" where were the Spitfires when needed in 1940."
Wikipedia is pretty correct I beleive:-
The Spitfire's stressed-skin construction required precision engineering skills and techniques outside the experience of the local labour force which took some time to train.......However, even as the first Spitfires were being built in June 1940, the factory was still incomplete and there were numerous problems with the factory management which ignored tooling and drawings provided by Supermarine in favour of tools and drawings of its own designs.[size=8333px] [/size] Meanwhile, the workforce, while not completely stopping production, continually threatened
strikes or "slow downs" until their demands for higher than average pay rates were met (t
his was of course during the Phoney War).[size=8333px] [/size] By May 1940, Castle Bromwich had not yet built its first Spitfire in spite of promises that the factory would be producing 60 per week starting in April.
It is worth noting, however, that key players, such as Alex Henshaw, viewed the problems as primarily those of poor management during the initial phase. Workers worked twelve-hour on and twelve-hours off until bombings forced a switch to a three-shift, eight-hour system. Henshaw attended the diamond jubilee in 1996 of the founding of the CBAF, hosted by Jaguar Cars Limited in the old factory and remained fulsome in his praise for the workforce until his death.
Vickers-Armstrong: 1940–1945
After the fall of the government of
Neville Chamberlain, new Prime Minister
Winston Churchill appointed press tycoon
Lord Beaverbrook as the
Minister of Aircraft Production. On 17 May, Beaverbrook telephoned Nuffield and manoeuvered him into handing over control of the Castle Bromwich plant to Beaverbook's Ministry. Nuffield was furious and reported the incident to Churchill, but Beaverbrook countered by sending in aircraft expert
Sir Richard Fairey who wrote a secret report which detailed how expensive machinery had been unused, the assembly line in chaos, and the employees not doing their work:
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 the men did not even stir themselves at the approach of the Works Manager. The labour in the Midlands is not “playing the game”. They are getting extra money and are not working in proportion for it.
Beaverbrook, who had disturbed the Air Ministry by agreeing with the vision of Air Vice Marshal
Hugh Dowding that Britain at that time needed defensive fighters over attacking bombers, immediately cancelled all Castle Bromwich contracted bombers, which at that point included the
Handley-Page Halifax and the
Vickers Wellington. He then sent in experienced management staff and workers from
Supermarine, and gave over control of the factory to
Vickers-Armstrong (Supermarine's parent company). Although it would take some time to resolve the problems, CBAF achieved full production in June 1940, when 10
Spitfire Mk IIs were built; 23 in July; 37 in August; and 56 in September.
No. 611 Squadron at
RAF Digby the first squadron to receive the Mk II in August 1940, notably late in the
Battle of Britain.
The wisdom of the shadow factory scheme was demonstrated in September 1940, when the Supermarine factory in
Southampton was bombed, and production there temporarily stopped. CBAF went on to become the largest and most successful plant of its type during the 1939–45 conflict. As the largest Spitfire factory in the UK, by producing a maximum of 320 aircraft per month, it built over half of the approximately 20,000 aircraft of this type. By the time production ended at Castle Bromwich in June 1945, a total of 12,129 Spitfires (921 Mk IIs, 4,489 Mk Vs, 5,665 Mk IXs, and 1,054 Mk XVIs) had been built.