BRITISH SHELL SUPPLY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20130, 27 December 1939, Page 7

BRITISH SHELL SUPPLY

RIGID CHECK ON DUDS STRICTNESS OF TESTS MASS PRODUCTION I-ONDON, Dec. 1. As far as is humanly possible, Britain is making sure that she is getting full value for every shell bought from scores of munition factories. And she is guarding against the possibility of poor shells endangering lives of the men who shoot them. Extent of these precautions was disclosed to newspapermen taken on a visit to a “shadow factory” which turns out shells for anti-aircraft guns. Plant and Government inspectors check every shell for weight and quality. Casing Numbered On every casing is a set of initials and figures. These indicate the factory of origin and the source of the steel. Eight shells of every HQOO produced are fired as a test. If there is the slightest fault the lot is rejected, and if the fault is seen to lie in the steel, a cancellation order goes to the steel maker. The plant, an abandoned factory before the Government installed special machinery and gave a private firm a contract for shell making, is one of the largest engaged in making this particular type of shell. Its process, though, is the same as in scores of others operating or under construction. It serves as a prototype for others here and in the Empire. A shell plant in Hamilton, Ontario, uses the same method, officials said, and the head of a Canadian concern had given British manufacturers some valuable shellmaking advice. The process—making full use of mass production—is so standardised that an engineer compared it with unit furniture that can be duplicated easily. The building is far from prepossessing and a passer-by would never realise what went on between its walls. So hard was it to find that the buses taking the newsmen there became lost and even the guides were forced to stop and ask directions to the factory. It bore a small nameplate which indicated it was used for a purpose other than shell-making. Day and Night

In the long, noisy building men work day and night in a smoky atmosphere, Each worker has a tin containing a gas mask slung over his shoulder.

The visitors followed a chunk of steel through “the works” —as factories are called here—from the time it was cut from a billet until it emerged a gleaming, varnished shell case. From there it was sent to a Royal ordnance factory to be filled with high explosives and fitted with a fuse.

The work is hard and technical, but operators for the machine can be trained in a week. In the organisation, however, a place has been found for men who are less fortunate —those born deaf and dumb.

They work in the shot blasting room where the cleaning and finishing of the interior of the shell case is carried out. It is an inferno of shrieking, nerve-shattering noise. “When we want more men for this particular job, we recruit from a deaf and dumb school in the district,” an official said. “They like the work and are only too glad of doing something which will help in the war effort.”