 The Sheffield
works and the Company's other establishments in this country had their
own civil defence organizations, and many of them suffered damage
requiring similar rehabilitation work to that at Trafford Park. The
outside erection staff also did their share of good work—for
instance after a raid on September 9, 1940, on Fulham power station.
A high explosive bomb exploded between two of the three main turbo-generator
sets and put the whole station out of action. One machine was repaired
and put back into service two months after the raid, and another was
recommissioned six weeks later.
Further
afield astonishing vicissitudes were undergone by L. C. Thornton,
who was returning from railway electrification work in Warsaw. On
receiving secret advice that the Germans were dangerously near the
city, Thornton put his wife on a crowded refugee train for Latvia
and went back to his office, where he destroyed everything that
could be of value to the enemy. Obtaining a bicycle, he left the
city by back streets to avoid the barricades and headed north. Though
dive-bombed, betrayed by peasants, and nearly starved, he eventually
reached Riga.
Later
our representatives in the far east had some narrow escapes. At
Singapore E. C. Whiteley boarded an Indian coaling vessel a few
hours before the Japanese entered the city.
PERSONALITIES DURING THE WAR
Many important changes among the higher management took place during
the war. Some familiar faces went into deserved retirement, and
others reappeared in more responsible positions.
With
the quickening tempo of war work G. E. Bailey's responsibilities
became heavier, and in 1940 E. W. Steele was promoted to the position
of works manager at Trafford Park. Steele had come to M-V in 1919
on the absorption of a Vickers subsidiary, the Electric and Ordnance
Accessories Company, where he was chief electrical machine engineer.
Since then he had been superintendent of the motor department, and
on T. Eraser's appointment to the aircraft factory he had also taken
over the plant and insulation departments. He was succeeded in the
plant and motor departments by R. B. D. Lauder, from whom main production
passed to A. E. L. Scanes.
In
June 1941 J. S. Peck, the chief electrical engineer and from 1928
a director, retired after more than thirty-six years' service. Since
stepping as a young man into what was described even then as the
first rank of the electrical engineering profession. Peck had
played a leading part in the development of the industry. Besides
bringing his own wise and farseeing approach to all matters of engineering
design, he rendered valuable service to the Company in the selection
of staff: a sound judgment enabled him to assemble a team who soon
became recognized as experts in their own lines. Equally important
was his deep and still continuing interest in the social life of
the works, and few can have done more to encourage the spirit of
good comradeship and mutual help.
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