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Original Text (Annotation: EPW019255 / 2032975)
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Building number five.
Filled Shell Stores and Despatching Sheds.
The filled shell stores and despatching sheds lie on the east side of the factory and are made up of five separate buildings. Two of the buildings have covered railway loading platforms of the veranda type, these platforms were used by the Army Ordnance Department (AOD), to transfer munitions from the factory to the (AOD) supply system. Before the transfer of responsibility took place, the factory conducted a final quality check on each round. An inspection of weight, legibility and correctness of stencil detail, possible damage to the copper drive bands, and to ensure that the rope drive band protector was in place. Finally, a general visual inspection of the round. The inspection complete the shells became the responsibility of the (AOD) who put each round in a wooden box ready for transit.
The Army Ordnance Department had an ammunition storage facility at Chittening, in addition to these stores there were railway sidings where trucks laden with ammunition could wait pending forwarding instruction. There was no segregation of (AOD) operations from the factory production area by a fence, which was sometimes the case at ordnance factories.
From the time that the factory became operational, the total production time available at Chittening was eighteen weeks, before the end of hostilities. At times production figures were low due to the intermittent supply of mustard gas, and high numbers of the workforce that succumbed to gas poisoning. Experimental charging under laboratory supervision began at the end of June 1918. Output propper commenced on Monday 8 July and by 14 July despatch had a thousand finished shells. Production figures for July and August reached 7,636 shells, September, 18,215. In October the vacuum charging line went into production, and output for that month was 59,573 shells. For the eleven days of November 976 shells were produced, this low number was because of problems with mustard gas production at the Avonmouth factory.
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