MAKING OF GUNS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23995, 19 June 1941, Page 3

MAKING OF GUNS

GREAT ABILITY SHOWN

LEARNING AS THEY WORK (0.C.) LOXDOX. May M

Two-pounder anti-tank guns and Bofors anti-aircraft guns are being made in a Welsh war factory bv girls whose average age is 20 Not very long ago they were waitresses, shop assistants, revue dancers, barmaids and domestic servants. In one month some of the girls have learned jobs that boy appren tices could not perform as satisfactorily until they had received m\ months' training. The factory is one ol the newest achiev■euients of the Ministry of Supply. twelve months ago there were open fields where factory buildings stand today; now the staff, of whom 80 per cent are women, are producing the guns a month ahead of schedule. In one shift of 10 hours, girls on chambering work —one of the more skilled processes—make two gun chambers against one in the Midlands. None of the girls has had more than seven months' experience The girls learn as they work The first- batch worked at the benches with skilled men, and they in turn help to train later recruits. But there is also a seh"]iie ol technical education under which the workers, in batches of about a dozen, are taught how to use micrometers. Vernier scales and gauges, and how to read working drawings. Just any girl, of course, docs not fit into this revolutionary scheme. All are specially selected. Every one is interviewed to discover the job for which she seems best suited. They have to bo hand-picked, as it would be fatal to production if the factory simply sent down to the Labour Exchange for a batch of f)0 girls and drafted them into the factory. Judging them on the interview and the way tlioy shape in the early days, they are graded for intelligence I here are three grades—oneplus, one, and two. A one-plus girl has outstanding intelligence and is usually marked down for training as an assistant to shop examiners. Who makes the best showing? A manager with 10 years' experience of women factory workers put shop assistants and waitresses at the top, with domestic servants third. Another manager preferred shop assistants. "They are alert and quick," he said. "They use their imagination more than most. Girls will do a job perfectly after they have been shown it once or twice."