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The film shows an attempt by British aircraft factory workers to produce a Wellington bomber in a record-breaking time of 30 hours, working voluntarily over one weekend and donating their bonus earnings to the Red Cross Aid to Russia Fund. In addition to showing all the various processes in construction, the film makes a point of identifying individual male and female workers, explaining their pre-war jobs etc.; the bomber takes to the air for its test flight after less than 25 hours. British propaganda paid careful attention to the “factory front” in the Second World War. Other examples in the Imperial War Museum of films praising the skill and dedication of workers, and stressing the importance of munitions work to those actually in combat, include ‘Night Shift’ (1942), ‘Clyde-built’ (1943), ‘Coalminer’ (1943), and ‘A Date with a Tank’ (1944). Such films served to persuade people to volunteer for industrial work, to break down prejudices (for example, about the capabilities of women in such work), and to keep up the morale of those already so engaged. Social issues of interest to the working classes, particularly the need to ensure a more just society after the war, which would avoid the hardships and divisions of the 1930s, are commonly referred to. In addition to one-off productions like the titles already named, the Imperial War Museum Film and Video Archive holds two series of films produced specifically for factory workers in Britain: the magazine-format series ‘Worker and Warfront’, produced from 1942 to 1946, and the newsreel ‘War Work News’ (1942-45). |
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