Hiding a factory

[Brooklands]

I had not seen this before, and found it interesting how the Burbank Lockheed plant was hidden from the air during WWII

 

[longbridgehealey]

Wow! And this was in the 40's!

 

[GregW]

I read somewhere they employed help from the movie industry. Painters, greensmen, construction.

 

[Steve]

Clever. The British could have done with some of that expertise.

 

[aerog]

Clever. The British could have done with some of that expertise.

Huh? You mean there isn't a thriving city hiding under the Pennines?

 

[Steve]

Oh, rats! You outed us! :laugh:

 

[Deleted member 3577]

Wow!....Impressive

 

[Silverghost]

It would be very interesting to hear from someone who lived there then.....anyone from here???

 

[Healeysince59]

I can remember going to the Burbank airport right after the war and driving under that camouflage. Burbank was the main airport for LA in those days. I was about 10 years old.

I also remember driving to Mine Field (now LAX) and looking south across agricultural fields at the Northrop Flying Wings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YB-49

Marv J

 

[Steve_S]

Some of the old buildings are still there, but they look like regular buildings now, obviously.

 

[Sherlock]

Very interesting story, and great ingenuity...

Kind of on the same topic, but a different problem, was this tractor here...

A little more off-beat WW2 history for you...

300 of these orange tractors (1938 Fordson Model N) were built in England to plow for the British war effort and were operated by British soldiers. Because of their colour they became targets of the German fighter planes so the British soldiers refused to drive them, so green tractors were built to replace the orange which were sent to Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The tractor is currently part of the collection of an Alberta farm museum...

 

[Brooklands]

Sherlock,
Any reason why they weren't just repainted green or brown or something?

 

[TR6BILL]

so green tractors were built

Perchance, would that be the origin of BRG! :confuse:

 

[Sherlock]

so green tractors were built

Perchance, would that be the origin of BRG! :confuse:

:lol:

That's all the information I ever got, one would think a paint job would be quicker, but...

 

[tony barnhill]

Gov't contract - even back then - PORK!

 

[DART]

Business for Ferguson.

 

[Brosky]

Have you ever seen some of the pictures of what Germany had built underground, while being bombed day and night? By no means am I glorifying their war effort and the methods they used, but the engineering required was no less amazing than the Russians moving entire factories in the dead of winter and starting them right back up again to build machinery and weapons to fight the advancing German invasion.

Of course, we went from a isolationist nation with virtually no armament production to the salvation of the western world's war machine in less than two years. If that had not happened, we would never have had the automobile factories that dominated the 50-80's or the steel mills and mines that out produced the entire world when we built the greatest interstate highway system in the world.

All while rebuilding Europe and Japan at the same time.

 

[Roger]

Clever. The British could have done with some of that expertise.

There were a number of underground factories making munitions etc. during WW2 - I'm sure you can find them with Google or some such. Corsham and Chilmark were 2 of them.

 

[tony barnhill]

We fooled the Germans into thinking an entire Army division was where it wasn't through huge mock vehicles, radio transmissions, dust on roads, etc.

 

[Brosky]

Ah, yes, remember it well from the Patton movie.