A YORKSHIRE JOB

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 126, 30 May 1942, Page 5

A YORKSHIRE JOB

DRESSING THE ARMY

AND DOING IT WELL, LAD!

(Special.)

LEEDS, April 10.

The task of clothing Britain's army has created the biggest tailoring and outfitting job ever undertaken there or in any other country within a comparable period of time. Naturally the number of men who have been clothed and equipped is a closely-guarded military secret, but all the centres which have participated in the work of dressing the British Army, Navy and Air Force, with their co-operating women's services, are justly proud of the work they have undertaken and successfully completed.

In two Leeds factories alone enough cotton to go three times round the equator is being used each week in the task of helping to clothe Britain's home and overseas armies. A single works which turns out one garment every three seconds is using 40 miles of cloth and lining weekly to make greatcoats. Battle-dresses at the rate of 320,000 a week have been turned out during peak periods by another firm which still employs a part of its staff of 10,000 workers to meet the necessities of civilians.

6,000,000 in One Order These are only a few of the many striking aspects of the work that is being done in Leeds alone in the gigantic task of supplying the army with all its needs. When the imminence of war made it necessary for the Government to plan the equipment of a large army at short notice, surveys were made by War Office experts of the "making up" firms in the country. Leeds, one of the greatest ready-made clothing centres in the world, lies in the heart of the heavy woollen district of the west riding of Yorkshire, a region which produces a very large percentage of army cloth, and was therefore a natural choice for placing many of the Government contracts which had to be distributed over the country.

After the outbreak of hostilities it was necessary to employ more firms still in the work, and increasingly large orders were placed by the Ministry of Supply. The largest single order to the middle of 1940 was for 5,000,000 blouses and 6,000,000 pairs of trousers.

Eight Colours in Khaki In spite of civilian commitments, shortage of labour, the difficulties of blacking out the factories for night work, and notwithstanding the problems of installing new machinery to deal with the specialised work, Leeds factories, in common with others all over the United Kingdom, set to work with a will to fulfil their contracts within a few weeks. The production of the correct colour for the waterproof overcoat cloth, specially milled and felted to keep out the wind, is a long-standing Yorkshire secret, of which its people are justifiably proud. Long experimenting taught firms in this district to blend eight different colours of wool in such a way that a perfect khaki was obtained. Green and blue, white and yellow, brown, red, drab and mauve are skilfully woven together to form that camouflage colour which makes our uniformed troops blend into the landscape. In six months enough overcoats were produced from Yorkshire cloth for 25 years' supply under normal conditions. At one period 70 firms cut into seven million yards of this material.

Big Enough For Football Matches Thousands of workers, mostly girls and women, are employed in making clothes in extensive factories. In rooms which would take in five foot-

ball pitches they work for eight to ten hours a day, often singing above the noise of the machines or listening to the special concerts broadcast for workers.

The shape of the garment is automatically traced on the material by a special process. Once marked out, 20 thicknesses of material can be cut out by the band-knife machines, whose tape-like blades swerve rapidly along the marking lines under the light guiding touch of the operator as easily as if they were cutting a cake. The piles of material representing sleeves, and backs, and pockets and all the pieces that go to make up a garment, are then separated out on to batteries of conveyer belts. These belts pass imposing arrays of sewing machines for every purpose, pressing machines for every type and shape of garment, and machines for making buttonholes, sewing on buttons npwi h' ng i metal tabs. Nothing need be done by hand. Patented sihiP f« S th<? n V? tors make it possible foi the machines to reach the nighest speed immediately the tieadle is pressed, and to keep up this speed to the last stitch

Recruits Xeed Twenty Sizes dl- esses and greatcoats alone are not the only varments whirh Sirki fr ° m Yorkshire 's factories. The on gun sites and the bomber station need slacks for work and tunics and skirts for walking out. Yorkshire provides the bovs who go tr °Pical kit of drill t w doe ? lts bit in seeing that they get them in sufficient quantities everv JV nnaVyf aVy woollen goods for uV vp of service, in navy air force blue or khaki. It takes just 36 hours from thp time the material is cut out for tne finished garments to be packed and despatched to the depots miles away e caH Sr P?th are - built "P to mtef the Kiture F lmmediate °r in

Nevertheless, in spite of all that ing an extS m ass producing cloths an extra outsize recruit will ™22 a L n , 0t fin , d £ is size among made and thlfi Whlch are ord inarily tn SL he rms are called upon W th i L Sir L gle special order. With so much army clothing to civilian' l™£;" ous L. garments are now being* thfrd on 3 th2 G r *? r \ hey only come produced. 6 hSt ° f goods to be