WAR TOPICS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 62, 8 June 1942, Page 6

WAR TO PICS

EVERY THREE SECONDS

ONE YORKSHIRE TAILOR TURNS OUT A GARMENT FOR THE SERVICES Army great coats use u*p -10 miles of cloth antl lining a week in a single Leeds where one garment is completed every three sccronds. This workshop and another which has turned out 320,000 battledresses a week are using every week enough cotton to go three times round the Equator. These are only two of the 250 tailoring finus who were given the larg- ! est single clothing order ever placed —for 5.000,000 batUedress blouses and' 0,000,000 trousers. That meant 9,000 mliles 1 of cloth, absorbing 10,00/0 tons of wool; 9000 miles: of 1 hiring, and 200,000,000 brass buttons. A week later, 1,150,000 Army great coats were ordered, calling for 7,000,000 yards of the heavy milled waterproof cloth specially produced for the purpose- by the Yorkshire mills, who blend six different colours of wool to make the perfect khaki. In six months the overcoats produced from Yorkshire: cloth would have provided 25 years' supply in

normal times. These huge mass-producing factories can undertake gigantic contracts like half a million battledresscs or ove'reoats because they are equipped with the most modern of labourI saving machines and in peace time produce huge quantities: of men's suits and coats. Little adaptation is required to turn the machines over to war production, which includes not only the standard Army uniform but tropical kit of drill for troops overseas, heavy woollen goodsin Royal; Navy and Air Force blue, as* well as .slacks, tunics and skirts for the girls on gun sites and. bomber stations. All this war work means that only a fraction of the British clothing industry can work on ''civvy" wear, now standardised as Utility suits.