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8. World War 2 and its Impact
One
item that has survived the years of the war and since is a metal
box. Used after the war as document holder for transport records, it
now stands in a small museum and hardly attracts a glance. Having
two carrying handles on the sides, a lockable door with holes
drilled around the top and bottom, it does look something like a
pigeon carrier. Its lock is of the type made specially for it - for
instance you cannot take the key out without locking it first. Two
heavy brackets on the sides complement the handles, which have a
stop when they reach the horizontal to avoid trapping the hands. Not
one person has guessed what it was for.
Now, with this story of Gibbons and the war time things that
they produced, it can be revealed to everyone just what it is and
the story of its use.
At
the time of the U-Boat menace and the German commerce raiders such
as the Bismark, merchant ships were
being stopped and before being sunk were looted and searched
to find out what they were carrying and from where and to.
On being stopped the captain was supposed to grab his log
books, way bills and code books, place them in a weighted canvas bag
and sling them overboard. Unfortunately
canvas, however heavily weighted, tended to float for a time,
sometimes long enough for the Germans to fish the bag out.
The Gibbons Box was the answer.
Everything that was of use to the enemy was kept in the box
and just lifted onto the bracket holders on the wall of the Captains
cabin. On being stopped
for boarding or sinking, the box was first lifted off, run to the
side and dropped overboard. Water rushed into the bottom as air
escaped from the top and the box and contents sank like a
stone. Thousands were produced. How many remain or are at the bottom of the seas across the
world?
The
war of 1939-45 changed much of the old way of production in
factories, necessity of volume to survive by mass production would
see much of the old handskill disappear, the young people would not
get the love of a perfect piece of architecture if a cheaper thing
that did the job just as well and paid perhaps even better by saving
of man hours; pride started to lose out.
Aluminium replaced bronze or brass, easier to cast, quicker
to work or file, cheaper to produce and complete.
After
World War one, the bomb shops that had made millions of hand
grenades or Mills Bombs turned to making cast iron window frames.
Some of these can still be seen off the M.5 at
Birmingham in the old but still massive Dunlop Factory called the
Fort.
Gibbons
workmanship, that was the bedrock of the factory in Church Lane, was
not needed so much in the new era.
So it is that examples of hundreds of years of exquisite door
handles and architects designs are now sought after as works of art.
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