AIR RAID SHELTERS

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 48, Issue 2863, 15 November 1939, Page 8

AIR RAID SHELTERS

PRODUCTION IN ENGLAND 2'o SQUARE MILES OF STEEL Twenty square miles of corrugated steel are being produced by steel works in strategic positions scattered over England, Scotland and Wales for the 2,500,000 “Anderson” air raid shelters ordered by the Government to shelter 15,000,000 people in their own gardens. Production of the first 1,000,000 shelters which began in mid-Feb-ruary, was completed and the shelters delivered by the second week in September. The rate has now been increased from 1,000,000 in seven months to 1,500,000 in about seven months. Yet this vital defence measure is not hampering the supply of armaments, for the shelters’ requirements represent only about Si per cent, of the total production of all classes of British steel.

With these figures in mind, the following facts about the shelters, given by the British Steelwork Association, supply some indication o £ the immense total capacity of the British steel industry.

Each shelter contains 14 sheets of corrugated steel, six of them curved for the roof; 150 pounds of structural steel; and 2i4 bolts and nuts. The total 'weight of the 1,000,000 shelters now completed is about 4'20,000 tons, in which is represented 17,000 miles of two-feet-wide sheet.

And there are 1,500,000 more shelters to come.