A DISPLAY marking 100 years of the RAF has been vandalised.

The boat, festooned with bunting and an RAF centenary flag, was only recently put in place by Westbourne Rotary Club, but on Tuesday night its mast was torn down and the flags were strewn across the Alum Chine roundabout, in Alumhurst Road/Western Road.

It is the latest in a serious of war memorials being vandalised across the town.

Rotary club chairman Christopher Colledge said: "What a most disgraceful act of vandalism and an insult to our servicemen and women who gave their lives in conflict, especially during the Second World War.

"It is a sad reflection on our society, when something that means so much to people, to the people who fought in the wars and those who continue to do so, that someone should do such a terrible act."

Earlier this month a brick was thrown through the glass casing on a First World War memorial information board in Fampoux Gardens, Charminster.

Last month one of the Royal British Legion’s Silent Solider statutes was destroyed within 48 hours of being installed in Ferndown, and soon afterwards vandals targeted another Westbourne Rotary project.

Another sailboat in Westbourne itself outside the Libertine pub, decorated with flowers to commemorate the First World War, saw ‘HMS Armageddon’ marked on the side by two men using stencil lettering.

The attack occurred just hours after work on the project had been completed.

Volunteers will be planting flowers around the boat on the Alum Chine roundabout next week.

The floral arrangement will be laid out in the RAF colour scheme.

Mr Colledge said the mast will be replaced with a stronger pole cemented into the ground to ensure its longevity.