Bomb Girls--Britain's Secret Army (24 page)

Bridgend was a huge munitions enterprise: at its peak in 1942, it employed just over 32,000 people. After WW2,
munitions production ceased. Eventually the site became an industrial estate, with most of the original industrial buildings demolished and new factories and homes built.

Official figures show that 17 people (11 men, 6 women) died in accidents at Bridgend from 1941–1945. No official figures exist for the numbers of accidents that took place there.

Given the nature of the work in filling factories, injuries were often loss of fingers, hands or eyes.

22 year old Gwen Obern was injured in an accident at Bridgend in 1940. The accident killed five people and injured l4 others when a box of detonators exploded. Gwen was blinded permanently and lost both hands in the accident — which took place on her third day of work at Bridgend.

Afterwards, Gwen underwent 76 operations, learned Braille and became a leading light of the St Dunstan’s organization for the blind. Undaunted by her disabilities, she continues to live in Wales.

THE ROSES OF SWYNNERTON, STAFFORDSHIRE
(ALICE, LAURA AND IRIS’S STORIES)

Located in a small Staffordshire village near Stone, a peaceful rural hamlet with a tiny population of about 900, the Swynnerton filling factory site was chosen as a munitions location because it was situated in an area prone to mist, making it difficult to observe from above. Construction of Swynnerton started in 1939.

By the summer of the following year, the factory was operational: shells and bombs which had been made in other munitions factories were being sent to Swynnerton for assembly.

Swynnerton’s workforce grew rapidly: it had 5,000 workers in 1940, many of whom had been working at the Woolwich Arsenal in London and were relocated to the new facility.

By in the summer of 1941, the workforce totalled l5,000, reaching a peak of 18,000 a year later, the majority of whom were female. Very soon, the women working there were nicknamed The Swynnerton Roses.

Seven miles in radius, the Swynnerton site consisted of over 2,000 small buildings, separated from each other by considerable distances. The site had its own roadway system. For safety reasons, shell or detonator filling sites were surrounded by high banks of large mounds of earth and blast walls. These were specially constructed in order to reduce the risk of one explosion triggering off yet another explosion.

Decontamination centres were also constructed around the factory site in case of a German gas attack.

Mustard gas poisoning– which had been used by the Germans in WW1– was lethal. It could cause severe burning and blistering of the skin, blindness, external and internal bleeding. Victims often died a painful and lingering death. (Workers at Swynnerton recall special awareness sessions where demonstrations were given of a worker being painted all over with whitewash, believed to protect badly burnt skin).

The groups of different workshops or factories at Swynnerton were linked by a cleanway system. This consisted of raised walkways covered with a layer of smooth asphalt. These walkways were always kept scrupulously clean, to ensure that no grit or dirt was carried into the factory buildings.

The walkways had also been constructed with camouflage
in mind: from the air, the smooth asphalt surface looked just like water. So any German bombers flying over the site would not be able to see that below them lay a vast secret munitions complex. Yet despite such precautions, there were unsuccessful attempts to bomb Swynnerton and bombs did fall, on one occasion, on Swynnerton’s railway lines. But thankfully, none were dropped on the buildings.

Swynnerton’s roadway system was complemented by its own internal railway station. This station was constructed just outside the main factory gate at Cold Meece, a hamlet on the east side of the factory. It had four platforms. The double track at the Cold Meece line was used to transport workers to and from the area. 19 passenger trains a day ran on the line, Monday to Saturday. Yet the station never appeared on any public timetable and the factory never appeared on any Ordnance Survey maps until the Sixties. Cold Meece also used special trains to transport groups of American Airforce servicemen who were temporarily accommodated in the Swynnerton factory hostels.

Swynnerton’s workforce consisted mainly of women ages 18-35. Although many workers were local girls, especially from the Potteries area fifteen miles away, there were large numbers of women from all over the country working there, many sent to live in Swynnerton’s specially constructed hostel complex called Frobisher Hall. This consisted of seven prefabricated hostel buildings, all set up in the vicinity of the factory.

Filling detonators at Swynnerton was a highly dangerous task: so much concentration was required for the work, Swynnerton Roses were forbidden from even talking to each other as they worked.

Other workers recall specific tasks in the detonator section that were so dangerous, just one worker would be allocated to work on this kind of task – alone, in a locked room. In that way, if anything did go wrong, only one worker’s life was placed at risk. You can only imagine the thoughts of these women at the time, though the super-risky task was only carried out once by those designated to do so.

One equally dangerous section at the Swynnerton site was called 1 West. It was nicknamed ‘Suicide Section’ because there were frequent accidents there. Many injured Swynnerton women were sent to the local North Staffs Hospital, where one ward was specially reserved for accidents from Swynnerton. Some women survived such accidents with terrible, extensive injuries: one pregnant woman lost both hands and her sight in an explosion, though the baby was born safely afterwards.

If an explosion took place and there were no injuries to workers, the women in the section were given an hour’s break, two asprin from the site nurse and sent back to work. Working time was a precious commodity.

Although production of ammunition ceased at Swynnerton after war ended, the site remained as a factory until 1958. Many buildings had to be destroyed because of the toxic chemicals that had been used in them. As for the women who had worked there, they stepped back into normal life, raised their families. Many continued to work locally in the pottery industry. Today, the Swynnerton site is now an Army training base.

Only in 1991, forty-five years after the war ended, did the Swynnerton Roses’ brave and valuable contribution to the war effort start to be openly recognized. This was kickstarted
with a play, performed locally at Newcastle under Lyme. The play, called ‘I don’t want to set the world on fire’ was written by Bob Eaton and was based on interviews and wartime memories of surviving Swynnerton Roses.

Perhaps the words from one of the songs in ‘World on Fire’ best sums up the Bomb Girls’ experience at Swynnerton – and at all the other munitions factories too.

The Roses of Swynnerton

Work hard night and day

If it wasn’t for the Roses

Where would old England be?’

(Quote from
I don’t want to set the world on fire
by Bob Eaton, 1991)

AYCLIFFE, CO.DURHAM
(LAURA’S STORY)

In May 1940, construction work started on a large Royal Ordnance filling factory at Aycliffe in County Durham, near Bishop Auckland. The site was considered to be especially suitable because, like the other big filling factories, the area tended to be misty – which meant it was not easily seen from the air.

The factory started production in April 1941. Covering 867 acres, the Aycliffe factory consisted of over 1,000 buildings. At its peak production in 1943, Aycliffe employed 17,000 people working on shifts round the clock. 85 per cent of these were women, employed to put powder into
shells and bullets or help assemble detonators and fuses. Many of these women had never worked in a factory before.

Despite every effort being made to conceal Aycliffe, the Germans were aware of its existence.

A pro-Nazi broadcaster, William Joyce, who had fled Britain in 1939 in order to escape internment, adopted the name ‘Lord Haw Haw’ and made it clear in his regular English language propaganda broadcasts from Germany to Britain and the U.S. that the Germans knew about the Aycliffe site – and the thousands of women who were working there.

Again and again, he broadcast chilling stories that the Luftwaffe would be bombing the factory out of existence, along with the Aycliffe girls.

‘Those little angels of Aycliffe won’t get away with it,’ he claimed.

Yet it was an empty boast. On a few occasions, Aycliffe workers were strafed by enemy aircraft yet Aycliffe itself was never bombed. And the name ‘Aycliffe Angels’ stuck and was later adapted to ‘White Angels’ because the women wore white overalls as they worked. (After the war, Joyce was tried for treason against Britain. He was found guilty and met the hangman’s noose).

Inside the Aycliffe factory there were twelve separate sectors, each one responsible for producing a different type of munition. During the wartime years, it is estimated that Aycliffe produced nearly one billion pieces of munition – including 700,000,000 bullets. The bullet production line had women filling bullet casings with cordite powder at one end and at the other end, the bullets were finished with machines placing the ‘caps’ on the bullets. Then the bullets were packed
into boxes ready to be shipped off to the Armed Forces.

Many of the buildings at Aycliffe were small and well spaced out, to minimise the effect of any explosions. The buildings were of a special construction with a very strong framework and walls made of light infill brickwork, designed to just ‘blow out’ in the event of an explosion, leaving the main structure of the building intact.

The roadways in the site (known as ‘cleanways’)were wide, to enable staff to move materials around the site as safely as possible. Those running north to south were known as Avenues, those running east to west were called Streets.

Over half the women working at Aycliffe were married. Many had young children. However, there was no nursery or crèche at Aycliffe, though some of the other Royal Ordnance factories did provide these facilities for mothers.

Typically, Aycliffe operated round the clock in a three-shift pattern, with some shorter shifts available for women with young families.

Aycliffe munitions workers were not housed in specially built hostels, though some were billeted in nearby Darlington.

Many of the workers travelled in by bus or train each day from a radius of about 25 to 30 miles. Some ‘secret housing’ to accommodate factory workers and their families was built by the Ministry of Supply in 1942. It comprised some 350 houses in the Eastbourne area of Darlington – but very little was known about it at the time. Plans to build more housing were drawn up – but were shelved.

The average age of the women was 34, but over 1,000 of the Aycliffe Angels were over 50. One of these women, Mary Alice Dillon from Crook, was awarded the British Empire Medal for services to the country.

Mary had claimed to be 49. In fact, she was 69, with an excellent attendance record. In her two and a half years spent working at the factory, Mary missed just two shifts.

Like Bridgend, Aycliffe was split into two halves. There was the ‘Clean Side’ where volatile explosive compounds were found in loose open quantities in pots, on tables. Safety regulations here were draconian.

The other, ‘Dirty Side’, where the dangerous compounds were not in evidence in the same way, was equally safety conscious – but the safety regulations were slightly more relaxed. Special clothing had to be worn to work on the ‘Clean Side’ and this had to be removed before crossing back to the ‘Dirty Side’.

Factory workers were repeatedly reminded of the three key safety factors they had to adhere to: strong discipline, absolute routine and precision in their work. Safety slogans abounded on the factory floor. One memorable slogan said:

‘A concealed mistake is a crime. It may cost not only your life – but the lives of others.’

It is not known exactly how many lives were lost whilst Aycliffe was in production during the war years, though there were some recorded major explosions and fatalities. Accidents in some areas were common and despite all the regulations, some were caused by carelessness. One young girl was killed because she left a hair clip in her hair. It fell into the machine she was working on and caused an explosion.

One of the worst accidents at Aycliffe happened in February 1942 when 200lbs of fulminate exploded. The explosion killed four factory workers. The force of the explosion was so great, their bodies were virtually shredded of flesh.

Eight more Aycliffe workers lost their lives and one injured in another explosion in May 1945, just days before the war ended. The explosion was so loud, it could be heard for some miles around the factory.

The conflict between production targets and safety regulations caused much tension. The need to produce the munitions was relentless and each section or team had very challenging targets to meet. Bonuses were paid when production targets were met – so there was a temptation sometimes to cut corners. Supervisors needed to be aware of workers putting pressure on other workers to ‘get more material through’, so that the team qualified for their bonus.

The downside, of course, was that cutting corners in such a dangerous environment could prove fatal. For instance, a rush to meet the tight targets could sometimes cause staff to take short cuts by not cleaning machines thoroughly. This could result in too much loose powder being present in a machine. And this would cause an explosion.

One Aycliffe Angel worked with a man who had been in the Navy. He had been torpedoed. One day, the man spotted one of his co- workers finishing a bomb with a faulty fuse. He went berserk and had to be removed from the area. He knew all too well the danger of one faulty bomb during wartime.

Workers had to volunteer to work in the most dangerous area of the factory, known as Group 1. Like Swynnerton, this danger zone was nicknamed ‘the suicide group’. This was the initiator group where the highly sensitive explosives were mixed together to create a more solid material. All accidents were shocking but serious accidents in the ‘mixing shop’ were truly horrific.