Ministry of Aircraft Production, Springfield Road. Grantham 006 BEDNARSKI H - - 27/01/1941 CIVILIAN WAR DEAD 029 HARRIS P - - 27/01/1941 CIVILIAN WAR DEAD 033 JOJCZYK S - - 27/01/1941 CIVILIAN WAR DEAD 034 KING LA - - 27/01/1941 CIVILIAN WAR DEAD 043 PARKER ES - - 27/01/1941 CIVILIAN WAR DEAD 045 PEARSON RG - - 27/01/1941 CIVILIAN WAR DEAD 049 ROBERTS AS - - 27/01/1941 CIVILIAN WAR DEAD 050 RYDER K - - 27/01/1941 CIVILIAN WAR DEAD 052 SHELFORD E - - 27/01/1941 CIVILIAN WAR DEAD 053 SISSONS RS - - 27/01/1941 CIVILIAN WAR DEAD 057 WESTNEY WH - - 27/01/1941 CIVILIAN WAR DEAD
BMARC Second World War[edit] Created and funded under the Air Ministry's Shadow factory plan headed up by Herbert Austin, the company was founded by William Denis Kendall. Shortly after start-up during the Second World War rearmament period, Kendall became MP for Grantham from 1942 to 1950. By 1943, its two production units fulfilled 46% of the UK's demand for the Hispano-Suiza 20 mm cannon. The remainder came from The Birmingham Small Arms Company Limited (BSA) shadow factory in Newcastle-under-Lyme, 25%; Poole Royal Ordnance Factory, 25%; and the Royal Small Arms Factory Enfield, 3%. At the time of the Battle of Britain in 1940, 20 mm cannon were only just starting to arm the Spitfire and Hurricane. By 1943, the RAF had converted entirely to cannon armament for its fighters. Grantham received 21 raids by the Luftwaffe for precisely this reason, which killed 70 people in 1941-2 (many around the Commercial Road and Norton Street area on 9 January and 4 February in 1941). One notable raid was on 24 October 1942 when 30 people were killed when bombs destroyed most of Stuart Street[1] and its air-raid shelter. The Ministry of Aircraft Production site on Springfield Road was hit on 27 January 1941, when a plane was shot down. The factory was also attacked in daylight on 3 December 1940, but the plane was damaged by the 3rd Kesteven (Grantham and Spittlegate) Battalion who had an anti-aircraft battery at the factory. The 1942 morale-raising film The Foreman Went to France was based on an employee of the Grantham factory. Melbourne Johns, from Pembrokeshire, was working at the Grantham factory and realised in 1940 that the Hispano-Suiza factory in France had important Deep Hole Boring Machines that could be of immense value to the Germans and set out on a mission with a team to recover the equipment. Finding the French factory and local village deserted, they drove the equipment back to England on a lorry. Melbourne Johns died in Grantham in 1955. The Deep Hole Boring Machine (DHBM), used for drilling the barrels of the guns, in the Grantham factory was very valuable, and was encased in a specially-made bomb-proof shelter. BMARC - Wikipedia
