The Wingham Advance-Times, 1941-11-27, Page 7Thursday, Nov. 27 th, 1941 WINGHAM ADVANCE-TIMES
CANADA AT WAR |
I NO. 3 — DOMINION’S GROWING SHELL I
PRODUCTION I
By C, Earl Rice, formerly of Springfield Times, Lac Du Bonnet, Man. IThe Dominion Arsenal
In Quebec Province are many plants
Where ammunition and shells are be
ing produced. I lie mother of them all
however, is the Dominion Arsenal.
Situated in the heart of Old Canada
is a fine old stone building, dating
back to the eighteenth century. The
walls are five feet thick, and from this
building, the defenders of New France
took their stand against the enemy.
For the past thirty years or more this
same building has been used in the de
fense of Canada, but instead of being
the shelter from which guns are fired,
it has become one center in which
ammunition for the Canadian Army is
made. *
During the last war, this arsenal
employed five to six hundred men and
women. Today, it is producing in 24
hours, more ammunition than in a
, stums until the completed cases are
produced.
j After the cartridge cases are com-
‘ pletcd, they are passed on to another
1 plant, where the propellant is put in,
| the cap fitted, and the metal bullets
j clamped into place. This plant where
the high explosives are handled, is one
of extraordinary quietness, and clean
liness. There is no hustle or bustle
here. Everybody wears special rub
ber shoes, and when walking about
the building, every now and again, one
touches a metal plate set in th.e wall
to ground himself so that there may
be no static generated.
Situated close to this plant is the
proving ground. Hejrc it is that guns
made in Canada, using shells the size
of a half inch and over, are proved.
Not only are Canadian made guns
proved here, but guns from the Am-
Shells by the thousands are stream
ing out of the different munitions
plants in the Dominion of Canada.
The workman shown in this photo is
checking Howitzer shells preparatory
to shipment.
whole month during the last war.
More than a score of large buildings
.comprise the three main plants. One
■of these is situated in the country
fifteen miles from the city,‘'and a spec
ial train makes a round trip three
times a day carrying 1,500 men and
women to work on their respective
shifts.
The Dominion Arsenal is considered
the finest plant of its type on the
North^American Continent. Not only
is it equipped with the very latest in
machines and1 tools, but the safety de-
' yices, and working conditions are the
•best possible.
Cartridge cases and bullets~are pro
duced from the raw material. The
■ men attending the great crucibles have
■to wear shoes with Wooden soles an
.inch thick to protect their feet from
the heat. The metal for shell cases is
.poured into-moulds, and when cooled
is drawn out until it is just the frac
tion of an inch in thickness., and ne^r-
ly forty 'feet in length. The long
spring-like coil of brass is then fed in
to a punching machine, from which
■thimble-like cups- are punched out.
These are the-beginning of cartridge
.cases. They pass through forty oper-
erican Arsenals as well. The proving
ground is operated jointly by the Un
ited Kingdom and Canadian Govern
ments. A certain number of shells
from each batch made are 'also tested
during the proving of the guns.
Shells are fired from a platform into
a sand bank. The shelly passes through
frames strung with fine copper wire
electrically connected with very sensi
tive instruments, situated at some dis
tance from the proving grounds.
These instruments record to the split
second, the time when the shell passes
through the screens, and as the time
is recorded from each frame, it is then
an easy matter to work out the veloc
ity.
Shells* of all types and sizes are be
ing made in- Canada in ever increas
ing numbers in factories in both the
East and West. The inspection de
partments of some of these factories
remind one of huge wood yards. Hun
dreds of thousands of these shells are
produced daily. Tall thin ones to feed
the anti-aircraft guns, short stubby
fat ones for field guns, ponderous
looking shells for the gtlns of the Bri
tish Navy. t v
Most of. the plants had to swing ov
er from domestic production of one
kind or another. In some cases the
existing machinery and tools were ad
aptable to the making of shells. In
many cases, however, extensions had
to be built and new machine tools in
stalled before production could com
mence. J Now the Canadian shell in
dustry is getting into its full stride.
When we consider that a certain
type of anti-aircraft gun now being
made in this country can fire shells at
the rate of 16*0 per minute, we begin
to realize the tremendous number of
shells necessary to feed all the guns
used by our army, air-force and navy.
A lot of work goes into the making
of a shell. Exacting work it is, for
every shell has to be perfect. Out of
every lot of 500 shells produced, four
are sent to the proving grounds. The
record of one factory, which is typical
of practically all those producing
shells, it that there have been no re
jects from the proving grounds. Ev
ery shell is checked bjr Government
inspectors for inaccuracies of any sort
and this factory has a record for the
past year of ’ess than .01 per cent, re
jected by these inspectors.
Shell manufacture usually follows
what is called straight line production.
In other words, the .rough forging
starts at one end of the production
line, and at the other end, after a ser
ies of processes, emerges a finished
product. '
The rough forging of#a shell to be
used in a 25 pound field gun, weighs
29 to 30 pounds mean weight. After
passing through the various operations
necessar)' to turn the forging into a
finished shall case, the weight has
been reduced to 20 pounds, 10 ounces,
5 grams.
ACROSS THE ATLANTIC
IN A REFUGEE SHIP
This is the first of a series of artic
les about conditions in Great Britain
and ether parts of Europe, written ex
clusively for the , weekly newspapers
of Canada by Hugh Templin of the
Fergus News-Record.
Somewhere in’ the Atlantic, between
the Azores and Bermuda — What a
strange place this is for the editor of
a Canadian weekly newspaper to be
in this latter part of October, 1941,
after more than two years of war!
And when you come to think of it,
what a strange place for anyone to be,
unless driven by dire necessity.
Most of the other 140 people on
board the U. .S. Steampship Excam
bion are here because of necessity.
They are fleeing from unhappy Eur
ope, glad enough to get away in spite
of perils that may still lie ahead. They
are refugees, hoping- for peace in the
United States. The passenger list
contains the name a Prince related to
one of the still-ruling royal families
of Europe. The are such names as
Gomez y Gomez,* and Pastuhov, and
Pin Tsao and Radajewski. There is
a group of wholesome young people
who have left the U.S. Embassy in
Berlin while the going is good, and
several Chinese families, including
some cute little children, being with
drawn from the Embassy in Switzer
land. There is a man from the British
diplomatic service, occupying a cabin
all by himself because he carries con
fidential information to Washington,
an'd there is a Lieutenant 'in the U.S.
Navy in civilian clothes, returning
from a mission to Britain. There are
two English women forced to leave
France on 24 hours’ notice. They have
not tasted meat for two years because
they fed their entire ration, such as
it was, to a Siamese cat that now ac
companies them on the ship. There
■is a little French girl who ordered two
poached eggs for breakfast her first
$ TOGS AMERICAN CUSTOM
ape two of the 50 young Canadian-trained Australia!
,L.., —__i„o ™
British-American Ambulance Service, and are show!
PHM Allen Menzies of the ‘Royal Australian fliers who ate seeing tile big town as guests pt tttt
-Pilot Alien M-nziob a rtHAiAwj.*, jj^fish-Amerioan Ambulance Service, and are show!
They downing a counie of hot dog^.
Bom
IrtH niHntf-duritttf thsfr visit in New Xork.
morning on the boat and then could
not eat them when they came, but sat
and cried salt tears over them because
her appetite was gone. And another
family from Unoccupied France ate'
nothing but potatoes for their'* first
few meals. There is even a stately;
English woman who crawled out under
.barbed wire entanglements to get to
Portugal and so on this ship
Editors on a Refuge? Ship
In such a crowd as this, eleven Ca
nadian editors may be seen rather out
of place, and truly, none of us ever
expected to be on this ship. We had
planned to go flying through the air
from Lisbon to New York, returning
as we had come. But in October fly
ing conditions are uncertain. We
seemed likely to wait in Lisbon for
weeks before our turn came to go on
the Clipper. One week in that city
got us down. Those who were not
actually sick were entirely unenthus-
iastie about any more Lisbon meals or
climate or scenery. We were nervous
after being trailed day after day by
members of the German gestapo who
stayed in the same hotel as we did.
When the chance came to leave by
boat, we took it.
One of the editors is from St. John
N.B. He loves the sea and boats and
all things connected with them, and he
jumped at the chance to come by ship.
All the rest of us would have preferred
to travel by air.
Those in Peril on the Seas
Four days before we left Lisbon,
the papers of that city were all excited
because a Portugese ship had been
sunk by the Germans, apparently be
cause tungsten ore on board,, destined
for the United States. Two days later
they were mounring the deaths of two
British families from Portugal, retur
ning to England until their ship was
• torpedoed off the coast. On the way
to Lisbon, this same steamship Ex-
camBion was met by a German bomb
ing plane which circled around it,
mast-high, and then flew away again.
On the day we sailed from Lisbon,
news came that the Germans had tor
pedoed the American destroyer Kear
ney. Two days out, an American
freight boat was sunk in the Atlantic,
straight south of where we were. This
very morning, when we awoke, it was
to see another ship coming closer. As
it drew near, we could see that it was
not the merchant vessel it pretended to
be, but had business-like guns fore and
aft. It had nd flag, nor .gave any sig
nal, but crossed our bows and went
on. We all realized these dangers,
but as the days passed and our boat
continued on its way, the tension re
laxed. The restful, monotonous days
on .board gave us all time to recover
from strenuous and exciting times ov
erseas.
When the invitation came to me to
go to England for a weeks to repre
sent the weekly papers of Canada,
there were many who envied me be
cause of that opportunity. If it is any
comfort to them now, I can say quite
truthfully that there were times when
I would gladly have traded places with
any of them. Travel across the At
lantic these days is something that
should not be undertaken except from
necessity.
Adventurous Weeks
But on the whole these have been
wonderful w.eeks, I have crossed the
Atlantic by air, one of the most ro
mantic voyages in the world today. I
have flown altogether some 9,000 mil
es by American Clipper, Royal Dutch
Air Lines and British Overseas Air
ways. I -have visited Bermuda, the
Azores, England, Southern Ireland
and Portugal. I have talked with
Winston Churchill, many members of
his Cabinet, Britain’s greatest news
paper men, a former Canadian Prime
Minister and the Canadian High Com
missioner, the Canadian Corps Com
mander and many of his officers and
soldiers, and a host of tjie’"common
people” of England who have come
through bombings, have lost their
homes and their relatives, yet carry
on in Britain’s hour of need. I have
tasted the hospitality of great and
small in England and have made new
friends there.
. There have been plenty- of thrills.
I have flown down the Bay of Biscay
in a seaplane with- not a light show
ing and the hostile enemy coast not
far away, I have stood on a roof-top
in London with the fire-watchers and
have seen the distant flashes of anti
aircraft guns shooting at an enemy
plane approaching the city. I have
been through a, "blitz” myself—have
seen and heard and felt the explos
ions of huge enemy land mines and
have come through the ordeal uh
scathed but knowing that if any one
of a dozen things had been slightly
different. I would not have been here
at all, I have been at a bomber sta-
ion and have talked to the boys who
make the long trips over France and
Germany to unload their cargoes of
death, and I have seen the Royal Can
adian Air ’Force fighter pilots come
back to their airports after being in
action.
England in Wartime
I have* heard Churchill defend his
actions on the floor of the Mouse of
Commons and have stood amid the
ruins of Coventry Cathedral, I have
walked in the London blackout and in
the pleasant English countryside,
where every garden had its large, late J
roses. I have been trailed by the
German gestapo in Lisbon and have
seen a bullfight. I have ridden on
trains, in buses, in cars, in the under
ground, and have talked to friendly
folk everywhere.
These are the things I shall write
about in the series of stories which
will appear in this newspaper during
the next three months. Always pro
vided, of course, that the Excamtnon-
does not meet an unfriendly submar
ine or bombing plane somewhere this
side of New York.
FlffliT OF A MWES
•/»»
PHIL OSIFER OF
LAZY MEADOWS
TURNIPS
Each* Fall we have a number or
exceptionally fine days. The sun
shines warmly and the earth is not too
muddy . . . Mrs, Phil gently insists
each morning that "this would be a
perfect day to take up those turnips,”
As a rule we agree on that point.
However, the taking up of turnips is
not exactly the most pleasant task on
the farm.
The alibis start flowing briskly. It’s
remarkable the number or reasons a
person can scrape together for not
taking up turnips. The usual one is
to say that the turnips need a good
frost, Somebody suggests that the
cattle would never know the differ
ence. The counter-argument to that is
the fact that turnips that have been
nipped by frost have a much better
flavor when cooked and, “if they’re
better for cooking with a nip of frost
they must be better for the cattle as
well.”
The days wear on! The leaves are
falling and the trees look startling in
their nakedness. The sound of thresh
ing and silo-filling has long ceased in
the neighborhood. Piles of apples cov
ered with straw remain in some • or
chards and on practically all veran
dahs in the township you can see
boxes of apples curing as it were with
the light touches of frost we have been
having.
We plan on taking up the turnips
on a certain day only to discover that
there is an auction sale that day. We
attend the auction . . . and later go to
a sale of purbred cattle where the
only thing we can do is gape because
the prices are far beyond our limit.
We encourage Mrs. Phil on another
day to take a trip into town to do
some shopping. It is a fine pleasant
day but conscience has a way of prick
ing you. Along the road it seems as
if every farmer in the county has
picked the warm, sunny day to take
up his turnips. Mrs, Phil notes it all
but refrains from comment. When we
arrive home, she announces with a
degree of finality that you learn to
respect, "Tomorrow you take in the
turnips.”
Sunny today . . . and rainy tomor
row! A cold mist of rain develops in
the morning and by noon we have a
full-fledged snowstorm. Not one of
those pleasant, downy-soft falls cf
snow that come in the winter time.
This is a “turnip-day” special . . .
a particular brand of snow that sifts
in around the collar of your coat and
sticks to your neck until it starts to
melt and then the drops of moisture
play a game of trying to see which
one can go the farthest in the short
est space of time. ’
Snow . . . mud . . . and turnips!
Gloves are of little avail, your fingers
grow numb after a certain length of
time anyhow. The mud clogs up on
your boots until you feel as if you
were walking on stilts. Great lumps
of clay stick * to your overalls and
every time you put your hand near
your face . . . there is another lump
of dirt sticking to your eyebrows or
your beard.
Clump ... clump . . . clump and
then you drive to the barn where the
turnips all have to be thrown into the
root cellar. How maddeningly slow
the cellar seems to fill up. Each time
you drive back to the field you de-
fc&w to yurt tft&mi .., , w,n,4...y, ......f
C APPROVER BY THE ROYAL CANADIAN AIR k
it
- r
-r
“ “« very much on the secret list is the Curtiss
— Kittyhawk single-seat pursuit
which ate just beginning to the
and the U.S. Army Air Corps.
The Kittyhawk is the newest , .
famed Curtiss Tomahawk (or P-40) which has been
giving a good account of itself in operations with the
R.A.F. in the Middle East.
It is powered with a new and improved Allison
12-cylinder liquid-cooled motor of considerably ''greater
horsepower than that used in the Tomahawk (which
delivered about 1,150 h.p.), and while the Tomahawk
has been turning up a maximum speed of something like
330 m.p.h. under service conditions, it is known,that the
Kittyhawk will be much faster.
Beyond that, no details of the weights, dimensions or
performance of the Kittyhawk can be released at. the
present time. Pilots who have flown it Upeak highly
of its behavior in the air.
There is, however, one point of interest for pur
poses of identification. The Kittyhawk has a large air
scoop beneath the nose for the cooling and carburation
systems. . This gives it the appearance of an angry
shark. It is a low-wing monoplane with an exceptionally
long nose and fully retractable undercarriage.
STILL
Kittj ship, deliveries of
R.C.A.F., the R.A.F.
development of the
termine during the coming year either
to stop growing turnips altogether’ or
else have them grow in the field be
side the barn. The wagon tracks seem
to go cleeper and deeper into the
ground. Each turnip has become a
white mound against a black muddy
background.
If we ‘only Lad picked a fine day!
There can’t be anything to this story
that frost improves a turnip, anyhow.
Neighbor Higgins takes his turnips
in early and bis stock always seem
to enjoy them. Next year we’ll take
them in just as soon as we possibly
can. Why does it always have to
snow on the day we pick to bring in
the turnips? The rainy snow is be-
gining to soak through and all the
clothes on your back seem to be stiff
and wet and cold.
Finally, however, they are all pick
ed. It is the last* load and the hazy
blanket of late fall is closing in on the
farm. We won’t bother unloading this
load tonight . . . just drive it in on the
barn floor. It’s warm in the stable
and the cattle look up and bawl. Those
turnips are certainly going to make
great feeding this winter.
WE
R E .
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at West End Bridge—WALKERTON
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when I shop!”
MS
A. H. McTAVISH, B.A.
Teeswater, Ontario
Barrister, Solicitor, Notary Public
and Conveyancer
Office: Gofton House, Wroxeter
every Thursday afternoon 1.30 to
4.30 and by appointment.
Phone — Teeswater 120T.
MONUMENTS at first cost
Having our factory equipped with the
most modern machinery for the exe-
cution of high-class work, we aslc you
to see the largest display* of ittontf*
nients of any retail factory in Ontario
All finished by sand blast machines
We import all our granitea from the
Old Country quarries direct, in the
rough, You can save all local deal
firs’, agents* and middleman profits bj
feeing ns,