FROM BIG GUNS TO PINS

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 19 December 1925, Page 11

FROM BIG GUNS TO PINS

announcement that the demolition has commenced of all gunmaking machinery in the famous factory of Krupps at'Essen (writes: a correspondent from Cologne) indicates an extraordinary transformation of Krupps ■works, including the mystery gun-mak-ing “Shop 10,” which has hitherto been a sealed book and which Reuter’s correspondent has now visited. This shop,, until dismantling began, contained 200 heavy machines, some of the largest in the world, including boring machines 45 metres long which Titled the. barrels of the Big Berthas. When the Allies consented to Germany’s retention of two l of these borers, Germany agreed to destroy onethird of her Brobdignagian gun-mak-ing machinery, and one-third of this third was broken up in the first ten davs. The remainder will be broken up”by Christmas. The borers have been retained for industrial purposes. “Shop 10” is now very busy making ' reaction cylinders, chiefly for America.

TRANSFORMATION OF KRUPPS’

By means of these cylinders 60 per cent, of petrol is extracted from crude oil, compared with 15 per cent, previously. Others are us|ed for the extraction of hydrogen from the atmosphere. Another shop which turned out 33,000 big shells per day during the war is now producing typewriters, cinema apparatus, pins and cigarette tins, largely destinied for England. Since the Allies have gained access to the works, 9000 of the 22,000 machines and millions of tools have- been destroyed. The assembling pits have been filled with concrete, and the testing ground' for shells and the armour plate annealing plant have been djemolished, but “ Shop 10” until now has resisted all attempts at demolition. One-fifth of the area of “Shop 10” has been conceded to German gunmaking at a maximum annual output of , four guns not (exceeding 30.5 centimetres in calibre.