Better British Aviation 1918-39

To Flesh Out Post 43...
Phase 2 - 1924-37 - Imperial Airways - Aircraft


The source of both lists is Robin Higham's book and the Imperial Airways list does not include aircraft lent to the firm by the Air Ministry.

IOTL Imperial Airways inherited 15 aircraft as follows:
1 De Havilland D.H.4A
7 De Havilland D.H.34
1 Handley Page O/10
3 Handley Page W.8
2 Supermarine Sea Eagle
1 Vickers Vimy Commercial​

Although I have quadrupled Government spending on civil aviation to 31st March 1924 ITTL I think that Imperial Airways would have inherited 6 to 8 times more aircraft from its predecessors.

I think that Imperial Airways would have inherited 60 aircraft from the two companies that were operating the European routes and that they would be a straight quadrupling of the types listed above. Or it would have inherited a smaller number of higher capacity aircraft. So instead of 44 single-engine De Havilland and Supermarine aircraft it might have a smaller number of twin-engine or tri-motor aircraft. Instead of 4 Handley Page O/10 and 12 W.8 which had 2 engines it might have a smaller number of Handley Page V/40 and Y.32 which would be four-engine machines descended from the V/1500.

The 2 airlines that operated the imperial routes would have only used multi-engine types and bequeathed 30-60 of them to Imperial Airways. They would probably be a mix of H.P. Page Types O, H.P. Type W, Vickers Vimy Commercials and twin engine flying boats based on the Felixstowe F.5. Or there might be a smaller number of larger airliners derived from the Handley Page V/1500 and the Felixstowe Fury.

Then between 1924 and the end of 1936 it acquired 77 aircraft as follows:
3 De Havilland D.H.50 from 1924
1 Handley Page W.08f Hamilton from 1924
3 Vickers Type 074 Vulcan from 1924
1 Handley Page W.09 Hampstead from 1925
7 Armstrong Whitworth Argosy from 1926
9 De Havilland D.H.66 Hercules from 1926
4 Handley Page W.10 from 1926
5 Short S.08 Calcutta from 1928
3 Westland Wessex from 1929
2 Avro618 Ten from1931
8 Handley Page H.P.42 from 1931
3 Short S.17 Kent/Scipio from 1931
8 Armstrong Whitworth Atlanta from 1932
13 De Havilland D.H.86 from 1934
2 Short L.17 Scylla from 1934
2 Avro652 from 1935
2 Boulton Paul P.71A from 1935
1 Vickers Type 212 Vellox from 1935​

According to A History of the World's Airlines by R.E.G. Davies there were 31 airlines in Europe in 1931 operating 762 aircraft between them. Only one of them, Imperial Airways, was British and it operated only 22 aircraft. This compared very badly to France, Germany and Italy:
  1. The 3 German airlines operated 177 aircraft between them, including the 145 belonging to Lufthansa.
  2. The 6 Italian airlines operated 90 aircraft between them.
  3. The 5 French airlines operated 295 aircraft between them. The largest was Aeroposal with 172 aircraft and only Air Orient with 16 aircraft had fewer than Imperial Airways.
Several of the small European countries had airlines that were the same size or larger than Imperial Airways if measured by the number of aircraft they had:
  1. Belgium's SABENA had 43 aircraft, including its network in the Belgian Congo.
  2. Czechoslovakia's CSA had 22 aircraft.
  3. Netherlands KLM had 23 aircraft.
  4. Poland's LOT had 23 aircraft.
ITTL Imperial Airways would continue to operate 8 times more aircraft than OTL up 1931 although state support for civil aviation was only quadruple OTL. This was due to a combination of:
  1. Operating more routes more intensively 1924-37. IOTL Imperial Airways was only operating as far as Delhi and Tanganyika in 1931. ITTL it was flying to Hong, Kong, New Zealand, South Africa and South America, plus a more extensive and intensive European services.
  2. IOTL £2 million was spent on the Imperial Airship Scheme, but the £8 million available for the scheme ITTL was spent on Imperial Airways.
  3. Aircraft would be cheaper allowing more than 4 times as many to be built with 4 times the money. The small production runs of OTL resulted in high unit costs. ITTL the fixed costs were spread over a larger number of aircraft and the larger number of aircraft allowed larger scale construction methods to be used, whereas most of the aircraft Imperial Airways purchased before the Ensign and Empire Flying Boat were virtually hand built.
As a result the TTL Imperial Airways had 176 aircraft in 1931 instead of 22. That made it Europe's largest airline by 4 aircraft. However, France with a total of 295 aircraft still had the largest airline industry in Europe.

IOTL Europe had 839 airliners belonging to 30 airlines in 1939 including 220 (over 25%) belonging to Lufthansa. The British airline fleet had grown to 155 aircraft including 88 operated by the overseas airlines (Imperial Airways and British Airways Mk 1) and 67 operated by Railway Air Services and the independents.

At the start of this I was going to have Imperial Airways with 88 aircraft in 1931 and have a national fleet of 310 aircraft in 1939 including 176 belonging to the overseas airlines. However, as I now have 176 aircraft in 1931 a total of 310 in 1939 including 176 operated by the overseas airliners seems to be too small, but 620 including 352 operated by the overseas air lines would give the UK nearly 50% of the 1,294 aircraft in the European fleet.

In terms of the number of individual aircraft instead of 7 A.W. Argosies, 9 D.H.66s and 4 H.P. W.10s delivered from 1926 it would have been 56, 72 and 32 respectively. Then it would have been: 40 Short Calcuttas from 1925; 24 Westland Wessexes from 1929; 16 Avro Tens, 64 H.P.42s and 24 Short Kents from 1931; 64 A.W. Atlantas from 1932. But from about 1934 when there was less difference between the OTL and TTL Imperial Airways networks it would go back to 4 times OTL so: 52 D.H.86 from 1934; 8 Avro 652, 8 Boulton Paul P.71A and 4 Vickers Vellox from 1935. The exception would be 16 Short L.17 Scylla from 1934 instead of 8.

However, I also want some qualitative improvements.

Instead of the OTL H.P.42 and 43 I want monoplanes with fixed undercarriages. Handley Page did eventually do this by converting the H.P.43 prototype into the H.P.51 which was effectively the prototype of the H.P.54 Harrow which was used as a transport aircraft by the RAF after it was withdrawn from the bomber squadrons. ITTL I want Handley Page to build 450 Harrows made up of 124 bombers in place of the Heyford (which entered RAF service in 1933), 76 bombers in place of the 76 Fairey Hendons ordered (only 14 built), 100 Harrow bombers of OTL and 150 bomber transports in place of the 80 Bristol Bombays ordered (50 built) and 72 Vickers Valentias (28 new aircraft and 54 conversions).

Meanwhile instead of the 8 H.P.42 and 2 Short Scylla of OTL Imperial Airways buys 80 monoplane versions of the H.P.42 or looking it another way an enlarged 4-engine version of the H.P.51.

I also want some jggery pokery to have the Short Knuckleduster built instead of the Short Singapore Mk 1, with 64 enlarged versions with 4 engines unimaginatively named the Super Knuckleduster built for Imperial Airways instead of the Calcutta and Kent.
 
If the question is "How does it fit in with OTL?", it doesn't. It completely upsets the applecart. OTL, aircraft were designed to fit available airfields covered in fine English grass. The use of the term "English grass" is intended as it is the term I recall used, and not British or UK grass. The Air Ministry spent much time determining specifications for aircraft and calculating performance loss due to short grass field characteristics. They would rather use catapult or rocket assist take-off methods for Manchester bombers, but, OTL, both good runways and assisted take-off methods had been forgotten and neglected since the Government couldn't see funding any improvements whatever. There are problems involved, like who operates civil airports and benefits from the Government shilling. On the bright side, such innovations as monoplanes seem much more likely, and passengers on Imperial flights suffer reduced air-sickness due to improved gust response from reduced wing areas. Things get much better when you have too much money.
The question should have been, "Is this an improvement on OTL?" The concrete runways only applied to civil airports.
 
The question should have been, "Is this an improvement on OTL?" The concrete runways only applied to civil airports.
Which would in turn lead to larger civil aircraft and as the technology is transferred into bigger and better bombers proper concrete runways for heavy bomber stations.
 
Why would Vickers Wellingtons be sent to the Far East in 1939? Who would do such a thing? Not the RAF, the Air Ministry or the Government. People do things that they tend to do. None of the people who existed then seemed so inclined. Maybe I just read too much about trying to find out who's to blame. I read a nice thesis about the Air Ministry and how they were not stupid at all, just ignorant. They didn't know things we know. Who is going to tell them?
Because of the following...

IOTL RAF Expansion Scheme F, approved by the Cabinet in February 1936 called for an overseas air force of 37 squadrons by 31st March 1939. The total number of aircraft varies according to the number of aircraft they give per squadron and whether they include the 18 spotter aircraft in 3 flights (Malta, Singapore and Hong Kong) or the 4 aircraft in the Indian bomber-transport flight.

The number of torpedo-bomber, landplane G.R. and flying boat G.R. squadrons overseas was to be increased from 52 in 7 squadrons by 31st March 1939 in Schemes A and F to 13 or 14 with 178 to 186 aircraft. The difference in the number of squadrons is whether one of the Malta squadrons was a landplane G.R. squadron or a fighter squadron and the number of aircraft in the G.R. and T.B. squadrons varied from 12 to 16.

Malta was to have a composite T.B.G.R. squadron and either a fighter squadron or a G.R. landplane squadron. One of these was to be formed by converting No. 202 Squadron from seaplanes.

The No. 203 F.B. squadron in the Persian Gulf was to be converted to G.R. landplanes.

Aden, Ceylon and Penang were to get one G.R. landplane squadron each. Only one of these No. 273 was actually formed on 1st August 1939 on Vildebeets and was the last RAF squadron formed before World War II broke out.

Singapore was to have 2 landplane G.R. squadrons, 2 torpedo bomber squadrons and a flying boat squadron. There was also to be a bomber squadron, but some sources say it was to be a fighter-bomber squadron to deal with any Japanese carrier aircraft. The job of the G.R. landplanes and flying boats was to find Japanese carrier task forces in the South China Sea, which the torpedo bombers would then attack and the fighter-bomber squadron would deal with any aircraft that the Japanese ships could fly off to attack Singapore.

Hong Kong was to have a landplane G.R. squadron and 2 torpedo bomber squadrons. I was also to have a bomber squadron. I don't have much detail on the thinking behind this as the planned defences for Singapore, but I suspect the roles were the same as planned for Singapore, with the bomber squadron actually being a fighter-bomber squadron.

Back in 1936 IOTL these squadrons were to be equipped with a mix of the Beaufort, Botha and the planned GR version of the Blenheim. However, because they took longer to develop the Botha and Beaufort weren't in service by September 1939, let alone 6 months earlier.

The reason why a G.R. version of the Wellington (and a T.B. version of the Hampden) would be sent to the Far East in 1939 is that in my TL they were ordered for there in 1936 instead of the Beaufort and Botha. This was in turn because the Air Ministry decided that the Hampedn and Wellington were more likely to be delivered on time than the Beaufort and Botha because their prototypes were flying in 1936, while the Beaufort and Botha were still "paper planes".
 
I hope you've figured out a reasonable way to stop Bomber Command getting their hands on those extra bombers, because even if they were specifically ordered for Coastal Command and colonial defence they're going to try to grab them. First they'll try to get them as they're delivered probably by offering obsolete types like the Harrow as replacements, then as war becomes inevitable they're going to try and claim they can't do what's needed with their available aircraft and that they must have all of the Wellingtons and Hampdens in service.
 
I hope you've figured out a reasonable way to stop Bomber Command getting their hands on those extra bombers, because even if they were specifically ordered for Coastal Command and colonial defence they're going to try to grab them. First they'll try to get them as they're delivered probably by offering obsolete types like the Harrow as replacements, then as war becomes inevitable they're going to try and claim they can't do what's needed with their available aircraft and that they must have all of the Wellingtons and Hampdens in service.
The Cabinet instructs Lord Inskip, Minister for Co-ordination of Defence to order the Air Ministry to make love to itself. I got the idea from a repeat of NCIS earlier in the week, when Gibbs told McGee to tell the assistant secnav to get of their backs.

To be serious one reason why I want more Harrows instead of the Heyford, Hendon and Valentia is that they would be more useful after they became obsolete in the heavy bomber role. This includes interim G.R. aircraft pending the arrival of the G.R. Wellington as well as a transport aircraft and trainer for bomber crews.

I effectively want it to be the British Ju52/3m, which includes making it a more successful airliner. The next posts on Civil Aviation will include the rise of British Airways Mk I, which IOTL bought 3 second hand Ju 52s, ITTL it might have been a larger number of second hand H.P.51 airliners.
 
They would rather use catapult or rocket assist take-off methods for Manchester bombers, but, OTL, both good runways and assisted take-off methods had been forgotten and neglected since the Government couldn't see funding any improvements whatever.
ITTL 2016, The British Government approves a third catapult for Heathrow Airport.
 
The Cabinet instructs Lord Inskip, Minister for Co-ordination of Defence to order the Air Ministry to make love to itself. I got the idea from a repeat of NCIS earlier in the week, when Gibbs told McGee to tell the assistant secnav to get of their backs.

To be serious one reason why I want more Harrows instead of the Heyford, Hendon and Valentia is that they would be more useful after they became obsolete in the heavy bomber role. This includes interim G.R. aircraft pending the arrival of the G.R. Wellington as well as a transport aircraft and trainer for bomber crews.

I effectively want it to be the British Ju52/3m, which includes making it a more successful airliner. The next posts on Civil Aviation will include the rise of British Airways Mk I, which IOTL bought 3 second hand Ju 52s, ITTL it might have been a larger number of second hand H.P.51 airliners.

Britain could have used Jethro's help in these trying times. I just thought I'd mention that the HP.51 was never an airliner but a single prototype military aircraft that was converted largely to HP.54 specs.. Designed by HP's German, the Harrow is a fine choice to alter history.
 
Britain could have used Jethro's help in these trying times. I just thought I'd mention that the HP.51 was never an airliner but a single prototype military aircraft that was converted largely to HP.54 specs.. Designed by HP's German, the Harrow is a fine choice to alter history.
Yes, I'm aware of that.

Handley Page built the H.P.43 biplane to Specification C.16/28 for a replacement for the Vickers Victoria bomber transport, which was a descendent of the Vimy Commercial airliner. It flew on 21st June 1932 (3 months after the Junkers Ju52/3m). Neither it or its rivals from Gloster and Vickers were a good enough improvement over the existing aircraft and the RAF bought the Vickers Valentia which was an upgrade of the Victoria. Meanwhile Handley Page converted the H.P.43 into the H.P.51 monoplane, which flew in May 1935 and entered it to Specification C.26/31, but it lost to the Bristol Type 130 Bombay. As you wrote the 100 H.P.54 Harrows built to Spec. 29/35 were based on the H.P.51.

ITTL I want Handley Page to build the H.P.43 as a monoplane, i.e. as the H.P.51, in the first place. Although built to a military specification I thought an airliner version would be possible. The H.P.42 and (sort of) the H.P.43 were both designed to meet an Imperial Airways specification. The sort of is because Handley Page submitted three and four engine biplane designs to the specification and Imperial Airways chose the four engine one, which the airline ordered as the H.P.42. When C.16/28 was issued Handley Page based the H.P.43 on the work they did on the 3-engine version of what became the H.P.42.
 
ITTL I want Handley Page to build the H.P.43 as a monoplane, i.e. as the H.P.51, in the first place. Although built to a military specification I thought an airliner version would be possible. The H.P.42 and (sort of) the H.P.43 were both designed to meet an Imperial Airways specification. The sort of is because Handley Page submitted three and four engine biplane designs to the specification and Imperial Airways chose the four engine one, which the airline ordered as the H.P.42. When C.16/28 was issued Handley Page based the H.P.43 on the work they did on the 3-engine version of what became the H.P.42.

The chief designer of the HP.43 was George Volkert. The chief designer of the HP.51/HP.54 was the German, Gustav Lachmann. Both men had spent time in Japan. Small world. Lachmann did not become chief designer until 1932. Between 1929 and 1932, he was working on his slot development at Handley Page. He will need a premature promotion.
 
The only problem I see with the Harrow as an airliner is that it was cloth skinned rather than metal. That's fine for a bomber of the time (it makes repairing it easier) but not for an airliner, still I don't suppose it would be too difficult to use aluminium sheets instead of linin ones.

bomber_fire.jpg
 
The chief designer of the HP.43 was George Volkert. The chief designer of the HP.51/HP.54 was the German, Gustav Lachmann. Both men had spent time in Japan. Small world. Lachmann did not become chief designer until 1932. Between 1929 and 1932, he was working on his slot development at Handley Page. He will need a premature promotion.
The H.P.51 was the fuselage of the H.P.43 fitted with a new wing and kept its original Air Ministry serial number. Therefore I thought it would be simple to make it a monoplane from the start. If having a different chief designer when the H.P.43 designed prevents it from being a monoplane then I can't make the TTL H.P.42 a monoplane either.

I think you'll have kittens if I go ahead and have Vickers build a geodetic monoplane with a retractable undercarriage instead of the Vildbeest and twin engine versions built to Specs. B.19/27 and C.16/28.
 
Last edited:
I think you'll have kittens if I go ahead and have Vickers build a geodetic monoplane with a retractable undercarriage instead of the Vildbeest and twin engine versions built to Specs. B.19/27 and C.16/28.

My daughter is visiting, with Dexter and Shadow, both Chihuahua mixes. I can't have cats. You can have any aircraft you want. I just prefer it if you come up with some reason for things to change, rather than just because you want progress. You've already created more money, which spawned greater numbers of aircraft of all kinds. That just makes more airplanes, not better ones. You increased the numbers equally, not according to merit. That's a lot of trouble. Understood. What inspired Vickers to greater progress, and what do you have against the Vildebeest, which pre-dated the Wellesley by a bunch, technically and chronologically?
 
Astrodragon, please write your time line. My idea was to put the entire top brass of the AM (bar Dowding) on the R101
IIRC Dowding was Air Member for Research and Development at the time of the R.101 disaster and he signed its certificate of airworthiness. IIRC he also thought, with some justification, that the rest of the RAF's top brass were out to get him. Therefore is your suggestion a plot by Dowding to eliminate his rivals?
 
in 1940 the wood and canvas clad Hurricane could be repaired and returned to service much faster than the Spitfire by the Civilian Repair Organisation. So being outdated does have advantages in certain circumstances!
That's true as far as it goes, but IIRC the superior performance of the Spitfire meant a smaller percentage were short down or damaged in the first place.

On a visit to the Science Museum several years ago I came across a statistic that the Hurricane and Spitfire had the same kill rate in the Battle of Britain, but the Hurricane had double the loss rate. That suggests that had an all-Spitfire force been possible in the Battle of Britain the Luftwaffe's losses would have been the same, but RAF Fighter Command would have lost fewer aircraft and pilots.
 
That's true as far as it goes, but IIRC the superior performance of the Spitfire meant a smaller percentage were short down or damaged in the first place.

On a visit to the Science Museum several years ago I came across a statistic that the Hurricane and Spitfire had the same kill rate in the Battle of Britain, but the Hurricane had double the loss rate. That suggests that had an all-Spitfire force been possible in the Battle of Britain the Luftwaffe's losses would have been the same, but RAF Fighter Command would have lost fewer aircraft and pilots.

This suggests there could have been more Spitfires.



From the Kindle version of Leo McKinstry’s ‘Spitfire : Portrait of a Legend on Castle Bromwich.

Soon after Vickers had taken over, Beaverbrook instructed Sir Richard Fairey, the distinguished aircraft manufacturer, to conduct a full investigation into Castle Bromwich. Fairey’s subsequent report, which is contained on a microfilm in the Vickers Archive but has never been discussed in any Spitfire literature, provides a unique insight into the expensive shambles of Nuffield’s organization. It should be remembered that Fairey had an axe to grind against Nuffield, because he believed his Stockport factory should have been manufacturing Spitfires; nevertheless, his study, sent to Beaverbrook at the end of June 1940, amounted to a powerful indictment not just of Nuffield, but also of parts of the Castle Bromwich workforce. ‘It is, I regret to say, a picture of extravagance and an inability to understand the problems of aircraft production, coupled with an unwillingness to learn from those who do,’ Fairey began. ‘The state of affairs I have seen at Castle Bromwich is the exact reverse of that of other factories I have inspected on your behalf where output troubles have been primarily due to comparatively small companies with restricted finances having bitten off more than they can chew.’ In contrast, at Castle Bromwich, he continued:

Matters appear to have started with a blank cheque. Some £ 7 million of public money has been expended in a vast and extravagantly laid out plant, together with jigs and tools, with a large machine shop more than capable of the proposed output and huge stock of materials totalling 450 tons now on the premises. Much of this material has presumably been frozen there for some time. The machine shop is magnificent, comprising over 800 first-class machine tools, nearly half of which are perforce idle for want of equipment and skilled labour. For example, I saw the most perfect specimen of the Swiss jig borer costing some £ 14,000, just being erected. This machine should have completed its work six months ago.

Fairey went on to reveal further waste on buildings, expensive heating systems, and enormous steel hangars which could hold 200 Spitfires at a time. Records were hopelessly unreliable. ‘I myself inspected a number of boxes of components and parts that had literally been raked out from under the working benches and for which no records existed.’ Furthermore, Castle Bromwich had ignored the tooling work done by Supermarine and had instead started to design and plan its own tools, ‘even altering the manufacturing limits of Supermarine drawings for reasons which are quite incomprehensible’. Fairey was also aghast to find that

350 of the total schedule of 7,000 parts had neither been ordered on the shops nor placed out elsewhere. The whole conception was not good since the reason for spending so much capital on tools and machinery should be to produce an even flow of parts in the numbers required. I inspected among other things a battery of six large presses standing idle and a pile of large press tools, mostly incomplete or awaiting rectification, for making various parts of the machine, such as tank ends, which had not yet gone into operation.

Fairey’s harshest criticism, however, was reserved for the Castle Bromwich employees – which is interesting in the context of later mythology about the whole nation pulling together in the patriotic cause:

Over-riding all these considerations and in my opinion the greatest obstacle to an immediate increase in output is the fact that labour is in a very bad state. Discipline is lacking. Men are leaving before time and coming in late, taking evenings off when they think fit . . . In parts of the factory I noticed that men idling did not even bestir themselves at the approach of the Works Manager and the Director who were accompanying me.

Fairey mentioned that there had been a sit-down strike over a petty pay dispute the week before Vickers took over. ‘The labour in the Midlands and the north is not “playing the game”. They are getting extra money and are not working in proportion to it. In fact, in this particular factory there is every evidence of slackness. In my opinion it is management who are in need of rest far more than the operatives.’ Fairey suggested that workers should be warned that if they were found guilty of indiscipline or laxity they would be liable for conscription. ‘The labour are taking advantage of the services. In fact I maintain that without strong action on the labour not only will this programme not be achieved but that other factories will suffer.’

Fairey’s views on the workforce were not mere capitalist prejudice. The Supermarine engineer Cyril Russell had many colleagues who had been sent up to Birmingham to assist with parts and drawings, and heheard directly from them how ‘there were a lot of squabbles over money’, how Castle Bromwich employees ‘stopped work for financial greed’, and how ‘the project was “bugged” with industrial action (or inaction) which fell short of a complete factory shutdown but was fragmented into areas where the cumulative result ensured that no Spitfires reached the flight testing stage.’ To his anger, the management had frequently caved in to such pressure, with the result that those on the Castle Bromwich payroll earned much more than those at Supermarine. Russell even suggested that left-wing extremism might have been behind some of the disputes: in his view, the bottlenecks might have been ‘orchestrated by politically motivated persons to delay the output of the aircraft that were so vital’ – action which he believed ‘bordered on treason.’ Apart from the complaint about general recalcitrance, however, there is no evidence for this in any of the archives.

Nevertheless, frustration with the workforce is all too clear from the correspondence of Alexander Dunbar, a tough accountant who became the overall managing director of Castle Bromwich in May 1940. ‘We have been doing a bit of sacking this week and shall be doing a lot more before the end of the month,’ he wrote to a Vickers director in July 1940:

Among other things we are cutting out time and a quarter payments for staff overtime and I have spent a lot of time today arguing with the chargehands. Yesterday it was the Draughtsmen’s Union and last night it was the progress clerks but it’s all in a day’s work. Incidentally, we are sacking at least 60 Jig and Tool draughtsmen next week; we have tried to find out what they are doing but the answer’s not a lemon . . . In the meantime we manage to build the odd Spitfire or two.

The sheer technical idiocy of some of the early Castle Bromwich line workers was also revealed by another Supermarine expert, Bill Cox, sent up to the factory to help sort out production. Cox was talking to an elderly fitter about the stressed-skin construction of the Spitfire when the fitter replied, ‘Make things with aluminium? Not bloody likely. That stuff is OK for pots and pans but we are going to make things to beat the Nazis. We’ll use iron.’ Cox also listened to a senior Castle Bromwich manager saying that ‘the elliptical wing should be redesigned because the air would not know the difference between straight and curved leading edges.’ So adamant was this manager about changing the design that Cox had to get on the phone to Joe Smith at Supermarine and warn him of the problem. Immediately, Smith contacted the Air Ministry and a civil servant was dispatched to Birmingham with the message that ‘all drawings must be made to Supermarine’s orders.’

Beaverbrook was eager to show that Castle Bromwich was being turned around, so, with a characteristic showman’s touch, he instructed the factory to build ten Spitfires before the end of June. But the new Vickers managers knew that, for all their sackings and the tighter discipline arising from the threat of military service, there was little chance of meeting this deadline, given the disarray of Castle Bromwich. So they resorted to a devious stratagem. As Stan Woodley recorded, ‘By shipping up from Southampton large numbers of finished components, including some fully equipped fuselages, and working round the clock, the magic ten in June were completed.’ The managers were given inscribed silver cigarette lighters to celebrate this achievement, though in reality it was little more than a piece of trickery. The ten in fact came from a consignment of Spitfires ordered by Turkey, which was cancelled due to escalation of the war. Instead of being shipped across the Mediterranean, they were taken out of their crates, modified to revert to standard RAF type, and shipped off to Birmingham. Alex Henshaw had to test-fly the first of the ten, and the experience gave him a glimpse into the ‘complete and utter shambles’ of Castle Bromwich. As requested, he arrived early in the morning for the test, soon after sunrise, but to his annoyance he found that the Spitfire was not ready. ‘I think there were at least twenty people standing round one solitary aircraft. It was utter chaos.’ Henshaw was advised to go into Birmingham for some breakfast and return later in the morning. ‘I came back and there was still chaos. This went on all day.’ Finally, half an hour before sunset, the work was complete. ‘They took the plane out on to the airfield and I got into it. Everyone was absolutely bushed. No hilarity, no joyous occasion, everyone just fed up. They were tired, frustrated and concerned because they didn’t know how it would turn out, their first aircraft. But I took off for a fly and it behaved perfectly.’ Remembering the glum faces he had seen on the ground, Henshaw decided he would liven up the spectators. ‘I thought that they’d been working for days and all I had to do was hang around and fly the bloody thing.’ So he launched into one of the daring aerobatic displays for which he became renowned, performing loops and inverted rolls before landing. The mood was now completely different. ‘They were cheering, patting each other on the back and all embracing each other. I’ll never forget that.’

Even after the first Spitfires came off the Castle Bromwich production line, there remained tremendous problems at the factory, not least because the buildings had not even been completed. Two years after Sir Kingsley Wood had cut the first sod, parts of Castle Bromwich were still like a construction site. The architect overseeing the works, William J. Green, was an ineffectual manager, and his weakness was ruthlessly exploited by the contractors, led by an intractable foreman, a Mr Riley. So serious were the delays that Beaverbrook’s department sent in a surveyor, A. J. Hill from Taylor Woodrow, to compile a report. Just as Sir Richard Fairey had done, Hill painted a picture of dangerous stagnation at Castle Bromwich. Work on the canteen and the main office block was ‘almost at a standstill’, while the architect had ‘not shown any control over the contractors’.

When Hill interviewed Riley the foreman he found him ‘abusive and resentful’. Hill continued that Riley ‘is bigoted, conceited, offensive and cannot be told anything that he thinks he knows already which, according to him, is everything’. Thanks to Riley’s influence, contractors were refusing to work Saturday afternoons or Sundays. Hill concluded that his impression of his visit was that ‘There was a total lack of organization and programming of the work. Co-ordination and construction and fitting out of buildings were completely absent. Meetings to discuss progress have been a waste of time.’ 75 Another difficulty was that, as Sir Richard Fairey had noted, the factory’s recording procedures were in chaos, which also encouraged fraud and abuses within the workforce. J. E. Anderson, one of Vickers’ experts, reported in July that the system was so ‘poor’ and riddled with ‘inherent weaknesses’ that the proper ordering of the work was impossible. ‘The actual booking of operators’ time on jobs is inaccurate and confused,’ he wrote, which led to ‘numerous cases of overpayment’. Gradually during the summer of 1940 the Vickers team began to transform the management of the factory, through the creation of efficient records, stores and production lines, as well as through the sacking of idle or troublesome employees. On 8 August, for instance, Dunbar told Craven, with a degree of relish, that he had just dismissed 184 staff, among them ‘sixteen foremen whose experience and ability proved unsatisfactory’. In the new climate of well-organized determination, output increased rapidly. In July, 23 aircraft had been produced; 37 followed in August. By the end of October 1940, 195 Spitfires had been delivered from Castle Bromwich. Beaverbrook wrote to Dunbar to say that he was ‘very pleased with the improvement in the morale of the factory’, to which Dunbar replied, ‘Castle Bromwich is a long way yet from being perfect but steadyprogress is being made in every way and I am confident that we shall justify the trust you have reposed in me.’ By February 1941 the Spitfire total from Castle Bromwich was above 600, proving that the factory had huge productive capacity provided there was effective management and a co-operative workforce. Eventually, over 13,000 of the type would be built at Castle Bromwich – more than half the total of all Spitfires produced. The fiasco of the early years at Castle Bromwich, set out in Whitehall and Vickers files, has never been fully told before, perhaps because it does not fit in with the uplifting wartime narrative of British courage and unity. Moreover, Nuffield himself was anxious to downplay the mess over which he had presided: there is hardly a mention of the episode in any of his papers. He was, by all accounts, never the same man after being so ruthlessly ousted by Beaverbrook, and lapsed into a long, melancholy decline. ‘He seemed to lose the vital force that drove him inexorably to greater and greater things,’ wrote Miles Thomas. Yet in two crucial ways Castle Bromwich is a vital chapter in the Spitfire saga. First of all it destroys the myth, so sedulously cultivated by cheerleading propaganda, that a mood of patriotic endeavour was sweeping through Birmingham and the nation in early 1940. In the words of Cyril Russell, the truth was a tale of ‘managerial weakness and ignorance, and an overdose of worker bloody mindedness’. Second, the chronic delay in producing Spitfires had severe consequences for the fabric of Fighter Command. Given Nuffield’s promise to make 60 planes a week, the contract for 1,000 Spitfires should have been easily fulfilled by the time the Battle of Britain reached its peak in September. If he had come anywhere near to meeting his pledge, the position of the RAF would have been transformed. Every squadron in the two front-line groups in the south of England could have been equipped with Spitfires, and there would have been enough for reserves and training. The desperate tactics that Dowding had to use to protect his dwindling numbers would have been unnecessary. Much of the bitter controversy between his group commanders, caused by arguments over fighter resources, could have been avoided. The ‘narrow margin’ of the Battle was partly of Nuffield’s creation.
 
That's true as far as it goes, but IIRC the superior performance of the Spitfire meant a smaller percentage were short down or damaged in the first place.

On a visit to the Science Museum several years ago I came across a statistic that the Hurricane and Spitfire had the same kill rate in the Battle of Britain, but the Hurricane had double the loss rate. That suggests that had an all-Spitfire force been possible in the Battle of Britain the Luftwaffe's losses would have been the same, but RAF Fighter Command would have lost fewer aircraft and pilots.

Going off on a tangent, I know, but considering that Hurricanes shot down more planes than Spitfires, this (assuming it's true) suggests that there were more Hurricanes than Spitfires in the BoB.
Even if we have a majority Spitfire force here, this would mean still mean a significantly lower loss rate.
 
Going off on a tangent, I know, but considering that Hurricanes shot down more planes than Spitfires, this (assuming it's true) suggests that there were more Hurricanes than Spitfires in the BoB.
Yes the ratio of Hurricanes to Spitfires in the BOB was about 3:2. I can't remember the date but at one point in the battle there were 32 Hurricane squadrons and 20 Spitfire squadrons. IIRC the 5 single seat fighter squadrons that became operational during the battle were all equipped with Hurricanes so the numerical superiority of that type over the Spitfire increased slightly.
 
Top