertake its actual erection, without charge.

The memorial will be at the entrance to Jackson’s Drome, where the road lead ing on to the drome itself forks from the Rouna Road. The site will remain RAAF property, thus ensuring maintenance of the memorial as part of RAAF installa tions. Bronze plaques are being cast in Australia, and the actual design of the memorial structure has been worked out by a special committee in consultation with the St. George Sub-branch of the

Rsl.