BATTLE OF THE SEAS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 05, Issue 58, 27 May 1942, Page 5

BATTLE OF THE SEAS

BRITAIN'S SHIPBUILDERS AT WORK (By Jack McLaren, author of "My Crowded Solitude," "Gentlemen' o£ the Empire," etc.) The, first thing I saw on entering; a certain famous British shipyard the other day were men building; two ships on one slipway. At another slipway others wiere laying thekeel plates of a ship to follow one that had been launched! from that slipway that very morning. In the: river nearby workmen were busy fitting cut with everything from engines to the mosquito netted! door of a wireless cabin ( a newly-launch-ed 10,000 ton tanker, that would beaway to the sea in a month —the high, speed work that in a cruciall need, for ships; in the battle of the seas leaves no time for a triaL run asi ins peacetime. Rivetters have had to learn toe work in the blackout, a difficult and patience-demanding task, if ever there was one. In great sheds fitters, and others have to do much of their fine work in restricted lightingSnow has often to be swept from, outdoor jobs (and much of "the shipbuilding, of course, is done outdoor) before work can begin. Though much of the work is standardised, men have to adapt themselves to many new methods. Many men who left shipyard work years ago have returned to help-make good ' the labour shortage. Some of these find the work hard at their age r but they carry on. One I talked with had a small baiter's shop andl another a milk round; the businesses are now being run by their wives. Repair and alter ait ion. work makes a great demand on the shipbuilding. 1 services at some yards. Out; of a I total of 2500 men employed at one * place that I visited,, as> many asi 900 are sometimes engaged! in fitting, 1 ships with bows and sterns that have 1 been shattered by bombs or gunfire, 1 and in neplating vast damage caused by torpedioes. They have, too> to stiffen ships for gunseats and to install them with paravane minesweeping, apparatus, * andl other protection gear.. They also carry out such tasks as converting trawlers into* minesweepers^ r working on as many as a dozen at a time and they are capable of turniing out one such converted craft every seven or ten days. All' this means long hours and hard work for

the men. At one place they are building a half-ship-. When it is completed it will be floated) off and towed toi a distant drydock and joined to the other half portion of a 7000 ton tanker that has been torpedoed in the Atlantic. Nα human in the yard has any doubt that the. new half will stand) up t© the long seagoing tow or that the final work of joining the two portions will be done without, calling, for serious modifications. As ini many other British industries to-day, women work in the shipyards. They range from general labourers in the sheds to girls in charge of trolley rivering forges. I saw a girl of seventeen driving a droi> hammer and twelve women redleading the inside of a ship. One of the women's, difficulties is. shopping; they leave home before the shops are open and before they can get baek at night the shops! ia these days of early closing have long. since shut. Many depend on the, goodwill/ of neighbours to do.-their shopping for them.. As builders of many! liners, famous: in peace time on U.S.A., Australian. Canadian and South African runs—indeed all over the world— these shipyard workers wonder a grc.it deal ahout those vessels andarc always anxious for tit bits of news about them. More, keenly than uny others, perhaps, do they feel the losses of ships by enemy action. They cannot get away from the knowledge that bombs or torpedoes may in a few moments send to the bottom of the sea their skilled and patient work of months* but they don't work any less carefully on tnat account; ships get turned out ia some yards at the rate of a lonner every four months. The speedt of production isi far in advance of any known in peace time.