Non-Commonwealth citizens working in British industry

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Hyus
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Non-Commonwealth citizens working in British industry

#1

Post by Hyus » 29 Aug 2020, 20:10

There were foreigners from outside the Commonwealth serving in the British armed forces during WW2, but what about in critical industries on the homefront?
Britain received refugees from different parts of Europe as they fell under Nazi occupation, and I'm sure at least some of them had skills that could have been useful in wartime industry. Were non-Commonwealth subjects able to find work in sectors like aircraft/ship manufacturing, munitions factories, steel mills, etc?

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Sheldrake
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Re: Non-Commonwealth citizens working in British industry

#2

Post by Sheldrake » 29 Aug 2020, 22:33

There was a group of American oilmen helping to develop Britain's oil industry. There are deposits of oil under the British mainland.

The biggest foreign contribution to British War industry was from the Irish Free State. Who built the concrete airfields of the Eighth? Paddy. Who built the hutted camps for the mobilised armies? Paddy Who built the Mulberry Harbour components? Paddy.

As the Dubliners song McAlpine's Fusiliers goes:
Twas the year of 39 and the skies were full of lead.
Hitler was heading for Poland , and Paddy for Hollyhead. Great song here.

Mcalpine, Wimpey and John Laing are big British Construciton firms - the answer to the German organisation Todt!
It is largely neglected in our history of the war. The Irish are the overlooked minority: white N in the Elvis Costello song Oliver's Army


Hyus
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Re: Non-Commonwealth citizens working in British industry

#3

Post by Hyus » 29 Aug 2020, 22:41

Thank you Sheldrake, that's very interesting to hear. Although, afaik, those Irish workers were considered Commonwealth subjects by Britain until the Ireland Act of 1949 (and thus had the same right to work as other subjects of the empire). I was more curious about those immigrants/refugees who did not have the status of British subjects.

Regarding the American oilmen, did they work for British firms then? Or were they part of an American firm that came to Britain during the war?

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Sheldrake
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Re: Non-Commonwealth citizens working in British industry

#4

Post by Sheldrake » 09 Sep 2020, 10:43

Hyus wrote:
29 Aug 2020, 22:41
Thank you Sheldrake, that's very interesting to hear. Although, afaik, those Irish workers were considered Commonwealth subjects by Britain until the Ireland Act of 1949 (and thus had the same right to work as other subjects of the empire). I was more curious about those immigrants/refugees who did not have the status of British subjects.

Regarding the American oilmen, did they work for British firms then? Or were they part of an American firm that came to Britain during the war?
around 3 0,000 German and Italian citizens were interned. 80% were jewish refugees. However, subsequently many joined the foreces or carried out some war work. Britian took around 70,000 jewish refugees. I can't find the figures for other refugees.

IRRC there was no legal barrier to foreigners working in the UK. The state did not provide financial support for refugees so they either worked or were supported by charitable donations. Fit young young men were expected to serve in some capacity.

There were around 40 oilmen hired in the US by the Noble drilling company and employed in the UK by the D'Arcy oil company

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Re: Non-Commonwealth citizens working in British industry

#5

Post by LineDoggie » 09 Sep 2020, 21:37

Sheldrake wrote:
29 Aug 2020, 22:33
Who built the concrete airfields of the Eighth? Paddy.
odd Since the Airfields were either RAF fields on Loan or done by USAAF units such as the 816th and 833rd Airfield Engineers and aviation Engineers units some 80 bn's formed and used by the USAAF
"There are two kinds of people who are staying on this beach: those who are dead and those who are going to die. Now let’s get the hell out of here".
Col. George Taylor, 16th Infantry Regiment, Omaha Beach

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Re: Non-Commonwealth citizens working in British industry

#6

Post by Sheldrake » 10 Sep 2020, 00:11

LineDoggie wrote:
09 Sep 2020, 21:37
Sheldrake wrote:
29 Aug 2020, 22:33
Who built the concrete airfields of the Eighth? Paddy.
odd Since the Airfields were either RAF fields on Loan or done by USAAF units such as the 816th and 833rd Airfield Engineers and aviation Engineers units some 80 bn's formed and used by the USAAF

I am sure the USAAF Engineers did their bit to maintain airfields, especially in liberated territory. However, according to Historic England's report "Nine Thousand Miles of Concrete: A review of Second World War temporary airfields in England"
Aerodrome construction in the UK was carried out under contract to the Air Ministry by public works contractors, using civilian labour drawn from the building and civil engineering trades, and also from other countries including Ireland. In the early stages of war, the Air Ministry had selected a small number of key contractors for large-scale airfield work, and from this grew a contracting army of 136 firms who shared some 800 separate contracts...

The facts and figures surrounding the costs and construction of UK wartime temporary airfields differ considerably depending on source. Here are two:
The Aeroplane article (1947) estimated that the AMDGW had spent £600m in the first five years of war.
– the total area of concrete laid in runways, perimeter tracks and aircraft dispersal points was around 160m square yards. Sir Archibald Sinclair had, in Parliament, compared this area with a 9,000-mile-long, 30-feet-wide road from London to Peking. The weight of the stone aggregate required to manufacture this large expanse of concrete, exclusive of the weight of cement, was in the region of 30m tons, or sufficient to fill a convoy of average-sized lorries stretching one and-a-half times around the world at the Equator. Also, one million prefabricated buildings were erected to provide workshop, technical, training and accommodation facilities (this figure would include non-airfield sites such as depots and training establishments).

The Civil Engineer in War (Vol.1, published in 1947) puts the cost of an average heavy-bomber airfield, exclusive of any buildings or services, at over £500,000. During the war years, 444 RAF stations were constructed in the UK with paved runways, perimeter tracks and hardstandings, at a cost of £200 m, excluding buildings. (In 1939 only nine airfields had hard runways.) During the peak constructional year of 1942, new airfields were becoming available at an average rate of one every three days, in addition to 63 existing stations receiving major extensions.
https://research.historicengland.org.uk ... px?i=15802

There is an academic paper on Construction in World War 2 http://www.arcom.ac.uk/-docs/proceeding ... _Potts.pdf
During WWII many major building and civil engineering projects were executed for the U.K. Government Ministries including: Admiralty – dockyards, naval bases, deep water military ports, docks and harbours, underground storage depots, oil storage facilities, floating docks, a hundred miles of sea defences including sea forts in the Thames and Mersey estuaries, and a huge causeway at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys; War Office – military barracks including the 49.9m. (£1.5bn.) accommodation, hospitals and stores for the American forces (codenamed „Bolero‟) and hundred miles of inland stop defences; The Air Ministry – new airfields, factories, repair yards; Ministry of Supply – Royal Ordnance factories; Ministry of War Transport - transport systems - roads, railways and bridges.
...
In 1943 contractors Alfred McAlpine were approached by The Ministry of Aircraft Production to undertake their biggest job to date – a huge £7 million (£210m.) underground factory for the Bristol Aeroplane Company at Corsham in Wiltshire. “The vast undertaking required the recruitment of an army of 10,000 workers, most of whom were accommodated in prefab huts in eight camps with canteens and all other amenities including a cinema, and of course a number of bars: McAlpines could not let such an army of workers – many of them Irish and heavy drinkers – loose on surrounding towns and villages.... And it was a long day. After Dunkirk, construction workers were instructed to work twelve by seven, that is to say a twelve-hour shift seven days a week. They were paid overtime for the long hours, but that was the official standard shift

The whole of the airfield projects were planned administered and supervised by engineering and technical staff operating directly under the Directorate General of Works of the Air Ministry, with the construction work carried out by British contractors. In the early stages of the war programme, the Air Ministry were far-sighted enough to select and encourage several major contractors – W&C French, John Laing, Robert McAlpine and George Wimpey. It was on the foundation of these contractors that the airfield construction was based and from which grew a contracting army. Overall in the five years of war, one hundred and thirty six contractors were engaged on a total of eight hundred separate contracts ranging in value from £25,000 (£750,000) to over £3.5m (£105m.) “Six contractors between them, carried out one hundred and ninety-six contracts of major value”

These projects required large earthmoving operations, on average involving 500,000 cubic yards of earthworks but on special sites up to 3,000,000 cubic yards. By 1942 this vast operation was utilising heavy American plant of the crawler, tractor and scraper type together with British equipment. The paved runways were mainly constructed using concrete paving with or without asphalt or tarmacadam surfacing. In all cases the necessary war-time controls of materials, plant and labour made the site planning and programme of work very much the concern of the Air Ministry.
Furthermore, as contractors, particularly smaller firms, were unable to obtain the total plant required for the airfield work by 1944 the Air Ministry had become holders of considerable quantities of construction plant obtained under Lend-Lease or by allocation controlled by a Central inter-Departmental Committee. The Air Ministry holding included, but was not limited to 360 tractors and bulldozers, 250 excavators, 34 scrapers, 406 rollers, 5,300 tipping lorries, 220 dumpers, 150 concrete mixers, 500 power pumps.
Good on yer paddy... I think we should raise a glass of the black stuff to Macalpine's fusiliers

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