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Castle Bromwich Spitfire Factory

I know we all love our Spitfire history on BHF, so here’s a treat from The Historic England Blog. There is some super images of the Castle Bromwich Aeroplane Factory along with some background information too.

The story of the spitfire is indeed a remarkable story of achievement and endeavour. One that should be told, so that we can celebrate our achievement and learn from our failures.

Like most of these stories of achievement, in truth it is a tail of collaborative working and the efforts of many people. I am quite disappointed to read that while the female factory workers have been acknowledged some of the key engineering and design contributions were made by women.

Beatrice Shilling was a British aeronautical engineer and was one of the early pioneers in her field. We also have the untold story of Hazel Hill a 13 year old who helped redesign the Spitfire from 4 to 8 guns, along with countless women spitfire pilots who played a key role is the distribution and movement of spitfire around the country.
 
Morturn said:
I know we all love our Spitfire history on BHF, so here’s a treat from The Historic England Blog. There is some super images of the Castle Bromwich Aeroplane Factory along with some background information too.

The story of the spitfire is indeed a remarkable story of achievement and endeavour. One that should be told, so that we can celebrate our achievement and learn from our failures.

Like most of these stories of achievement, in truth it is a tail of collaborative working and the efforts of many people. I am quite disappointed to read that while the female factory workers have been acknowledged some of the key engineering and design contributions were made by women.

Beatrice Shilling was a British aeronautical engineer and was one of the early pioneers in her field. We also have the untold story of Hazel Hill a 13 year old who helped redesign the Spitfire from 4 to 8 guns, along with countless women spitfire pilots who played a key role is the distribution and movement of spitfire around the country.
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Mort, wonderful story and read! So much clever innovation so long ago. I just wonder if we could respond (anywhere) as quickly and deliberately today!

Thanks for sharing!
 
I'm always interested in comments about the Castle Bromwich Spitfire Factory because my Dad worked there during the war. I remember as a young child being taken there to meet him when he came out of the gate. As we waited I used to watch the Spitfires being air tested. An interesting story about a 19 year old women who worked there from

BBC - WW2 People's War - Building Spitfires at Castle Bromwich, Birmingham

Another time when there was bombing during the day, my mother sent my brother Jack to the factory to see if ...
www.bbc.co.uk

Sample paragraph from her story ...
I remember going to work to start the 6am shift one morning and D Block had been bombed the night before. The clothes, shoes and gas masks of the workers from D Block were piled in heaps between A and C Blocks. They were wet from the water used by the fire brigade to fight the fires. You could see bodies still in the girders of the roof of the factory. It is a sight that you never forget. It was after the bombing of D Block that they altered the working hours to three shifts, 6am to 2pm, 2pm to 10pm and 10pm to 6am.
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There are many real horror stories like that from the war. Not Birmingham, but my mother told me of how a friend, after the big raid on Tangmere airfield which did a lot of damage at the height of the B of B, had to go round collecting bits of bodies and putting them in sacks
 
Just watched the film - amazing story!
I noticed one of her sons had a slight Midlands accent - checking out on Wiki I see her and her husband moved to Wednesbury where she set up a children's health clinic.
 
I have a Lucas WW2 memorial book titled Lucas at War , the attached is reference to the Spitfire and the contribution Lucas made to the building of the plane.
I can if there is a demand scan the complete book and upload for reference.
 

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Hi,

I worked with a lady called Dorothy Thornton at Metro-Cammell in the 1970s/80s
who had worked at the Castle Bromwich factory during the war and was involved
with the electrical wiring of the aircraft.

Kind regards
Dave
 
That's a great picture. Gives you an idea of what it was like, to be standing there and looking down the length of the huge shop.

Chris
 
mw0njm. said:
supermariners.wordpress.com

Castle Bromwich (1937-1940)

1935-1938 The Shadow Factory Scheme Long before the start of hostilities the vulnerability of the existing aircraft factories to enemy attack had been recognised. Many of the factories, like Superm…
supermariners.wordpress.com supermariners.wordpress.com


castle brom spitfire
View attachment 175232
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Wonderful picture Pete!
mw0njm. said:
supermariners.wordpress.com

Castle Bromwich (1937-1940)

1935-1938 The Shadow Factory Scheme Long before the start of hostilities the vulnerability of the existing aircraft factories to enemy attack had been recognised. Many of the factories, like Superm…
supermariners.wordpress.com supermariners.wordpress.com


castle brom spitfire
View attachment 175232
Click to expand...
Very interesting article!
 
Excellent Vid but what the presenter left out was the fact that the Merlin engine went on to power post war airliners such as the Avro York and the disastrous Tudor. Probably best known were the Merlin powered North Stars, named Argonauts by BOAC and some were sold on to British Midland,one of which crashed at Stockport in 1967
 
mw0njm. said:

Castle Bromwich

The largest purpose built aircraft factory of World War II producing the iconic Vickers Supermarine Spitfire Fighter and the Avro Lancaster Bomber.
www.baesystems.com www.baesystems.com
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I didn't know it was a purpose-built factory. As I was born after the end of WW2 my knowledge of the Spitfire Factory was from the tales told to me by my ex father-in-law (I had assumed it was a combination of the 'local' industry - Wolseley commercial engines, Fisher and Ludlow body-works, Fort Dunlop tyres and rubber hoses, Lucas electricals - that prompted the production, rather than a purpose-built building).
His tale is as follows.
As a young lad during the war, my ex father-in-law would walk from his home (Erdington I think) to Castle Bromwich, to sit on Pimple Hill (which is still there, alongside the -newish to me- A452 Collector Road) which looked over Castle Bromwich aerodrome (where Castle Vale Estate now stands). His story was of sitting there watching the newly made spitfires being rolled out of the factory and lined up on one side of the aerodrome. The test pilot would then come along, climb into the first in the line, taxi along the runway, fly around in a circle and land again, parking the plane on the other side of the airfield. He would continue doing this, taking the next in line, flying it once around the airfield, landing and then parking in the new line, until all 'new' planes had been flown. He said that this was obviously 'testing' i.e. if it flew and landed ok it was ready for the war! On other days, pilots would arrive to take the 'tested' planes off to their allotted squadrons.
 
My post#14 on the construction of the Spitfire makes reference to Lucas’s engineering (electrical and instrumentation) contribution to the Spitfire, there is a memorial booklet that Lucas produced to commemorate WW2 titled ‘Lucas at War‘.
As a youth, one of the older players in a cricket team I use to play for in Yardley would tell us a similar stories of watching the Spitfires taking off and landing during test flights and the distinctive roar of the RR engine (Merlin)
He told us the test pilots would use the stacks / towers at Hams Hall power station as a visual reference point when returning to land at Castle Bromwich as the could see the smoke from the towers above the clouds when flying.

A link attached to give more information on the fantastic Spitfire plane
https://dingeraviation.net/spitfire/spithome.htm
(Source https://dingeraviation.net/spitfire/spithome.htm, site accessed 11/3/2023 09.07 am)
 
My late father in law worked there during the war. He told us about the German planes bombing etc etc . always had pilots around testing the planes making sure each and every one did what it should do.
 
Covroad said:
My post#14 on the construction of the Spitfire makes reference to Lucas’s engineering (electrical and instrumentation) contribution to the Spitfire, there is a memorial booklet that Lucas produced to commemorate WW2 titled ‘Lucas at War‘.
As a youth, one of the older players in a cricket team I use to play for in Yardley would tell us a similar stories of watching the Spitfires taking off and landing during test flights and the distinctive roar of the RR engine (Merlin)
He told us the test pilots would use the stacks / towers at Hams Hall power station as a visual reference point when returning to land at Castle Bromwich as the could see the smoke from the towers above the clouds when flying.

A link attached to give more information on the fantastic Spitfire plane
https://dingeraviation.net/spitfire/spithome.htm
(Source https://dingeraviation.net/spitfire/spithome.htm, site accessed 11/3/2023 09.07 am)
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An excellent link, well worth reading written very well! Thank you for sharing!
 
nans works ID AVRO.jpgThis was my nans works ID card for AVRO (Spitfire at Castle Bromwich) she worked their during the war and had many stories to tell incluing the lunch time dance bands and seeing the plans pushed across the road so they could reach the runway. Previous to Spitfire she had worked at Buttons - sewing the fine buttons for dress uniforms. We lost Marian Wagg in June this year less than 2 months before her 99th birthday she was a proud brummie and we were equally proud of her
 
JulieJacqueline said:
View attachment 182713This was my nans works ID card for AVRO (Spitfire at Castle Bromwich) she worked their during the war and had many stories to tell incluing the lunch time dance bands and seeing the plans pushed across the road so they could reach the runway. Previous to Spitfire she had worked at Buttons - sewing the fine buttons for dress uniforms. We lost Marian Wagg in June this year less than 2 months before her 99th birthday she was a proud brummie and we were equally proud of her
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We all should be proud of her!

Welcome to The Forum Julie, enjoy!
 
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