The Dispersal (1940-1941)

Although a partial dispersal of Spitfire production had begun before the German raids of 24th and 26th September 1940 this had been limited to a few locations in Southampton. Following the raids this was transformed into a full dispersal of production across Hampshire, Wiltshire and Berkshire. Southampton remained at the heart of production, design and the Supermarine management moved to Hursley Park whilst new production centres at Salisbury, Newbury, Reading and Trowbridge began to come on-line, but not until after significant teething problems, both in terms of the locations but also the workforce.

Early dispersal in Southampton

Early air raids in Southampton had convinced Supermarine of the necessity to begin some limited form of dispersal within Southampton. Oswald Bell, a member of the Design Office, recorded each of the raids in a log starting with the first raid on 7th June 1940, although on this occasion no bombs were dropped. The log shows the steady increase in the frequency and intensity of the raids. On 21st August in three raids bombs were dropped on Thornycrofts’ Works, literally yards from the Woolston Works, and on 23rd August Woolston was hit.

In the end, Dennis Webb recalled, the event which finally triggered the decision to begin the dispersal of production was not a raid as such but a German reconnaissance aircraft which had flown over the area and the ensuing, but inaccurate, anti-aircraft fire. The gunfire had resulted in a piece of anti-aircraft shell falling on ‘K’ Shop in the Woolston Works, and narrowly missing a worker.

However, the Vickers-Armstrongs Daily Report for 11th March 1940 shows that preparations for a partial dispersal were already in progress, stating that …

“The new shop at the old Rolling Mills is approaching completion and should, I think, be ready for occupation in another three or four weeks. It will be a welcome addition as Woolston is very overcrowded in some sections.”

Responsibility for the works fell to Pratt. He was not only responsible for a reorganisation of the production facilities in Woolston and Itchen but also for drawing up a blueprint for dispersal, albeit limited.

The space at the Weston Rolling Mills was acquired from the Admiralty and, like the other new premises at Blanchard’s Brickworks in Bishops’ Waltham and Eastleigh Engineering just off Leigh Road in Eastleigh, was intended not primarily because of fears of air-raids but for additional storage. With space in the Works themselves at a premium storage was desperately needed as Supermarine struggled to manage effectively the multiple supply chains for the numerous parts, sub-assemblies and embodiment loan items required for Spitfire production.

Additional premises were also identified for the Accounts Department at Deepdene in Bitterne Park and for the Ministry Inspection personnel at Holt House in Chandler’s Ford. However, no decision to move personnel was taken.

Attention was still entirely focused on maintaining production. When jigs for the wings were moved from Woolston to Itchen, to improve the use of space and (in what was later to prove to be a tragic irony) reduce the distance to the Air Raid Shelters for some workers, it was done serrupticiously whilst the Works Superintendent, Wilf Elliott, was away as they knew he wouldn’t sanction anything that might have impacted production.

In June 1940 a stray bomb struck the Brickworks in Bishops Waltham. Although it caused no damage to the Supermarine store it caused a degree of concern, at least amongst the local population, and rumours spread that the Germans had known about the store and targetted it. The rumour was clearly unfounded but was an indication of the tension and fears that many in the later dispersal areas were to express; that Spitfire production would lead to them being targetted.

However, the near miss at Bishops’ Waltham compounded by the incident with the German Reconnissance aircraft passing over Woolston and then the raid on Vickers-Armstrongs Weybridge Works at Brooklands (on 4th September 1940) and on Cunliffe-Owen at Southampton Airport (on 11th September) all confirmed to the management that some dispersal of the actual production was urgently required.

The result was that several locations in and around Southampton were identified for  Supermarine’s use and for requisition.

The first of these were Hendy’s Garage, just off Pound Tree Road, and Seward’s Garage, on Winchester Road in Shirley.

The initial intent of these requisitions was not to begin a formal dispersal away from the Woolston or Itchen works, Although Supermarine fully understood the risk to production by concentrating their production in such well known and highly visible sites they actually had little choice. Without the production from Castle Bromwich relieving the pressure on the Southampton Works the demand for aircraft through the height of the Battle of Britain meant that nothing could be done that might disrupt the supply of aircraft.

It was not until June 1940 that Castle Bromwich finally managed to deliver a complete aircraft and even though production did steadily increase in the following months it was still on Southampton that the burden lay.

However, some preparatory work was possible and several of the critical production jigs had already been moved before the German raids of 24th and 26th September 1940. The actual movement of the jigs came in the days following the 15th September when a German raid had failed to damage the works but caused serious damage to the surrounding residential area in Woolston and highlighted that, as Denis Webb described it “the long awaited chop” was imminent. However, even at this stage these were ‘spare’ jigs.

Additionally the preparatory work in terms of the process of requisition, logistical requirements and lessons learned on working in a ‘dispersed’ production environment were invaluable as the process was rolled out across the Hampshire, Berkshire and Wiltshire.

The “Long Expected Chop” (September 1940)

Although Southampton had already experienced air raids it was not until September 1940 that the Luftwaffe’s attentions turned to focus on the manufacturing base for Britain’s aircraft. On 4th September fourteen Messerschmitt Me 110 fighter-bombers attacked the Vickers-Armstrongs Aviation, Weybridge Works at Brooklands. The raid killed eighty-three, injured over four hundred and halted production of the Wellington Bomber for several days.

A week later, on 11th September in another surprise attack with little warning German fighter-bombers attacked the Cunliffe-Owen factory in Southampton Airport in Eastleigh. The raid killed forty-nine but, as may also have been the case at Brooklands where Hawker’s factories making the Hurricane were missed, the raid missed its intended target; the Supermarine Flight Shed (next to the Cunliffe Owen factory) and the Supermarine Final Assembly hangars a few hundred yards away.

Four days later, on Saturday 15th September, German aircraft returning from attacking the RAF fighter station at Middle Wallop attacked the Supermarine Works in Woolston.

From the Supermarine perspective the raid was a failure, with only minimal damage and no loss of life amongst the workforce. Although night production was halted that evening, whilst the blackout of the factory was restored, the raid did little to impact production.

However, the raid did cause damage to the surrounding residential area and it focused Vickers and Supermarine Management on the necessity of immediately proceeding with the planned Southampton Dispersal.

Returning from a visit to Castle Bromwich Wilf Elliott authorised the requisition of additional premises in Southampton and to continue with those already requisitioned at Hendy’s and Seward’s garages.

The additional workshops included Lowther’s Garage in Shirley; the Sunlight Laundry on Winchester Road in Shirley; the Hants and Dorset Bus Depot, again on Winchester Road in Shirley and the Hollybrook Stores on the nearby Hollybrook Road.

Like Hendy’s Garage and Seward’s Garage the requisitioning of Lowther’s Garage did not seem to meet much resistance from the owners or pose a significant problem as the wartime restrictions on travel and petrol meant that car dealerships and workshops were not as busy and many of the staff could be reemployed. The new work for Supermarine actually resolving something of a dilemma for the owners.

The Sunlight Laundry also appear to have acquiesced to the requisitioning with little resistance, moving out within a few days but leaving Supermarine with a big job to clean the cotton lint that had accumulated in the rafts before the building could be considered usable.

The Hants and Dorset Bus Depot was to prove more of a challenge but was vital to the dispersal as the additional height required for the buses was needed to be able to fit the wing jigs. Unfortunately the Depot had already been requisitioned to act as a store for the additional sandbags and pumps needed by the Fire Brigade for Civil Defence in the event of an air raid. Supermarine were forced to “negotiate” with the Town Clerk to get the Civic authorities to move their stores and had to rely on the feared “Beaverbrook’s Boys”, the men from the Ministry of Aircraft Production, to ensure the requisition was successful.

Conflicts between rival Ministries, who had already requisitioned sites needed by Supermarine, were not uncommon, but the Ministry for Aircraft Production usually ruled supreme. Backed by Lord Beaverbrook and, ultimately, Churchill aircraft production was paramount; as one MAP man was overheard to cry out as Supermarine gazumped the Ministry for Food Supply “You can’t win a war with bloody pineapples!”.

New Management for the Works

Following the attacks of 24th and 26th September 1940 Lord Beaverbrook travelled to Southampton and ordered Supermarine to abandon the Woolston and Itchen Works and begin a full dispersal of production. Len Gooch, part of the Works management team, recalled the brusque manner of Beaverbrook’s demands and the Supermarine team’s somewhat offended reaction but Supermarine had their instructions.

Despite Beaverbrook’s demands, with the Design Office in the Woolston office block wrecked, the first job was to move the Design staff and their precious designs to a safer location and they were quickly moved into old WW1 army huts belonging to the University College at Highfield (a move which was almost disastrous as just before they relocated to Hursley Park an incendiary bomb destroyed one of the wooden huts).

At the same time the Works management, now headed by Len Gooch and backed by more of “Beaverbrook’s Boys”, requisitioned the top floor of the Polygon Hotel and began to plan a complete dispersal of production.

Len Gooch had been put in charge following the injury sustained by Pratt during the raid on the Itchen Works on the 24th September. By December Pratt had been formally removed from his role, a move Webb believed to be at least in part orchestrated by Beaverbrook in retaliation for Pratt’s refusal to allow Ministry men into the Supermarine Works before the raids without the proper credentials. Pratt, overworked and suffering from depression took his own life soon afterwards in a shooting incident.

Dispersal plans take shape

Southampton was to remain the prime base for Supermarine but the dispersal also planned to both move some of it further away from enemy attack and allow production to expand. For that to work new locations were required away from the city.

Using the main roads out of Southampton as their starting point and drawing a series of concentric circles radiating out from the city the plan was to find areas capable to supporting self-contained Spitfire production, from sub-assembly to final flight test and delivery, but within 50 miles of Southampton so control and communication could be maintained. The areas chosen were Salisbury, Trowbridge, Reading and Newbury. Each area would have workshops able to make each part of the plane and an airfield at which final assembly and delivery could be performed, just as Eastleigh had done for Woolston. An additional area around Winchester and Chandler’s Ford was linked to the main design base at Hursley Park.

Hursley Park, a grand stately home owned by the elderly dowager Lady Cooper who lived there with her servants, was requisitioned to provide a longer-term base from where the dispersal could be coordinated and to ensure the design team could continue to work uninterrupted. The move of Design and Production to Hursley Park, and Southend House in the village, was made in December 1940, once the initial dispersal plan was well under way.

The plan for the “Full Dispersal” of production

On paper the plan seemed simple; requisition some workshops, move machines and staff to the new location and make Spitfires. In reality, it was far from simple. As in Southampton there was resistance to the requisitions at many of the new sites, not least at Salisbury where the Bishop and Mayor appear both to have been happy to support fund raising for Spitfire’s to be made, just not in Salisbury. Like many, they feared Spitfire factories would result in the Luftwaffe bombing them too. Lord Beaverbrook was reported to have made it blatantly clear to the Mayor that there was no point raising funds to pay for a plane if they couldn’t build them! As ever, Beaverbrook got his way and the requisitions were pushed through, regardless. In Trowbridge an attempt by a Steam Roller factory owner to appeal against the requisition resulted in him being told to share the factory. That night Supermarine workers built a wall down the middle of the factory and got to work!

However, it was not simply finding premises that was the problem. The very act of identifying sites took many senior foremen away from their work to ensure the new locations were suitable. Additionally, the new factories meant new machines and jigs were required. Some machinery was moved from the cleared Woolston Works but that meant it was not available in Southampton.

It is worth noting that although Beaverbrook had ordered an immediate dispersal that did not mean the Woolston Works suddenly stopped working. Cyril Russell recalled that when he returned to Woolston on the following day tarpaulins had already been rigged-up to provide an emergency roof and the Machine Shop was back at work. It would not be until December 1940 that the Woolston Works was finally abandoned.

However, the disruption caused by the bombing of the Works, the movement and relocation of both workers and machinery and the ongoing bombing of Southampton as this occurred meant that in the months immediately following the start of the dispersal Supermarine’s Spitfire production fell sharply. Fortunately, the Castle Bromwich ‘Shadow Factory’ was now able to fill the immediate shortfall.

Finding the Workforce

Most problematic was the workforce. Many workers at Woolston and Itchen had been killed or wounded, many more were forced to deal with the aftermath of the bombing on their families and homes. Even when fit and able there was a great reluctance to move to the new dispersal areas away from Southampton. Some of the reluctance was because people simply did not want to move away from their families, particularly when this felt like abandoning them to the bombing. Another reason for the reluctance was the lack of suitable accommodation in the new areas. In the Vickers-Armstrongs Company Reports the need to provide accommodation was almost as high a priority as setting up the factories themselves.

Once skilled Supermarine workers were finally relocated to their new factories a new, semi-skilled at best, workforce had to be trained. Many of the new workers were young men and women straight out of school or older men who had undergone the Government’s basic engineering training. Aircraft production was a level above anything they had done before and that meant guidance, supervision and training. All of this took time.

However, by the beginning of 1941 production was beginning to recover, even if the first planes produced in the new areas were, in part, ones that had not been completed when Woolston was bombed. As the war progressed so the workforce steadily grew and gradually changed as women began to take on more senior roles, including ‘Progress Chasers’ in the factories.

The Southampton Blitz

In Southampton the problems associated with relocating the workforce did not apply in the same way as elsewhere. In Southampton the impact was more personal as workers took time off from work to find accommodation to replace homes destroyed or damaged by the raids. However, the lack of machinery and skilled workers did impact Supermarine in Southampton. Also, unlike the other ‘dispersal areas’ Southampton was still a prime target for the Luftwaffe. The raids on Supermarine were only the beginning of Southampton’s ordeal.

In November and December German bombing of the city reached a devastating peak. The raids between 22^nd November and 1^st December (including the two six-hour raids on the 30^th November and 1^st December) are often referred to as the Southampton Blitz. Much of the city centre was destroyed and many lives were lost as high explosive and incendiary bombs fell across the city. Amazingly none of the Supermarine workshops received a direct hit, although Hendy’s Garage in the city centre was put out of action for some time when a bomb hit the neighbouring building.

It is perhaps interesting to note that reports by Government Officials, partly based on reports by Mass Observation, suggested that, like Coventry, the population of Southampton were ‘broken’ by the raids. To an extent this was probably true. Many in the town sought refuge at night away from the bombing by ‘trekking’ to nearby areas. Often to relatives in nearby villages but some were forced to find shelter where they could and accounts of families sheltering overnight in barns and even ditches appeared to confirm government fears of refugees fleeing in the face of the bombing.

However, this fails to properly understand the situation and I t is perhaps more useful to consider the ‘trekking’ in the same way as in London where many of the civilian population chose to ignore government orders and sought shelter in what they considered ‘safe’ locations, rather than the government shelters. A not unreasonable attitude in Southampton where direct hits on some of the towns Air Raid Shelters (including Supermarine’s on Peartree Green) appeared to confirm fears that they provided inadequate protection. For Southampton these ‘safe areas’ were the rural areas around the town. For London these were the Underground stations. Ironically this same refusal by the civilian population to toe government policy on shelters in London was to be turned into the very epitome of ‘The Blitz Spirit’.

What is remarkable is that in both Southampton and London, and unlike true refugees, the next morning they returned to work, and promptly complained about how hard the journey was! Indeed, getting workers to leave Southampton, than to stay in the damaged town, was actually to prove more of an issue for Supermarine as the dispersal progressed.

However, the bombing did affect production. Transport, power and water were frequently interrupted, and workers again had to spend time finding places to live or attending to their families. But somehow Supermarine were able to continue.

The Vickers-Armstrongs Quarterly Reports described the impact that the mention the ‘Southampton Blitz’ had …

“During the heavy air attacks on Southampton on the nights of November 30th and December 1st none of the dispersal premises suffered damage but they were affected for two weeks by the partial failure of electricity and gas supplies and great inconvenience was caused by complete break down of telephone communications. Employees experienced serious hardships due to bomb damage to their houses and difficulties of transport also affected the number of hours which could be worked.”

Similarly, the impact of the bombing on those working in the Spitfires supply chain, often in small independent engineering works across Southampton, like Weir Precision Enginering, would have been equally severe.

The raid on 1st December also resulted in the loss of a considerable amount of material being stored in the vacated Woolston Works when a bomb caused a fire there.

German propaganda considered Southampton finished, the fires being visible from occupied Cherbourg. However, whatever the ‘Southampton Blitz’ did do it did not break Southampton’s ability or willingness to make the Spitfire. It certainly slowed it but much of the reduced production in late 1940 and early 1941 can be attributed to the logistical impact that the act of dispersal, and training of a new workforce, had as much as the impact of the bombing.

Dennis Webb was to remark that they didn’t really care what the civic and government officials were doing, they just got on regardless.