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The outbreak of war in 1939 brought many new challenges to both the country and the Steel industry. Many men joined the Armed Forces and their jobs were taken over by women for the first time. Corby Iron and Steel Works were no different and many women were employed to do traditionally make work, continuing until the return of the survivors of the conflict to reclaim their jobs.
Much of the output of the S & L Works went directly to war-related usage, but perhaps the biggest contribution of The Works to the war effort was PLUTO, which was short for Pipe Line Under The Ocean. This was the pipeline that supplied the fuel for the invading forces after D-Day, and S& L worked closely with the Petroleum Warfare Department after they were appointed main contractors in order to wind around 80 miles of 3.5 inch tube, with a wall thickness of 0.25 inches, onto an immense drum.
Each drum contained 0.75 miles of tube and weighted 1600 tons. The drum was towed out to sea by tugboats. As they sailed along, the pipe was peeled off the drum. When nearly all the tube had been unwound another drum was brought alongside and the end of one pipe was joined onto the beginning of another. As a number of pipelines were required, almost 1000 miles of steel tubes went into the project. Both Winston Churchill and General Eisenhower paid tribute to the part PLUTO played in the successful invasion. Another large contribution was the 15,000 miles of tube used for the construction of beach defences.
These defences were complicated barbed wire, about 20' high, anchored into the beaches and covered with barbed wire, and other more dangerous obstructions and were known as Wallace Swords. More tubing, almost 16,000 tons, were fabricated into derricks, davits and masts for ships engaged in convoy work. In total, 2.5 million tons of finished tubes, almost 276,000 miles, were produced for war-related work during the 1939-45 period. Other S & L works provided steel for shell forgings, finished shells and shot.
bravenet.com
