AIRCRAFT PRODUCTION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 226, 25 September 1942, Page 5

AIRCRAFT PRODUCTION

BRITAIN’S DIFFICULTIES PRODIGIOUS EXPANSION Rugby, Sept. 23. Broadcasting to America, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aircraft Production, said:— One of the greatest advantages you in the States have in building aircraft is your ability to have huge plants mass producing far from the risk of enemy interference. We have a few ?jch huge factories, some built underground, but for the most part of our aircraft have had to be built in little factories and wayside garages dispersed far and wide, for we have an enemy a mere 20 miles away. “Unlike the workers in America, ours after a strenuous day—and manywork 60 hours a week and over—must return to a spell of duty with the civilian defence service and may be robbed of th l'r sleep, or their lives. More civilians have been killed in Britain in this war than the armed lorces of America lost in action in the whole of the first world war. "Depite the difficulties, our production figures have not ceased to rise steadily. It is not only in numbers of aircraft that the prodigious expansion of our effort is to be measured. Not only do we make more aircraft, but they grow heavier and more and more complicated. In the first half of 1942 we exported to Russia, the Middle East, and elsewhere, well over three times as many aircraft as we imported."—B.O.W.