Munitions factory

“ I find that the passenger train services have been chopped to pieces, that mails take any old time to do their journey, that goods by rail get there this week, or next, or a month hence—because munition transport blocks the rails; that whole24 industries have been blotted from existence because their hands or their plant were wanted—for munitions; that Polytechnic classes are being busily taught—to make munitions; that, in fact, the whole country is one seething munition factory, and no man or lathe or tool that can be turned to munition-making is possibly doing anything else. ”

“ Hastings proceeded, "there have been seven explosions or fires at various factories throughout the States. It is a somewhat significant circumstance," he added, after a slight pause, "that every one of these misfortunes has occurred at a factory where munitions of some sort for the Allies have been in process of manufacture. Shrewd men have naturally come to the conclusion that there is some organisation at work."
"I should doubt it," Fischer replied. "You must remember that there is always a great risk of disasters in factories where explosives are being handled. ”

“ This was due to the unexampled demand made on munitions and to the logical completeness of conscription. It required many months to adjust a plan whereby the skilled worker was placed in his rightful position in the factory, whilst those who had wrongly usurped his name and functions were sent to the trenches. The most unlikely people had described themselves as mechanics; and one found lawyers, sculptors, school-teachers, painters, writers and a host of semi-professional people masquerading as munition-workers. ”

“ The concrete example of this is the transformation of the plants of the Renault automobile works to the making of munitions. In one factory, formerly wholly concerned with the forging and fitting of motor machinery, 15,000 men and 4,000 women are now employed 24 hours of each day grinding and filling high-explosive shells. ”

“ If a firm is busy making motor-cars, the Ministry inspector may step in and tell the firm to drop that work and start making shells. If another firm already making munitions is employing daily 100 skilled and 100 unskilled hands, the Ministry will almost certainly take away a number of the skilled hands and hand them over to another factory where skilled men are scarcer and more urgently required. All this simply means that the engineering resources of the country are mobilised and efficiently organised and turned full force on munition-making. ”

“ It is not merely that over 4,500 firms, not one of which before the war even dreamed of making munitions, are now engaged on nothing else, or that we have erected over 100 colossal government factories for turning out shells, guns, powder, and the implements of trench warfare ”

“ These ingots are the raw material of the shell casing only. The production of the explosive that serves as the bursting charge is an industry in itself, while the construction of the mechanism of the fuses requires almost as much skill as watch-making.
In the first year of the war, the critical period of the conflict, France led all the Entente nations in the production of shells. As was the case with guns, France had to supply her ally, Russia, with the munitions so necessary to the effectiveness of the armies fighting in Poland and the Carpathians. ”

“ The few existing plants had to be enlarged, new ones erected, and even the tools for the making of some of the munitions had to be manufactured before work could begin upon the arms themselves. For many years the whole nation had set its face against increase in the army or in the providing of supplies for it in excess of peace time needs. The commercial manufacture of munitions was repugnant to the spirit of American industry, which had never engaged in it to more than a very slight extent. ”

“ No reserves may be formed, and all existing armaments, guns, and stores above the limit fixed must be handed over to the Allies for disposal. No poisonous gas or liquid fire shall be manufactured or imported, nor any tanks nor armoured cars. The Germans are obliged to notify to the Allies for approval the names and situation of all factories manufacturing munitions, together with particulars of their output. The German Government arsenals are to be suppressed and their personnel dismissed. Munitions for use in fortified works will be limited to 1500 rounds apiece for guns of 10·5 cm. ”

“ I can only say that the supply of war material at the present moment and for the next two or three months is causing me very serious anxiety, and I wish all those engaged in the manufacture and supply of these stores to realize that it is absolutely essential not only that the arrears in the deliveries of our munitions of war should be wiped off, but that the output of every round of ammunition is of the utmost importance and has a large influence on our operations in the field. ”

“ One of the very first Acts to provide for placing educational production of munitions of war stipulated that initial orders placed with any person, firm, or corporation for supplying such munitions, accessories, or parts, could include a complete set of such gages, dies, jigs, tools, fixtures, and other special aids and appliances, including drawings as needed for the production of munitions in quantity in the event of emergency. ”

“ The ammunition wagons are installed and opened; the belts are ready; the gun layer, the loader, and the crew are at their stations.
The lieutenant makes the rounds of each section, inspecting the guns, testing the mechanism, trying the weight of the munitions, taking account of everything and looking each man in the face.
“We are the last company organized,” he says. “You know that the machine gunners should be the flower of the army; don’t forget it. It is our first engagement. Try to show that we’re there a little.” ”

“ Article 168 demands the limitation of munitions production to factories or works approved by the Allied and Associated Governments. "All other establishments for the manufacture of any war material whatever shall be closed down." ”

“ Engineer, signal and medical equipment still continued to have a value, but if the race for militarism is maintained it is hard to see how the quantities of war munitions can fail to escape the scrap heap in a few years' time. ”

“ Government gun and ammunition factories were full of German spies, and some of the largest ones were destroyed by explosions and fires. Committees of the people were formed everywhere, even in small rural communities, and very quickly every private manufacturing concern was turned into a factory to produce army supplies, from guns to boots. ”

“ Piled up at various points are stacks of empty shell cases, which by their size indicate the enormous quantity of ammunition that is being used by our guns in their work of pulverizing the German trenches and fortifications. Every one is busy—the newly won ground is being cleared, positions are being consolidated, roads are being made up, telegraph poles and wires erected, standard-gauge railway lines are being laid down. Whether at the Base or the trenches, war is carried on methodically and with the regular routine of a factory. ”

“ The allies could deliver the artillery, artillery ammunition, and airplanes if America could deliver the raw and semifinished materials. America answered that she could and would produce and transport to Europe raw materials and semifinished products in amounts equivalent to the amounts consumed by allied factories in manufacturing the completed guns, shell, and airplanes. ”

“ Thus there can be no limitation to the amount of artillery and the quantities of explosives serviceable in this kind of warfare. No one of the armies has ever had anything like enough shells. None ever can. Five hundred guns of all ranges set back of one another from 3,000 to 20,000 yards' range to a mile could be placed, or 225,000 for the western front, and they could readily use five million shells a day in this contest of munitions and manufacturing resources. ”

“ There were the women and girls who went to work in fireproof overalls, stopping before entering the shop to be inspected and to give up all jewelry, steel hairpins, and anything else which might cause an explosion of the munitions among which they worked. They might be seen often with their hair hanging in braids as they hurried to and fro between the different sheds, over the narrow wooden platforms, raised from the ground to prevent them from carrying in on the soles of their shoes any particles of grit, iron, steel, or glass, that might cause a spark among the high explosives. ”

“ But in November, one month later, the requirements for 1945 had to be increased another 10 percent, sending the production goal well above anything we have yet attained. Our armed forces in combat have steadily increased their expenditure of medium and heavy artillery ammunition. As we continue the decisive phases of this war, the munitions that we expend will mount day by day. ”

“ After the fuse factory we pass through the high-explosive factory, where 250 girls are at work in a number of isolated wooden sheds filling 18-pounder shell with high explosive. The brass cartridge-case is being filled with cordite, bundles of what look like thin brown sticks, and the shell itself, including its central gaine or tube, with the various deadly explosives we have seen prepared in the "danger buildings." ”

“ The German threw up the sponge before then. If he had waited he would have been literally blown out of his trenches and his chief cities.
In one sense, of course, we never had enough, but if I were asked to name a date on which a serious shortage of munitions ceased I should say September 19th, 1915, on the eve of the battle of Loos. On that date, a year after Trench War began, word was passed around to the batteries of the British line in a phrase copied from the provision shops of London: "Ammunition is cheap to-day." ”

“ The fire of the batteries is directed upon all the works of the place within range, but with greater vigor upon the more important, and especially upon those near the point of attack. The fire against powder-magazines and storehouses should be uninterrupted, to prevent the removal of powder and munitions. If the artillery of a part of the work is silenced, the fire upon it may be slackened, but some fire, especially vertical, should be kept up. ”

“ Complete as we have shown the organization of the Arsenal to be, both as regards its mechanical resources and its staff, it is generally understood that the Government do not intend to depend upon it wholly for the supply of the munitions of war. In the case of small-arms, its powers, as we have seen, are wholly inadequate to the task. In those branches, however, where the manufacturing power is ample, they will not attempt to push it to the point of excluding the private manufacturer from a share in the business. ”

“ The reports from the Ordnance and Mining Bureaus are very gratifying, and the extension of our means of supply of arms and munitions of war from our home resources has been such as to insure our ability soon to become mainly, if not entirely, independent of supplies from foreign countries. The establishments for the casting of guns and projectiles, for the manufacture of small arms and of gunpowder, for the supply of niter from artificial niter beds, and mining operations generally, have been so distributed through the country as to place our resources beyond the reach of partial disasters. ”

“ Moreover, the manufacturing facilities for machine guns in this country were much more limited in extent than the public had any notion of then or to-day. Both England and France had depended mainly upon their own manufacturing facilities for their machine guns, the weapons which they secured on order from the United States being supplementary and subsidiary to their own supplies. We had at the outbreak of the war only two factories in the United States which were actually producing machine guns in any quantity at all. ”

“ The methodical and complete exploitation of all the resources of the country, organized since the beginning of the war, has enabled us to accumulate a considerable stock of fresh munitions, and an increasing rate of production is henceforth assured. We are thus sure of being able to provide without particular effort for all the needs of the campaign, present and future, however long the war may last, and it is this certainty which has enabled us to supply projectiles to several of the allied armies, among others, to the Serbian and Belgian armies. ”

“ Such effort has been expended on the building up of a munitions industry to support the armed forces of the Soviet Union in an emergency. These efforts have been quite successful in the creation of an airplane industry, a tank building industry, and in the great improvement in the entire metallurgical field. All activities of the munitions industry are grouped in a separate commissariat in order to achieve greater coordination and in order that first priority may in all necessary cases be secured for munitions programs. ”

“ The groans of the wounded and dying on the battle-field, and the lamentations in the desolated home, are music to the ears of those who supply the war-materials; for, with every shot from a rifle, fifty grains of gunpowder are burned, while bullets enough miss their mark to equal the weight of each man they kill. Consequently, there is substantial profit to the cartridge-maker and the gunpowder-manufacturer for every man killed with a rifle ball.
But it is in shrapnel and the ammunition for the big guns that the greatest profit lies. ”

“ The members of the League agree that the manufacture by private enterprise of munitions and implements of war is open to grave objections. The council shall advise how the evil effects attendant upon such manufacture can be prevented, due regard being had to the necessities of those members of the League which are not able to manufacture the munitions and implements of war necessary for their safety. ”