Evening star., 1940-12-11
Factory Manager Tells
Of Wartime Routine
British IndustrioIist Says
Mill Operating Is Hard
When Raiders Interfere

To the Editor Of The Star:
The letter reproduced below, dated
September II, was sent by British in
dustriaIst to friend in this country:
by the time this reaches you 1t may
seem like old news, but it will be in
teresting, think. to give you the story
of our daily routine.
Starting right after the broadcast at
am, which I hear every morning, I
usually leave for the plant at 8 o'clock.
One has to check up on the material
one needs before leaving home-steel
helmet, gas mask, field glasses, police
whistle, Identification card, Home Guard
Identification, all these must be checked
before leaving.
Arriving at the plant. you are not so
much concerned as to what has been
produced during the night as to what
local damage has been done or damage
to the factory proper, if any. You check
this up with your night superintendent
and your spoilers, and arrangements are
made for the following night.
Having got through this part of the
program you next turn to mill operations
and just are nicely started when at about
8 o'clock the telephone rings and you get
the air raid message which is the danger
signal. You press the button on your
desk which sends warning to all de-
partmental heads to take their stations.
This is hardly completed before the red
message comes through. The red signifies
BE ready for any action and this, to
me, means that the procedure is to con-
tact my spoilers and departmental heads
to see that they are all in place During
this time only your key men are working.
Every one else has gone to the air raid
shelters. The big board machine is run
ming with one man only at the wet end
and two men at the dry end but we still
manage to keep production going. The
raid may last for half an hour or
maybe for two hours. On this particular
day it happened to be IL o'clock before
it was finished. Between II o'clock and
l o'clock you have a clear time to sit
down and try to do a little work and
warning comes through. This may clear
off in an hour or a couple of hours,
but even then the best part of the day
is done and before you have time to get
through little more routine work, your
patrols all posted for the night, you find
it is 4 o'clock and at that time you have
party of men at the mill belonging to
the Home Guard who are to go out for
rifle practice. AS happen to be the
officer in charge I must go with these
men to the rifle range to see their
practice through. Returning to the mill
at approximately o'clock, the next thing
Is to look over the crews which are
coming on, especially the II o'clock shift
Arrangements have had to be made so
that the II o'clock shift consists of men
who live close by, as travelling after 8
O'Clock in the evening is becoming rather
precarious thing. Round about half
past six o'clock We usually get clear and
see our hope of operating for the next
"a hours. Further than "a hours we
cannot plan on.
"On getting back to the plant at 8
pm. you check up to see that all fire.
fighting squads are ready, first-aid men
ready, spoilers at their posts. and you
no sooner do this than you get the first
warning. Immediately taking your place
on the fiat roof of the factory, you await
developments and usually they come
pretty quickly. Suddenly one of the air
raid batteries on your left leaps into
action and this is Immediately followed
by a general barrage until there is
nothing but just dull roar right round
London. 1t is during this time it is very
important that the spotter on your
roof should know his business. 1t is
absolutely impossible to hear an aero
plane coming on account of the noise of
the gun barrage. You cannot see it
coming. The first intimation of immedi-
ate danger is that 2 miles away you see
two or three bombs burst If these
bombs happen to be in a straight line
towards the factory then you at once
give the flicker signal which is a number
OF red lights in the factory that flicker
exceedingly quickly and warn all key
men to get into their steel shelters. These
steel shelters are like small vertical
boilers and are in the immediate vicinity
of the machine. The production still goes
on but the machine tender is watching
his machine through a small slot cut
in the steel shelter. During this time
I happen to be up on the roof with the
spotter and am very sorry that some
OF you fellows cannot be up there with
me. We see the flash of our own guns
only few hundred yards away. We
see the flash of the outlying guns
half mile away, and then nothing but
the flash of the anti-aircraft guns.
Looking up into the sky it seems that the
armament is covered with blinking stars.
These are the shells from our own guns,
and over and above the roar of the
guns, you hear the pitterpat of shrapnel
coming down. Now and then you hear
quite a big bump and in the morning
you will probably find it is the nose
cap from one of the shells which weighs
anything from to 8 pounds. OF course,
when such a missile comes down on
the roof it goes right through; but usually
the shrapnel bounces of. Shrapnel
pieces are usually about inches long,
II inch thick and anything from Y to
3s inch wide. When you are spotting
you have the feeling that it is raining
all the time. You can hear the pitter-
pat OF the rain on your helmet. but if Won