BOMBED FACTORIES

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 92, 15 October 1940, Page 9

BOMBED FACTORIES

INSTANCES IN LONDON AREA

AN OFFICIAL'S TOUR

I (British Official Wireless.) \ (Received October 15, 10.50 a.m.) RUGBY, October 14. The speed with which factories in the London area which have been bombed by German aircraft have reorganised production was illustrated jn a speech at Lincoln today by Sir Cecil Weir, execuiive member of the export council of the Board of Trade. Speaking of a tour of London in which he visited several plants, some i of which had been struck as many as eight times by every type of bomb, Sir Cecil Weir said: "One would have expected disorganisation, chaos, and confusion. Instead, one found an extraordinary degree of normal production, and in one of the worst cases the drop in production, a large part of which was going for export, was less than 30 per cent., and the managing director assured me that within another week or two they would be fully up to the usual output.

"Another manufacturer showed me photographs of his damaged factory which had been struck in a vital spot by a 15001b bomb. In another vital spot it had been blasted by a landmine. When he looked at the damage the day after the attack his foreman asked, 'How long do you think it will be before we can get going?' and he said optimistically, 'About a month.' In actual fact the plant was operating within twenty-four hours. It lost 30 per cent, of production in the first week, 20 per cent, in the second, and in the third week was producing the full output, which was much more than was manufactured in pre-war days."