Following the successful presentation of the 42nd Street Plaque to the Chania Municipality in May, Chania’s Deputy Mayor Dimitris Lipsakis has said every effort will be made by the Chania Municipality to have the memorial completed by May 2015 – in time for its inauguration on the 74th anniversary of the Battle of Crete.
With a site having been identified by the municipality near the village of Tsikalaria, efforts are now underway to confirm the transfer of the state-owned land to the local authorities.
Municipality architect engineer Aggelina Sirakouli has been tasked with the job of creating the memorial’s overall design. Until the memorial is complete, the 42nd Street plaque is on display in the permanent Battle of Crete exhibition housed in the Nautical Museum of Crete, Chalidon 21, Chania.
While the cost of the memorial’s final construction is yet to be confirmed, the plaque’s organisers have been told by Deputy Mayor Lipsakis that the municipality will be in a position to allocate funds to the project, as part of its infrastructure program, however a proportion of the final costs may be still required from other sources.
The Friends of 42nd Street Trust – the organisation set up by Glenda Humes (daughter of Captain Reg Saunders MBE, who served in Crete in WWII) to manage the memorial’s development – will continue to work with the municipality and sponsors to complete the memorial.
The Trust’s project co-ordinator Mike Sweet said that the memorial was well on the way to becoming a reality after three years of planning.
“The first step has been achieved, and now – with the Chania Municipality as our partner and hugely supportive one – I’m confident this memorial will be built. It will take a little more time, but what the municipality have in mind is very ambitious. It will be a landmark monument – marking this very special Battle of Crete story,” said Sweet.
The 42nd Street Memorial Plaque has been supported financially by: The Pancretan Association of Melbourne and Victoria; The Cretan Association of Sydney and NSW; The Cretan Federation of Australia and New Zealand; The Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria, and the Andriotakis family of Sydney.