This May, Friends of Teesside International Airport (FOTIA) will be hosting a charity walk to raise funds to create lasting memorials to two hero pilots who once flew from our airport’s runways.
Pilot Officers Andrew Mynarski and William McMullen were both stationed at what was then RAF Middleton St George in the Second World War, and were lost in aircraft crashes, in France and Darlington respectively.
Mynarski was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions on the day.
Now, FOTIA will be embarking on a ten-mile walk to hopefully raise enough to have engraved memorials placed to each pilot at the International Bomber Command Centre in Lincolnshire – a place developed to tell the personal stories of service men and women of RAF Bomber Command, ground crews and civilians affected by the bombing campaigns on both sides of the conflict during the Second World War and beyond to the Cold War era.
It is hoped that £2,000 can be raised to create the lasting memorials.
The walk will take place on Sunday 19 May and start at the statue of Andrew Mynarski outside the former St George Hotel at Teesside Airport. The half-way point will be the memorial to the crash site of William McMullen on the road named after him in Darlington, before returning to the airport.
All are welcome to join in the walk, with a central giving point already in place for sponsorships and donations.
If you would like to take part in the walk, please email us at information@friendsoftia.co.uk
Donations and sponsorships can be made at https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/MMEWalk
Any surplus will be donated to the Teesside Airport Foundation, a new fundraising charity which exists to support people in Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar & Cleveland and Stockton-on-Tees (the Tees Valley) to achieve their ambitions in education and employment and to assist in the regeneration of our area.