{"id":20313,"date":"2020-05-12T10:25:47","date_gmt":"2020-05-12T09:25:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/research-blog\/?p=20313"},"modified":"2023-04-24T14:00:38","modified_gmt":"2023-04-24T13:00:38","slug":"20313-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/research-blog\/2020\/05\/12\/20313-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus: learning from the second world war\u2019s industrial pioneers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wars often generate \u201cinspirational\u201d tales of underdogs overcoming insurmountable odds. But the heroes in question are normally soldiers, risking their lives behind enemy lines. They don\u2019t usually sit in a board room, or design musical instruments and furniture, or run a company which produces kitchen tiles. But that is exactly what some of the unlikely heroes of the second world war did \u2013 before they turned their firms upside down and inside out to create wooden fighter-bombers, harbours, airfields and ocean pipelines for the Allied forces.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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It was this 1940s spirit which UK prime minister Boris Johnson was trying to invoke when he met with industry leaders and\u00a0called on them<\/a>\u00a0to help the country step up production of vital medical equipment and ventilators in the fight against COVID-19. Just as Winston Churchill called on industry to switch to critical fighter aircraft production, the prime minister was surely hoping he could boost the effort by sheer political will.<\/p>\n

Over the crucial summer of 1940, Spitfire production was indeed raised just enough to keep ahead of Germany\u2019s fighter aircraft production and so survive the gruelling war of attrition in the skies above southern England that became known as the Battle of Britain. Now Dyson, McLaren and Rolls-Royce \u2013 as well as\u00a0smaller independent innovators<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 appear to be stepping up to the plate in the battle for ventilator production, while debating the virtues of designing from scratch or copying tried-and-tested methods.<\/p>\n

Politicians are keen to hark back to the \u201cBlitz spirit\u201d because during world war two Britain was forced to re-arm from a virtual standing start. The war offers a possible blueprint for confronting current and future crises, and essential lessons in prompt retooling for mass production and the transformation of a supply chain to respond to immediate global demands.<\/p>\n

From houses to harbours<\/h2>\n
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William S Knudsen when he was a lieutenant-general in the US Army. wikimedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Speaking after the war, the US director of war production, William Knudsen,\u00a0declared<\/a>: \u201cWe won because we smothered the enemy in an avalanche of production, the like of which he had never seen, nor dreamed possible.\u201d Behind Knudsen\u2019s statement was a military-industrial complex that in less than six years had transformed itself. Firms that had previously manufactured furniture for the mass market converted production lines at an unprecedented pace in order to fabricate high-spec components for Allied combat aircraft.<\/p>\n

The initiation of hostilities in 1939 compelled large sectors of British industry to modify their manufacturing to support wartime inventories. Overnight, the country\u2019s housing industry collapsed with a government-led ban on construction in an effort to conserve key materials and direct skilled labour for essential war work.<\/p>\n

In the midst of this strategic re-prioritisation, the building firm of Wates (under the chairmanship of\u00a0Norman Wates<\/a>) recognised the importance of reconfiguring production in order to obtain contracts for vital war projects. From 1940, Wates transitioned from civil housing to building airfields, subterranean bomb shelters, petrol barges and 500 floating pontoons (codenamed\u00a0BEETLE<\/a>) to support bridging equipment to be towed across the English Channel, forming part of the \u00a32 billion project to build artificial Mulberry Harbours.<\/p>\n

The artificially constructed floating docks enabled 2.5 million men, 500,000 vehicles and four million tonnes of supplies to land off the French coast after D-Day. They were designed and built in secrecy by around 50,000 British engineers in the seven months leading up to the landings.<\/p>\n

Wates had successfully tailored its manufacturing base to complete projects of which it had no previous experience. Before the war, many of its subcontractors had been responsible for producing garden railings or, in the case of the\u00a0Marley Company<\/a>, tiling for the retail market.<\/p>\n

This rapid transition was paralleled by a new assurance regime which secretly tested the Mulberry Harbour components. Large, detailed scale models were scratch built to demonstrate that the new technological solutions could survive the exacting environment in which they had to operate. To meet this requirement, the former model train makers were contracted to fabricate large models of every sub-component, which were then rapidly tested in specially designed tanks under the supervision of the National Physical Laboratory. The successful completion of Mulberry Harbours is testament to industry\u2019s ability to adapt to a new and unique engineering environment and deliver on time, within strict cost and performance frameworks.<\/p>\n