Labour unrest at the Spitfire factory
How labour unrest nearly lost us the Battle of Britain
How it nearly cost us the war
The government lavished £7 million on the Nuffield factory in Birmingham, but the money was ill-spent. Men and machines lay idle, buildings unfinished. Nuffield had claimed he could produce 60 Spitfires a week, but by May 1940 not one had been built. Fortunately, by then, the Supermarine plant was operating smoothly but, with its restricted size, it could not meet the demands of the RAF. The government was in despair at the fiasco of Castle Bromwich, especially because Nuffield refused to recognise the scale of the disaster and constantly bleated about lack of technical support from Supermarine. But one Supermarine worker, Cyril Russell, some of whose colleagues had been sent to Castle Bromwich to provide advice, was scathing about the entire Nuffield operation, including the behaviour of the workforce. The project was ‘bugged’ with industrial action, he wrote later in a private memoir. ‘There were a lot of squabbles over money’ and employees ‘stopped work for financial greed’. Russell even suggested that, following the Nazi–Soviet pact of August 1939, left-wing extremism might have been behind some of the disputes. In his view, bottlenecks were ‘orchestrated by politically motivated persons to delay the output of aircraft that were so vital’ â” action which he believed ‘bordered on treason’.
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Tim Hawkins
November 15th, 2007 4:41pmA very interesting perspective that rings true! I was a boy at the time and have read many books on the subject.
Herbert Thornton
November 15th, 2007 7:52pmThis account reminds me of a conversation I had - around 1966 - with a man then in his seventies.
Early in World War II he had worked as a skilled machinist in a factory in South Lancashire that manufacted equipment of some sort for the armed forces.
He described to me how a group of time & motion study experts from the government visited the factory to study how production might be increased and made more efficient.
He went into considerable detail about how he and he co-workers delibetately exaggerated how much time was required to operate the factory's various machine tools with the required degree of precision.
He said that they were so successful at hoodwinking the experts that shortly afterwards he and his fellow workers ware awarded considerably increased wages - and the rate of production was decreased.
He thought that having arranged things so that they did considerably less work for much more money was a considerable triumph.
Kenneth Perry
November 15th, 2007 9:59pmI worked in the Air Ministry before being called up in March 1940 & saw many files relating to the Spitfire & the Shadow Factory Schene. I would not dispute any details of this "researched" article,but it is an incomplete & incorrect picture. The Spitfire was a sophisticated hand tooled plane,not susceptible to mass production,unlike the Hurricane. And it was the Hurricane that won the Battle of Britain. The Shadow Factory Scheme embraced Aircraft Engines more than Aiframes & other Car Manufacturers besides Lord Nuffield. There was greed & selfishness amonst civilian workers who escaped call up,but 50% income tax,rationing,with copmpulsory Fire Watching & Home Guard duties were mitigating factors.The famed "Community Spirit"of1940 did indeed exist because none of us could escape the stark reality that we were alone.
Guy Wilson
November 16th, 2007 6:40pmI was under the impression that the lack of trained pilots represented the greatest threat to success during the Battle of Britain, not the lack of aircraft. Spitfire production may have been a problem but, as Mr Perry has pointed out, the Hurricane was of much greater significance. Nevetheless, an interesting perspective on the reality of the time.
Gervas Douglas
November 22nd, 2007 4:39pmThese Nuffield workers were not the only people who undermined our war effort. Michael Foot tried to get the Welsh miners out on strike during the war. Whose side was he on??
Nicholas Millman
November 25th, 2007 10:03amGuy Wilson - yes, you are correct that pilot availability was a more critical factor. I thought it curious that in an article about Battle of Britain era Spitfire production The Spectator should choose an image of a much later mark (IX?) flying over the D-Day invasion force to illustrate the article! I hope that is not down to the author of a book about the Spitfire?