Southampton. Beginnings. Production must continue

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Edwin Todd
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1 1 Southampton Southampton had already come under enemy attack before the Supermarine Works were finally put out of action in late September 1940, and the city was to suffer further and more devastating attacks in the months to come. Yet, amidst it all, the city and the Spitfire survived. Dispersed across the city and surrounding area in requisitioned workshops and buildings and with a workforce often made up of men and women with little or no engineering experience it is a remarkable testament to the spirit and ingenuity of the population. Beginnings Even before the failed raid on the Woolston Works, on 15 th September, Supermarine had been drawing up contingency plans to avoid a major loss of production in the event of an attack. These involved the dispersal of production around the city. However, the failure of the Shadow Factory in Castle Bromwich to deliver any Spitfires until June, and then only in small (though increasing) numbers meant that Supermarine could not afford any interruption in production so no action was taken. Production must continue After the raid it became very clear that no further delay was possible. Castle Bromwich was beginning to deliver aircraft and the Luftwaffe s change of focus, from RAF airfields to aircraft manufacturers, meant that Supermarine knew that the long-awaited chop was imminent. With the help of Ministry of Aircraft Production (MAP) officials Supermarine began to requisition stores and workshops around Southampton and look to other manufacturers to take on some of the other, non-spitfire work, they had. Saunders Roe on the Isle of Wight taking responsibility for the manufacture of the Walrus and Sea Otter amphibians vital to Naval reconnaissance and the RAF for the Air Sea Rescue of downed pilots (fast patrol boats built at Hythe also playing a key part in this role). The first part of Supermarine to be dispersed was not actually part of the Spitfire production but the Commercial Department, and more importantly the payroll, who were moved to Deepdene House in Bitterne. This proved to be a wise decision as it enabled workers to receive emergency pay following the raids; pay that was desperately needed by families, many of whom had been bombed out. Additionally, stores for parts made by sub-contract companies (a vital and significant part of the Spitfire production process with more than 200 companies involved in the early years of the war, including many engineering firms in Southampton itself) were requisitioned in the Weston Rolling Mills and at Sholing, Botley, Bishop s Waltham, Eastleigh and Chandler s Ford. For Spitfire production the first workshops requisitioned were at Hendy s Garage, off Pound Tree Road in the city centre, and Seward s Garage, on Winchester Road in Shirley, where some

2 2 preparatory work had already started before the raid. After the raid more premises were requisitioned; including the Sunlight Laundry and Hants and Dorset Bus Depot on Winchester Road together with more storage space in huts at Hollbrook. The owners of the Sunlight Laundry left with little complaint but elsewhere not everyone was happy. Stores requisitioned on Hollybrook Road prompted a lady working there to complain that now we will be bombed as well as Woolston. Clearly the spirit of we re all in it together was not universal. At the Hants and Dorset Depot a different sort of resistance was encountered. The Depot had already been requisitioned for the additional sandbags and pumps needed by the Fire Brigade for the Civil Defence in the event of an air raid. Supermarine were forced to negotiate with the Town Clerk to get the Civic authorities to move their stores and had to rely on the feared Beaverbrook s Boys, the men from the Ministry of Aircraft Production, to ensure the requisition was successful. Conflicts between rival Ministries, who had already requisitioned sites needed by Supermarine, were not uncommon, but the Ministry for Aircraft Production usually ruled supreme. Backed by Lord Beaverbrook and, ultimately, Churchill aircraft production was paramount; as one MAP man was overheard to cry out as Supermarine gazumped the Ministry for Food Supply You can t win a war with bloody pineapples!. For Supermarine the Bus Depot was important. For dispersal to work Supermarine had to be able to replicate the manufacturing process that had been performed in the various Shops at the Woolston and Itchen Works. Garages and other workshops could be adapted to build sub-assemblies and even complete fuselages, but the wings required the height only available in places like a bus depot. In the days following the 15 th the requisitioned workshops were prepared, tools and jigs slowly moved out of Woolston and Itchen to be installed in their new locations and some initial work begun, but the real production was still at Woolston and Itchen, until the raids on the 24 th and 26 th September changed everything. Woolston is destroyed Although the actual damage to the works was, all things considered, relatively light the raids, and more importantly Lord Beaverbrook s visit and instruction to begin a complete abandonment of Woolston and full dispersal of production, meant that the gradual, partial dispersal would have to be completely reconsidered. With the Design Office in the Woolston office block wrecked, the design staff and precious designs were quickly moved into old WW1 army huts belonging to the University College at Highfield (a move which was almost disastrous as just before they relocated to Hursley Park an incendiary bomb destroyed one of the wooden huts). At the same time the Works management, now headed by Len Gooch, and backed by more of Beaverbrook s Boys, requisitioned the top floor of the Polygon Hotel and began to plan a complete dispersal of production. Southampton was to remain the prime base for Supermarine but the dispersal also planned to both move some of it further away from enemy attack and allow production to expand. For that to work new locations were required away from the city.

3 3 Using the main roads out of Southampton as their starting point and drawing a series of concentric circles radiating out from the city the plan was to find areas capable to supporting self-contained Spitfire production, from sub-assembly to final flight test and delivery, but within 50 miles of Southampton so control and communication could be maintained. The areas chosen were Salisbury, Trowbridge, Reading and Newbury. Each area would have workshops able to make each part of the plane and an airfield at which final assembly and delivery could be performed, just as Eastleigh had done for Woolston. An additional area around Winchester and Chandler s Ford was linked to the main design base at Hursley Park. Hursley Park, a grand stately home owned by the elderly dowager Lady Cooper who lived there with her servants, was requisitioned to provide a longer-term base from where the dispersal could be coordinated and to ensure the design team could continue to work uninterrupted. The move of Design and Production to Hursley Park, and Southend House in the village, was made in December 1940, once the initial dispersal plan was well under way. The dispersal plan On paper the plan seemed simple; requisition some workshops, move machines and staff to the new location and make Spitfires. In reality, it was far from simple. As in Southampton there was resistance to the requisitions at many of the new sites, not least at Salisbury where the Bishop and Mayor appear both to have been happy to support fund raising for Spitfire s to be made, just not in Salisbury. Like many, they feared Spitfire factories would result in the Luftwaffe bombing them too. Lord Beaverbrook was reported to have made it blatantly clear to the Mayor that there was no point raising funds to pay for a plane if they couldn t build them! As ever, Beaverbrook got his way and the requisitions were pushed through, regardless. In Trowbridge an attempt by a Steam Roller factory owner to appeal against the requisition resulted in him being told to share the factory. That night Supermarine workers built a wall down the middle of the factory and got to work! However, it was not simply finding premises that was the problem. The very act of identifying sites took many senior foremen away from their work to ensure the new locations were suitable. Additionally, the new factories meant new machines and jigs were required. Some machinery was moved from the cleared Woolston Works but that meant it was not available in Southampton. In the months immediately following the start of the dispersal Supermarine s Spitfire production fell sharply. Fortunately, the Castle Bromwich Shadow Factory was now able to fill the immediate shortfall. Finding the Workforce Most problematic was the workforce. Many workers at Woolston and Itchen had been killed or wounded, many more were forced to deal with the aftermath of the bombing on their families and homes. Even when fit and able there was a great reluctance to move to the new dispersal areas away from Southampton. Some of the reluctance was because people simply did not want to move

4 4 away from their families, particularly when this felt like abandoning them to the bombing. Another reason for the reluctance was the lack of suitable accommodation in the new areas. In the Vickers- Armstrongs Company Reports the need to provide accommodation was almost as high a priority as setting up the factories themselves. Once skilled Supermarine workers were finally relocated to their new factories a new, semi-skilled at best, workforce had to be trained. Many of the new workers were young men and women straight out of school or older men who had undergone the Government s basic engineering training. Aircraft production was a level above anything they had done before and that meant guidance, supervision and training. All of this took time. However, by the beginning of 1941 production was beginning to recover, even if the first planes produced in the new areas were, in part, ones that had not been completed when Woolston was bombed. As the war progressed so the workforce steadily grew and gradually changed as women began to take on more senior roles, including Progress Chasers in the factories. Southampton Blitz In Southampton the problems associated with relocating the workforce did not apply but the lack of machinery and skilled workers did. Also, unlike the other dispersal areas Southampton was still a prime target for the Luftwaffe. The raids on Supermarine were only the beginning of Southampton s ordeal. In November and December German bombing of the city reached a devastating peak. The raids between 22 nd November and 1 st December (including the two six-hour raids on the 30 th November and 1 st December) are often referred to as the Southampton Blitz. Much of the city centre was destroyed and many lives were lost as high explosive and incendiary bombs fell across the city. Amazingly none of the Supermarine workshops received a direct hit, although Hendy s Garage in the city centre was put out of action for some time when a bomb hit the neighbouring building. However, the bombing did affect production. Transport, power and water were frequently interrupted, and workers again had to spend time finding places to live or attending to their families. But somehow Supermarine were able to continue. By Luck or By Design? Whether it had ever been considered when the dispersal was planned the creation of separate, selfcontained, dispersal areas, provided a flexibility and responsiveness to Spitfire production that the large mass production factory at Castle Bromwich was unable to match. A problem with mass production is the time taken to change the tooling for a modification. Because of this the Castle Bromwich factory concentrated on the core, standard, Spitfires; including the Mk II, V, IX and XIVs. In contrast each dispersal area could specialise on particular types or models of Spitfire, for example photo-reconnaissance variants in Reading or the clipped wing Mk XII in Salisbury, and could much more quickly change production lines to provide small number of specialised aircraft in response to a new threat or requirement. It was this flexibility that enabled the Spitfire to meet the ever-changing demands of the RAF and Royal Navy as the war progressed, significantly increasing both the fire-

5 5 power and speed of the aircraft and providing the naval variant, the Seafire (built under license by Westlands in Yeovil and later also Cunliffe-Owen in Eastleigh). It is hard to be precise how many Spitfires were made in Southampton. Over 4,400 were delivered from Eastleigh of over 8,000 made by Supermarine across all its production areas, but the final total for Southampton may have been higher as Chattis Hill was used by both the Southampton and Salisbury areas. More importantly Southampton workers had made the Spitfires when Britain really needed them in 1940 during the Battle of Britain, and it continued to make them throughout the war with enormous success. Shadow Factories, sub-contractors and Dispersal Units Howard Brenton s play is called The Shadow Factory, but what was a Shadow Factory? The idea of creating Shadow Factories to shadow, to replicate or echo, the production of the main aircraft firms had become government policy in As the threat of war loomed ever more ominously the government realised that the existing aircraft manufacturers would be unable to meet the massive demand that rearmament would require, so they turned to the car industry for support. Large, government funded, factories were set up and run by car manufacturers to shadow what the main aircraft companies were doing, preparing them for war production and providing much needed additional aircraft. At Castle Bromwich Lord Nuffield, the head of Morris Motors, was tasked with setting up a Shadow Factory to produce Spitfires whilst Supermarine continued to develop the aircraft and provide the prime manufacturing base. At least that was the plan. By May 1940 the Castle Bromwich factory had failed to produce a single aircraft. So dire was the situation that Lord Beaverbrook forced Lord Nuffield to relinquish control of the factory and handed it over to Vickers-Armstrongs, Supermarine s parent company, to run. With the help of new Supermarine management and expertise sent up from Southampton, and ten completed aircraft pre-packaged and ready for final assembly, in June the factory managed to deliver ten aircraft! In the months that followed Castle Bromwich (focussing on the main, core types of Spitfire) steadily increased production and by the end of the war had produced over 12,000 of the 23,000 Spitfires and Seafires made. Alongside the aircraft made by the Castle Bromwich Shadow Factory several companies were subcontracted to make not just parts but entire aircraft in support of Supermarine. The most significant of these contractors was Westlands in Yeovil who were responsible for the manufacture of the majority of the navalised Spitfire, the Seafire, making over 2,000 with Cunliffe-Owen in Eastleigh making an additional 500. Both Shadow Factory and contract firms were there to support the parent firm, Supermarine, who continued to make and develop the latest variants of the aircraft. During 1940 Supermarine were effectively working alone until Castle Bromwich finally began to deliver aircraft. However, with the

6 6 bombing of Woolston in September 1940 Supermarine were forced to disperse their production into smaller workshops. Dispersed both within Southampton and then into additional areas in Salisbury, Trowbridge, Reading, Newbury and Winchester. Although theoretically secret, like all Government work, these workshops were known to Supermarine simply as dispersal units or dispersal works. However, over time, the original meaning of Shadow Factory has become somewhat obscured, even to Supermarine workers, and is (and was) sometimes taken to mean shadow in the sense of hiding in the shadows, out of sight of the enemy, rather than it s original meaning of to shadow or replicate the parent company. It is therefore technically incorrect to refer to the Southampton dispersal units as Shadow Factories but the playwright can perhaps be forgiven a slight twist to the technical meaning for his play as it conveys the meaning in a way that would have been entirely understandable both to the original Supermariners (as the men and women who worked for Supers often referred to themselves) and for a modern audience for whom the ambiguity in the meaning of shadow helps explain what these workshops did far better than the technically correct dispersal unit.

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