Tycoon supports Mitchell honour (From Tewkesbury Admag)

Tycoon supports Mitchell honour

ONE of the world's richest men has joined a Cotswold man's campaign to recognise the legacy of his inventor father - the legendary Spitfire fighter plane.

American billionaire Sidney Frank, who once gave his secretary a £13m bonus, regards RJ Mitchell as one of the great unsung heroes of the Second World War.

The son of the aviation genius, Dr Gordon Mitchell of Upper Slaughter, has long campaigned for his father to be granted a posthumous honour for his contribution to the war effort.

He says his father's early death at the age of 42, just months after the Spitfire first took to the skies, denied him the honours heaped on other wartime inventors such as Barnes Wallis, father of the bouncing bomb.

Now Mr Frank, aged 85, has joined his campaign by commissioning a statue of Mitchell for London's Science Museum and paying for the inventor to be mentioned on a new Battle of Britain monument, due to be unveiled beside the Thames in September.

The tycoon has also vowed to set up a memorial fund to recognise Mitchell's achievements and benefit his descendants.

He has already proved as good as his word by sending large sums of money to buy the best possible care for Dr Mitchell's wife, Alison, who has had four strokes and is in a care home.

In a letter to Dr Mitchell, aged 84, Mr Frank said: "Your father was a fantastic inventor to design the Spitfire and was just as important as Churchill at the Battle of Britain in saving western Europe and preserving democracy all over the world."

Dr Mitchell said he was delighted that the influential tycoon was striving to secure recognition for his father. "I'm very impressed with what he's doing. He has got a lot of money behind him and will hopefully produce some good results.

"The problem has always been that my father died too soon.

"The honours he should have received are never awarded posthumously and never will be."

Mr Frank said that Mr Mitchell senior should be honoured regardless of existing conventions. "I think the whole world should recognise what RJ Mitchell did for all of us, and especially for Britain."