Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1916-01-20
RUSH WORK AT SHEFFIELD
Ceaseless Haste is Maintained at
Principal Munitions Manufao-
turing Plant.
ENGLISH ANSWER TO KRUPPs"

Correspondence Of the Associated Press
SHEFFIELD, Dec. 6.-An Associated
Press representative has today walked
ten miles through the plants of Hatfield
! q Ntckers ON tour arranged by the
minister of munitions. Sheffield is. per-
haps, as much as any one place the
British answer to the Krupp challenge.
& Sir Robert Hadfield. who conducted the
party through his large shops, explained
that Herr Krupp Won Bohien was his
guest five weeks before war was declared
/ Now the Hadfield plant is working day
and night to counterfeit the Krupp in
/ fluences.
! While engineers and metallurgists
would find countless details to interest
them in such a visit, the newspaper man
merely grasps some notion of the in
tensity of output the ceaseless pace, the
driving power of this enormous establish
ment all running with one aim. 1t is
as If every blow of the machines, every
turn of the shafts chimed in the chorus;
our aim IS to kill Germans"
At the Hadfieid plant the Associated
Press man was permitted to repeat the
experiment conducted on the occasion OF
the kings visit five weeks ago. the dis
charge of ten-centimeter shell at a
four-inch plate, at an angle Of fifty de-
grees, like the side of ship The king
shot pierced the armor; the correspond
ent's did not One OF each allotment OF
shells is thus tested. And there are
acres and acres OF shells completed and
awaiting shipment. And new factories
are in process of erection.
! Here at the Iiadfield plant, the home
! of manganese steel and other notewor-
thy inventions, all the ingenuity and ca
pacity are narnessed to the munition
work, and at the celebrated Vickers es-
adjustment it is nearly the same story.
Film shows Every Process.
/ Douglas Vickers conducted the party
through the latter plant, long famous for
its part in the admiralty work. Every
thing is done here from receiving the pig
to turning out the fifteen-inch guns like
those of the Queen Elizabeth You can
devote hours in tour through all the
'shops, viewing all the processes, or you
can sit in the neat little theater provided
adjoining the general offices and see or
! the cinematograph screen every process
/ pictured.
In these Sheffield towns the manufac-
ture of munitions is not q new thing, az
~ many VI lllO ne" lluIliNlOU pidIllS, duO
you can find many a wiseacre to remind
you that there would have been no short
age of shells If Sheffields advice had
been taken. But the complaints are ovei
now and everybody is driving, driving
rushing orders at full energy to make
up for lost time
1t is not all impersonal either. For ex.
ample, one engineer confided to the cor
respondent that he was particularly in
terested in studying the effect OF the
German shell fire or the Tiger. II,
had worked on its armor and they le
him go to see the result 1T was good
armor; some armor. as you say in thC
states" was his proud description of the
result.
Ruskin's observation about Sheffield
that it was a wretched picture. but in g
lovely frame, did not hold good today; &
was as clear and bracing amid thu
workshops as out on the surrounding
moors. In no other of the munitioI
areas is there more activity. Shops ar,
measured by acres, employees estimated
by thousands, and output by millions
Essen is answered by Sheffield, Krupr
by Hadfeld and Vickers. The muntior
aspect of the war takes on its grimmest
ASPECT here.
I'VE make those shells at half the cost
of the shells for the American navy
said one forman before an acre or two OF
twelve-pounders.
The war pressure must have increased
the cost. hasn't it?'
Il don't know" he replied. Somebody
Is probably figuring on that. Our job is
to turn out more, more, more"