By 1937 output had reached thirty thousand pieces of luggage a year and the new factory was bursting at the seams. A brand new factory was completed a month before the outbreak of the Second World War and was well placed to switch production to meeting wartime needs, ranging from attaché cases for the Admiralty to canvas covers for Spitfire, Halifax and Stirling aircraft. In mid-1940 just after the evacuation from Dunkirk, Papworth Industries won a contract to produce 30,000 sets of leather personal equipment for infantrymen. The order, dubbed the Dunkirk Order, was deemed to be the crowning achievement of the department by Sidney Charnock.