The RAF Bomber Command Association Memorial was officially unveiled in London’s Green Park on June 28, with thousands of spectators and specially invited guests, as well as representatives from the British royal family.

Hydro was contacted by a group in the U.K. last year to help on the memorial project. Then, in early January this year, aluminium from the Canadian Halifax plane that was shot down over Belgium in 1944 was melted into a sheet ingot at Hydro's aluminium plant in Sunndal, Norway. Hydro's rolling mill in Holmestrand, Norway, then turned the metal into coated plates.

Richard Austin Alloys Ltd. and George Gilmour (Metals) Ltd., two of Hydro’s customers in the UK, helped fabricate the plates into final interior roof components for the memorial building honoring the bomber crews who died during World War II.

“I think the memorial looks fantastic,” says Jon Dag Evensen, development manager at Hydro’s Rolled Products plant in Holmestrand. “The statue of the returning air crew is magnificent and the riveted ceiling structure resembling an aircraft hull gives a very special effect.”

Adds Dave Goddard of Hydro’s Rolled Products business in the UK, who was instrumental in coordinating the effort: “The roof itself looks absolutely magnificent.