Secret Spitfires – The Book

We’ve had the Secret Spitfires documentary and DVD, then the stage play (Shadow Factories). Now the book is published.

Secret Spitfires: Britain’s Hidden Civilian Army by Karl Howman, Etham Cetintas, Gavin Clarke.
The History Press. Hardcover. ISBN: 9780750991995. Also available on kindle.

September 1940: In the midst of the Second World War, the Luftwaffe unleashed a series of devastating raids on Southampton, all but destroying its Spitfire factories.

But production didn’t stop.

Lend-Lease Atlas Lathe used in WW2 to make Spitfires parts. Image courtesy of Gary Roberts

Instead, manufacturing of this iconic fighter moved underground, to secret locations staffed by women, children and non-combatant men.

With little engineering experience between them, they built a fleet of one of the greatest war planes that has ever existed.

This is their story.

The book features Supermarine draughtswoman Stella Rutter and ATA Spitfire pilot Mary Ellis.

Eric H. Smith lathe machinist of Secret Spitfire components. He trained wife Winifred to use the lathe

Peter E. Smith recalls his parents’ contribution to the Secret Spitfire war effort :

“Before the war my father, Eric H. Smith, was a trained machinist and civilian instructor at the Army Apprentice School at Arborfield where he taught workshop practice to the soldiers.

When World War II started, he helped with the war effort by setting up a workshop in the back bedroom of our terrace house in Caversham.

This was equipped with a Colchester lathe, to machine magnesium alloy castings used to join the fuel lines on aircraft engines.

He also had a German watchmakers lathe, mounted on the base of an old treadle sewing machine and powered by an electric motor.

It was less than perfect so he adapted the lathe with a rotatable tool post and made it into a ‘simplified capstan.’

Then he taught my mother Winifred how to use it. I often sat in the back bedroom watching her machining thousands of round headed screws.

Peter E. Smith. Image courtesy of Gary Roberts

When we were sent some evacuees from London, a mother and daughter, the workshop had to be dismantled and the room turned back into a bedroom.

In 1942 the large Colchester lathe was replaced with a state-of-the-art 5” Atlas lathe, shipped from the USA under the Lend-Lease scheme.

My father installed this in the corner of the kitchen and fenced it in to keep me out.

The lathe was used mostly in the evenings after I’d been sent to bed.

When our evacuees returned to London, my father set up the workshop again in the back bedroom.

After the war he taught me how to use it.

I still use it.”