Britain gives Lesotho replica Spitfire to honour its contribution in WWII
 

Nice one, Rotornut - I saw this and I was meaning to post it on the end of this thread I started back in Sept - http://www.pprune.org/aviation-histo...l-lesotho.html - but this AM is the first time I've had a proper computer in front of me and not a smartphone since 10 Nov!

Friend of ours is from Lesotho - I sent her the link of something in her country's history of which she had previously been unaware

If you insert "Lesotho" into the search engine, there is a long thread about this back in September. The country gave 24 Spitfires all told

How did Lesotho (or more correctly, Basutoland - which to me, comes across as a relatively poor tribal society) come to have so much wealth during WW2? - and what was the reason behind the Lesothan generosity and goodwill towards the British in that era, when "colonialism" was generally looked upon as an act of invasion by most 3rd world countries?

I must admit, when perusing Australian WW2 newspaper records online, I was very surprised to see the number of military aircraft purchased directly by very wealthy private benefactors in Australia during WW2, as their contribution towards the War effort.

planes were cheaper back then; by that I mean that a spitfire (even adjusted for inflation) was a lot cheaper than say an F-18 now. That's not to say that Lesotho didn't make a fabulous effort. People there probably went without a lot to pay for these planes.

I think you are looking back at a time before the opinion quoted above was fashionable - being part of the British Empire was something many colonies and protectorates were proud of and Basutoland, in common with a lot of southern Africa, clearly was.

Patriotism was a huge thing at that time.

As for the history of poor people going without to pay for big things for rich people - remember that every time you set foot in a cathedral.