Westland Doncaster?

They also eventually bought out Taskers of Andover who built Queen Mary trailers. Ultimately bought out by Montracon and are no more.

The mention of Craven Bros in post 23 above brought back memories. My grandfather worked at Cravens for 40+ years from the early 1920s, including throughout the war.

Looking at http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/archive/index.php/t-39567.html – it seems that Cravens, which I knew in the early 50s when at a school near the works, as making rolling stock had extensive sections involved in making aircraft parts during WW11. My grandfather used to tell me that he was involved with Merlins during the war and it seems from the following post from the above mentioned site that he may have been correct. –

“little malc
09-05-2005, 09:29
Cravens were a huge operation in their day, specialising in building railway carriages, interestingly, durind the war, they made the wings for “Horsa” troop carrying gliders, and components for Lancaster bombers. A special section of the firm was prepared to make large quantities of Rolls Royce Merlin engine exhaust manifolds, in addition, the firm made gun shields, gun mountings, gun turrets, ammunition racks, ammunition boxes, and thousands of stampings and component parts for armoured vehicles.”

Chris

Thanks AK – useful detail. It makes sense for Doncaster to be an assembly shed using components made by sub contractors in Yorkshire – rather than shipping up stuff from Yeovil, it kept the works independent of the main works’ production lines.

It would still be quite an undertaking to set up the factory and its network of local sub contractors, and yet this wasn’t the only one. The scale of the way the UK’s industry was directed to the war effort is remarkable. Apparently by 1944 1.8million people worked in the aircraft industry. (Brit War Prod 39-45)

What is a shame is that so few records survive. For those researching Doncaster Airfield, the RAF history is easy to find, that of the aircraft works is going to be more difficult to dig out.

This gets better! Thank you. So that was the cause of the rapid cessation of production. Not a straightforward cancellation at all – but the bombing of an engaged subcontractor, who actually made ‘structures’. Doncaster really was more of an assembly shed, and Radpoe, you were right, Lysanders were manufactured in Sheffield, by the company Ken names. Fascinating stuff!

BM, #13: Sea/Spit: I think I misread my notes: WAL did Sea/Spit CRO, but not here. P.Amos/Miles/Vol.II has the Board of WAL confirming on 27/3/41 departure from Doncaster. He has 17 Lysander IIIA: no more because the structures sub-contractor, Craven Bros/Sheffield was bombed. Amos,P.49 has Phillips & Powis assembling 10 Master II here, and co-ordinating Craven’s fabrication of (much of) 22 more, assembled at S.Marston. Master out and Brooklands/Wellington CRO in from Lindholme, late-1941. Action Stations/II (Halpenny,1981) has (Airspeed) C-47 mods. here (1943 and I have a note of Scottish Avn. doing CRO work here).

Most aircraft “factories”, then as now, assembled more than fabricated: early Boeing 787 had nothing built at Everett, little anywhere by Boeing. That is why some of the dispersed Spitfire “factories” were simple flight test sheds, assembling structure completed elsewhere and in by road to be Lego-ed.

“Shadow” was a Ministry of Munitions invention of 1915, to convert civil plants to build-to-print the proven designs of small parents. Re-invented in 1936. A minority of Lancasters were Avro-proper, for example: Shadow (and Agency – the difference was subtle and unimportant) Factories were built by the State who determined what would be done there, by whom. Because we, the taxpayers, had funded everything the Munitions Industry did, we could put, say, HP Halifax into a site managed by Fairey…or whatever seemed to us to be a good idea: for instance, to tap a fresh labour pool, or to distance the Luftwaffe, or to minimise carting engines &tc. far and wide, by putting airframe close to engine site*. If we chose to involve the designer – and often we did not – a fee per item would be paid for his “Supervision” (today: QC). There were cases of MAP ejecting the designer from his owned factory, as incompetent at volume production: MAP put in Controllers with such experience on other products. At Shorts we ejected the owner from ownership.

The Squadron might not know, and care less, whether a machine came from the designer, or from a site “Supervised” by the designer, or one “Controlled” by a MAP alien. QC was (intended to be) constant (though Amos has Doncaster Masters as unwanted orphans in MU storage).

(* Mercury for Doncaster Lysander and Master would come from Accrington, not Patchway or Longbridge/Ryton. Fuel for trucks was measured in drowned mariners).

Have you tried contacting Aeroventure?

They have comprehensive displays about many aspects of their local aviation history.

Really interesting. Thanks! I knew the forum would know 🙂 Making an aircraft factory from scratch – if indeed it was more than an assembly shed – would have been quite an undertaking. Surprised the story seems largely forgotten.

There is some mention of the factory in Geoffrey Oakes book “Aviation in Doncaster 1909-1992” – although not great detail.

He notes the factory was a prefabricated building on the north side of the airfield near St Cecilia’s Road, assembly starting pre-war (although one of the two pre-war hangars was used initially while the building was completed.)

After the cancellation of the Lysander contract, Phillips and Powis in collaboration with Miles Aircraft planned to use the factory to build the Miles Master. However, after only one aircraft was made, the factory was taken over by Brooklands Aviation and used for the repair of Wellington bombers.

There are only a few details in the book but interesting nevertheless.

From my experience, the Doncaster factory fits a pattern seen elsewhere. Although it is a bit of a generalisation, during rearmament the Government invested in building factories (moving production away from the SE), then in building aircraft and, part way through the war when there were large numbers of aircraft needing repair, converted some works to repair contracts.

I would be surprised if Doncaster only assembled aircraft from kits of parts made elsewhere – there is little benefit in the insurance of a dispersal scheme if the daughter works has to stop production should bombing affect the main works. But starting up these sites from scratch with untrained workers might explain a slow start and therefore low numbers produced before the switch to CRO work.

Interesting – I wonder if more details are out there anywhere.

AllanK

The Mk IIIA incorporated floor and side armour in the rear cockpit, strengthened rear fuselage and Lockheed tailwheel. The sliding door below the fuselage and the rear fuselage bomb rack were deleted and it is said the message hook also. However, there are photographs of MK IIIAs with message hooks. Twin Browning free guns but this installation was also possible on the MK III. Many MK IIIs were upgraded to the ‘A’ standard retaining the older rear cockpit canopy. A new set of radio equipment was provided with a different arrangement of aerials but this installation was also retrofitted to other Mks.

Can’t find anything in print, but Google gave me this – http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_westland_lysander.html

Says that the main difference was the addition of armour, and the removal of some obsolete items, such as a hook for messages.

It may be relevant to the cancellation that the Mk.IIIA came in around the same time, but I haven’t found any description of it yet. How much did it differ from the Mk.III?

Either side of the 17. Bit odd.

Graham, yes, that’s what intrigued me. Either an assembly hangar, putting together parts shipped up from the South West (unless a whole new set of subcontractors were engaged).. which could surely have been put anywhere, being just a hangar, including places closer to home, OR a full-scale factory – which isn’t documented as such in any of the Westland info I have. I think it’s fair to assume the former.. odd geography or not?

The contract was for 500 Lysander MKIII, serial nos between W6675 and W6938 and W6961 and W7241 were cancelled.

A single hangar may be big enough to assemble aircraft but won’t be large enough to carry out all the manufacturing processes. Either there is another local site, or a significant transfer of subassemblies.

There’s a number of very good reasons for additional dispersed aircraft production sites planned prewar/earlywar. The original intention was to build 300 Lysanders in this contract – in wartime plans change, forced by circumstance, and here it seems that it was recognised that this was a greater number than foreseeable use. Work will have started many months before the roll-out of the first aircraft, time enough for changes in the course of the war.

Found this old thread – http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?79977-Doncaster-Airfield . Post #11 suggests Brooklands did the Wellingtons there as CRO work.. but Westland did Spitfires/Seafires. Alertken, if you are around – where is this info from?

Perhaps it was taken over by Brooklands Aviation Ltd as part of the CRO (Civilian Repair Organisation).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Repair_Organisation

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/01/a8851601.shtml

Thanks everyone. Very interesting stuff indeed. All seems a little odd, to create an entire production facility at the other end of the country from HQ – and then only build 17 aircraft there during wartime when production was everything.

Hi All,

I don’t know any dates etc but Lysanders where built at the Ministry of Aircraft Production (MAP) hangar on the same site as RAF Doncaster. The MAP hangar was were Asda is now (approx). As I understand it, it was also a repair facility for Wellington bombers.

Hope it helps

Regards
Nigel (owner Sea King HAS.6 XV677)

Did the Doncaster factory produce any other aeroplanes?

Regards

Further on in the Putnam Westland it describes 17 aircraft from the last Mk.III batch being build at Doncaster, the rest being cancelled. I find that a bit vague, given that the serials come from the middle of the run. Other descriptions of production batches do not mention where they were built.

Mind you, I can’t find a description of the difference between the Mk.III and the Mk.IIIA either. Maybe in other books?