SIDE-LINES IN MUNITION WORK

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 280, 15 August 1918, Page 6

SIDE-LINES IN MUNITION WORK

THE UTILE THINGS THAT COUNT

(By Major C. J. C. Street, R.G.A., author of "With the Guns," etc.) The term "munitions" conveys to most peoplo a vision of guns and shells and nigh explosives and engines of war on a vast scale. As a matter of fact, it moans everything supplied for the direct or indirect use of the services, and so includes all manner of unexpected items. Wonderfully varied are the different forms of war material which Britain produces in such monstrous quantities for herself and her Allies.

It is certainly surprising, on visiting some of the largest, munition factories in England, to be shown the extraordinary number of vnried industries that are carried on within their walls. Tables and chairs ono has long ago recognised as munitions, but far more unlikely things are produced iu the big factories. At a rocent visit to one of these, after a morning spent in watching the forging of giant gun-tubes and the progress of a steady,stream of shrapnel shell, our guido brought us to a, groat block of buildings that stood somewhat isolated from tho rest.

"This is our newest department," ho said, "and we we proportionately proud of it This was an open field a few months ago. I watched a cricket match here last September. Now it's our tailoring department, and just about the last word in such things. Come inside and have a look. We'll begin at the stores first."

Ho opened a door, and we passed into a huge glass-roofed hall packed full of bales of ml cloth and white, of every texture and thickness, of rolls of leather, of sacks of brown paper and cardboard, of thread and glue and buttons and a thousand such small items. At one end of the store these various articles wero being passed out to tho workshops beyond, from which came the constant whirring of busy machinery. "We don't do very much nctual tailoring," said our guide, "beyond making all the overalls required in the works. You'd bo surprised how much thought goes into the making of an overall, even; "The cloth we use, • for instance, has to stand the test of being lield a few inches from a tuft of burning cordite without catching lire. Our chief industry here is the production of everything mndo of cloth, paper, or cardboard that is' wanted in the rest of the works, such as -ilk-cloth, cartridge bags, shalloon igniters, wads for small-arm cartridges, paper exploder-containers, and a thousand little things like that. Come into tho shops, and you'll see." Tho shops wore full of women, with only a small sprinkling of men over military age, and a f.ew boys. Near the entrance were a series of guillotine-liko machines, in which rolls of cloth were being,cut into pieces, eaoh one of them tho exaot size roquired for some special purpose, such as tho bug ill which the propellant forming a big gun cartridge is contained. Next to these machines was a row of printing-presses, in which tho lettering on the cartridge; nature of gun, weight, lot of cordite, etc., was impressed upon the piece of cloth. Prom the presses, the material passed to tho sewing-machine shop, where it was sewn into its final form.

This shop was full of devices of every conceivable shape ;uul size, ..from the ordinary familiar household sewing machino t0 a miraculous little contrivance that sewed a button onto an overall everv time a pedal was pressed. At each machine sat a girl, intent upon ono particular job, making button-holes in webbing straps, or sewing little red bags for picric power exploders. Output seemed their main idea, so many buttonholes or so 'many bags per day. This was their contribution to the war. Next door was Hie paper and cardboard shop, whore'all manner of small articles were made out of these substances. I'or instance,' sheets of millboard were passing to a press, which cut from them a number of circular pieces. These pieces passed to a second W.i'ss, which stamped them into the shape of circular box lids, to bo used for containing powder. Neni' by was' a big table, at which sat a row of girls covering sheets of brown paper with glue, and rolling them round mandrils to form cylindrical distance-pieces and rocket bodies.. At one corner stood an experimental machine, designed to do this work entirely and automatically. At the end of the building wns the testing room, to which samples of every material used in the department were brought. Here were machines to test the breaking strain of cloth and the threads that composed them, delicate balances to determine this weight, an apparatus for finding out how much water was absorbed by pieces of silk, a micrometer capable 'of mea-Mving the difference in thickness between almost invisible threads. "You see, tli"' di'ivrl—'n! self-contained," said d-r '.''ii(>. "It buys' i(-« own nvilpHiil, lest* i f . and makes it up into the finished article Ot course you haven't seen half of it, but we must "hurry up as time's lots more lo see." And'so-we crossed the road into a glaring, pulsating inferno, where a row of Bessemer converters poured out a roaring stream of fire'. So diverse are the contrasts in n modern munition factory.