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WAR WORK

BY KATH SANDERS

Packing Spitfires, making shell boxes, torpedo boxes and Liffy boxes

This is an edited version of an interview by Barbara Applin in 1999. The original recording and full transcript are held in the Wessex Film and Sound Archive, ref. BAHS 17. © Basingstoke Talking History. Kath Sanders was born in 1917.

Packing Spitfires
They brought out a decree, women who were not married had to go into war work. Odiham aerodrome at that time was non-operational, because they hadn’t enough planes to make it operational. And in number 3 hangar Crosbys of Farnham, who were building merchants, had got a contract to build big crates to take aircraft in them. And so the aircraft were brought into the hangar and the men took them to pieces and the girls packed up bits, they had to be packed up and greased. They were put into these big grey boxes and sent off. Quite a lot went to Canada for air trainers. We used to do Spitfires, Hurricanes, Swordfish, Lysanders and there was a Harrier Dart. One lot of Spitfires that we packed were taken down on the aircraft carrier and they helped in the defence of Malta.

That work went on for six month, all through winter. The hangar was a big, almighty place — massive, very high. The doors that go back were twenty feet high or something like that. There was no heating in there so we all wore duffle jackets and three or four jerseys. And your hands got cold.

I enjoyed working there. Just before I went there, the planes were coming in with petrol in still, and they’d fly round the aircraft to use it up — they couldn’t bring it in, it was dangerous. And they they’d take the girls up for a fly round, but they stopped that before I could get a flight.

Making shell boxes
When they got enough planes, Odiham became operational again and the contract finished. So the mechanics were off down to Swindon to another depot and they had to find other work for us. Well, I went all round the various factories in Basingstoke and I couldn’t find one I liked. We had the option of going into Farnham, to the works there. I used to have to cycle two miles to Odiham, get the coach at half past six in the morning to get us there for seven o’clock and we used to work all day in the factories there. They experimented on drying wood with steam and they had all the machines and capstans for turning, and lathes. I had a hammer and nails.

It was quite hard work. My line was a gang of about fifteen, doing different parts. We were making shell boxes, about four foot long and about a foot square. Inside them they had blocks to hold the shells in place.and the lid had blocks on it. The first one had elm ends and the others were deal or pine but the centre block, that really held the bomb, was beech, with two bolts under it. The first girl did the branding, whatever it was. The next firls put on the handles and the blocks to hold the handles on, which had two rivets and two screws. The next girls made the lid. That was a plain piece of wood and it was a half moon at one end but they had a metal piece with a hole in it that the pin went through to hold the lid on. And underneath it had a strip of wood and a piece of felt that lay on top of that so it didn’t rattle the shell. The next girls made the sides. They had to put two battend sown inside and two little knobs on the end of each, so that you could pull it out. The next girl made the bottoms and she had to put the big jig in. The next girl’s job was to put the ends and sides together and another girl put the bottoms onto the ends and the sides. And they they came to me and I had to put the screws in the sides to hold the two side blocks in and the big beech block. The next girls put little angle irons on to hold the sides together and the next girl put the irons on under the top to hold the lids in. And that was the box. And then they were sanded and painted. We were doing 200 a day.

Making torpedo boxes
Then we worked on torpedo boxes. These were massive things — not many girls on the line, but they were the same sort of principle. They had about twenty straps on either side for various bolts to go down through to hold the torpedo stead.

Making Liffy boxes
Then we made the Liffy box, the bodies to go on the chassis. They could be used for anything. They were made of teak and tin, and sheet tin covered, and they had to nave nets in the broad windows, to keep the mosquitoes out. And they had a window at the door at the end, like a railway carriage door. And they could be put on a lorry, they could be put on the ground, they could be used for wireless buts, anything, even for living huts. I think they were about six foot wide and nine foot long, or maybe longer. They looked like the old shepherd huts. They were in teak which had to be sealed so that paint would take on it.

I was there in 1945 when the war finished.

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