EXPANDING APACE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 April 1943, Page 3

EXPANDING APACE

WAR PRODUCTION IN BRITAIN IMPRESSIVE FACTS GIVEN BY MR LYTTELTON. BIG INCREASE IN OUTPUT OF BOMBERS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.35 a.m.) RUGBY, April 2. More than four times more heavy bombers were produced in February in Britain than in February last year, said Mr. Oliver Lyttelton, Minister of Production today. He added that in the last quarter of 1942 the “structure weight” of aircraft produced was about 75 per cent higher than in the average quarterly production in 1941. By the fourth quarter of 1942, the rate of output of all weapons, ammunition and warlike stores was double the average rate in 1941. About one-third of British production is now of weapons which did not exist, except in the imagination of their inventors, when the war broke out. Others were coming on and were being developed all the time. These were our secret weapons. Mr Lyttelton said that, despite increasing difficulties arising from the further demands of the services for manpower from factories and slipways, and the present necessity to conserve raw materials in order to save shipping space for military use, the increase had continued into .the present year. Our output of munitions of all sorts in February was about 40 per cent greater than in February, 1942, and was still expanding. This increased output had been achieved largely by, firstly, developments by scientists and industrial engineers; secondly, by increased efficiency of labour, and thirdly, by increased efficiency of management. Mr Lyttelton said it could be predicted without much danger that the days of desert warfare were numbered and that we must look forward to fighting in enclosed country, with roads, rivers and railways.