Nuffield Organization Pioneered Much War Material A DDRESSING the London Rotary
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.Club last Wednesday, Sir Miles Thomas, vice-chairman of the Nuffield Organization, gave, for the first time, some details of that Organization's
contribution to the war effort. •
When the conflict occurred, it was operating 12 factories; to-day, it controls 63 works and dispersal units, with 40,000 people on'its pay roll, as well as hundreds of thousands employed indirectly through ". fringe" concerns and sub-contractors. This compares with 21,000 employed previous to_ the war.
At a most critical period it was responsible for over a quarter of the whole Tank output of the country. and, by efficiency and various economies, had been able to cut by 25 per cent. the cost of Cruiser Tanks.
Apart from building more than 3,000 trainer aircraft, it had contributed over 13.000 power plants for four-engined bombers , The total turnover since the war had averaged nearly £24,000,000 a year, _and between 1940 and 1943 it bad paid £3,600,000 to the Exchequer in taxa tion. • Sir Miles' made a grave indictment concerning the refusal 'of our authorities to face the facts before the war, regarding the clouds that were gathering_ The Organization bought in • Europe multi-wheeled lorries and cars --special • croas-country machin.es obviously developed beyond ordinary commercial requirements Some of its younger staff were aent to work as .apprentices in Austrian and Czech factories to gather the latest technique. but the authorities ignored the disturbing news they sent back, However, on its own initiative, a factory was erected at Birmingham, called Nuffield Mechanizations, for the production of Tanks, mobile artillery, etc., and a _commercial arrangement was made whereby the clever " Christy " suspension was employed, and a Tank embodying it was shown to the War Office.
If, it had nut, been for these preliminary steps permitting 18 months or so of research and the groundwork of production, efficient British-produced Tanks would have been that much later.
The Organization also put a number of Bofors guns into production and parented their manufacture in other countries, not only here but in Australia, taking the responsibility for translating the original Swedish drawings, with their curious limits and Europeanmetallurgy, into Anglicized versions.
We hope to give more informatibn concerning other classes of the Organization's war work in a' subsequent issue of this journal.