PRODUCTION OF AIRCRAFT

Southland Times, Issue 24112, 29 April 1940, Page 8

PRODUCTION OF AIRCRAFT

INCREASE SHOWN IN BRITISH RATE ALLIES’ ADVANTAGE OVER GERMANY AID FROM DOMINIONS AND U.S.A. (British Official Wireless) (Received April 28, 6.30 p.m.) RUGBY, April 27. The German propaganda machine, after the very severe losses suffered by the German navy in the Norwegian campaign, has been at pains to minimize the importance of sea power as compared with air power, and in order to emphasize the German superiority in the latter has had recourse to comparative figures of German and American aircraft production. An attempt has been made to prove that the German capacity far exceeds that of Britain, France and the United States combined. The figures cited are 500,000 workers in the German aircraft industry and 100,000 in the American. The inaccuracy of the German claims is palpable. For security reasons no precise figures, nor the numbers employed in British aircraft production, have been published, but a rough estimate may be deduced from a statement made on February 2 by the then Air Minister (Sir Kingsley Wood), who said: “In the field of our aircraft production, the numbers already employed today are higher than in the peak period of the last war.” An authoritative source gives the relevant figures for the last war as 364,362. If that figure was already surpassed in February it is clearly substantially greater today. Accepting the German estimates of their own and the American figures, the British and American totals are at least equal to those of Germany, while considerable figures, which are not available, for France and the British Dominions constitute an ample margin of superiority over Germany. LACK OF RAW MATERIALS At the beginning of March 1940 the Italian trade paper Le Vie Della Ria estimated Germany’s aircraft industry as capable of producing at the rate of 1000 aeroplanes a month, but pointed out that because of lack of raw materials, storage facilities or personnel it was not producing to capacity. As early as May 1939, on the other hand, the Italian technical periodical Inter Avia cited, with the approval of The Sunday Times, a report that British aircraft production had already reached 1000 a month.

On April 5, 1940, the Minneapolis Star stated: “The best estimate current of German and Allied air strengths comes from Mr Theodore Wright, senior engineer of the Curtiss Corporation and an extensive visitor to British, French and German engine plants. He estimated in a current aviation magazine that the Allied acquisition of aeroplanes including those delivered by America, overtook German production in January at 1600 a month each, and that the Allies were now adding aeroplanes more rapidly than Germany. Referring to American production, the American Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce in a report published this month gave figures of 1500 a month with a capacity for considerable further expansion. Not all of this output can, of course, be regarded as available for Allied purchase. AMERICAN SALES TO FOREIGN POWERS HEAVY FRENCH PURCHASES (Received April 28, 7.30 p.m.) WASHINGTON, April 27. United States aeroplanes sales to foreign powers for the first quarter of 1940 totalled 66,000,000 dollars, an increase of 225 per cent, over the similar period in 1939. Details:— Dollars France 32,000,000 Britain 7,000,000 Australia 7,000,000 Canada 4,000,000 Sweden 3,000,000 Turkey 1,000,000 WORKING CONDITIONS IN BLACKOUT INCREASED NUMBER OF ACCIDENTS (British Official Wireless) RUGBY, April 26. The question of industrial accidents and working conditions in the blackout have been the subject of correspondence between trade unions and the Ministry of Home Security. Expressing concern at the growth in the number of accidents, which, he stated, was caused by war conditions, the secretary of the Transport and General Workers’ Union drew the attention of the Minister of Home Security, Sir John Anderson, to the questions arising from the problems caused by overtime, black-out and similar conditions created by the war. In reply, Sir John Anderson stated that these questions were receiving constant attention by experts who were fully aware of the error of supposing that increased output would be secured by long hours. He stated that the special difficulties created by the blackout regulations had been to some extent met.

Dealing with industrial accidents, the Minister said that while there had been an increase in the actual number, so far as it was possible to'judge, it was doubtful if the increase were proportionately greater than the increase in the number of employed, coupled with the increased number of hours worked.