During the Second World War a massive effort went into producing armaments and munitions. Reporter DAVID MILLS spoke to a man who helped make cartridge cases.

SHORTLY after war broke out, Wilfred Tungate started working as a messenger boy at the Royal Arsenal Woolwich in December 1939.

Aged 14, he would work from 7am til 7pm every day for six months.

His job was to cycle around the Arsenal delivering mail.

Wilfred, who lived in Eltham during the war, said: “I took home 14 shillings and eight pence each week. I’d give my mother 10 shillings, my brother six pence and I had the remaining four shillings and tuppence. That was my week’s pay. It wasn’t a lot of money.”

In 1941 he was transferred to working in a filling factory where he would help make cartridges used for weapons.

Now aged 84, he said: “We used to extrude the cartridge cases.

“The conditions were horrific.

“There was a lot of antiquated machinery there from before 1914. The noise was colossal, you would have several of these machines going at the same time.

“The banging was enormous, it was like a pneumatic drill.

“There were no safety measures, hearing aids or anything like that.

“It was very dangerous, one lad cut his fingers off in the machine, it was so old.”

News Shopper: WAR: Weapons factory worker tells of 'horrific' conditions

Wilfted estimates he must have made 25,000 cases each day and the most important rifle at the time was a short Lee-Enfield, for which 1.3 million bullets were made at Woolwich every week.

He said: “The cases would be filled with explosives and at the end is a small bit of copper, which the bullet would be clamped on to.”

“They used to put a tally up on a chalk board in pride at how many we were doing.”

Wilfred, who now lives in Domonic Drive, New Eltham, remembers it was the many women workers at the munitions factories who suffered most.

He said: “Their hair, eyes and finger nails were often green and yellow.

“The waters of their eyes were orange. They had an awful time filling those weapons. They were handling explosive materials such as TNT.

“They were very plucky, staunch but dedicated people. Their health would have been at great risk.

“Whatever it was must have gone deep into their system and in their blood.”

After working in the factories, Wilfred was called up to the army in 1944 but was kept out of the fighting by appendicitis.

Grandfather-of-two Wilfred is now a keen metal detector, who is always on the look out for any cartridges he might have made.

He said: “I pick up pieces of cartridge cases and I sometimes wonder if it’s one of mine.

“I always rub the end to see where it was made. The Woolwich ones have a broad arrow on it, a sign of the Arsenal on their munitions.”