Intriguing Spitfire Image - But Where Taken?

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Bird in 1946, taken from the National Portrait Gallery website.
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That clinches, not Bird then.
Thanks.

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This looks like Len GoochHere's the story in full with a photo of Sir James next to the Supermarine Works Manager Leonard George Gooch. https://hampshirearchivesandlocalstudies.wordpress.com/2018/09/14/out-of-the-shadows-a-spitfire-story/ Here I quote from "Never A Dull Moment" by Supermarine engineer Denis Le P Webb, p165-166: "I think it was about mid 1941 that we had a visit from some Senior Executives of several American AIrcraft Firms, to see what we were doing and how we were coping... We lunched them at the Polygon Hotel after they had been around some of the places and during that lunch they had many questions to ask about output - what we had achieved after the raid and what we were achieving now... The two sitting either side of me seemed genuinely astonished at what we had accomplished...There was no doubt about their admiration and both honestly admitted that they would never have been able to produce aircraft such as the Spitfire in 30 odd small workshops spread over the South of England. "Gee - no! Give us a large factory where we can feed in raw materials one end and push the finished product out the other, then - yes - we can do it - but Jesus - how in Hell do you organise a set up like this?" I had some difficulty in explaining this myself! (Webb then says what he told them about keeping the same structure as in the original factories but extending this with motorcycle and sidecars instead of messengers walking across the shop floor and lorries taking parts from site to site instead of hand trolleys. "But didn't you all get around a table and plan this thing?" I could only reply, "Christ no! There wasn't time!"

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Leonard George Gooch far right, Works Manager of Supermarine from late 1940. Standing next to him is Sir James Bird, Managing Director who returned out of semi-retirement to lead Supermarine through the war years. Yes, they do look a bit similar but you can spot the difference here. They are pictured with Queen Mary visiting the town of Trowbridge, Wiltshire, where Supermarine had a cluster of dispersal workshops making Spitfires that were flown out of (still in partial use) RAF Keevil.

https://hampshirearchivesandlocalstudies.wordpress.com/2018/09/14/out-of-the-shadows-a-spitfire-story/ takes you to an account by Zoe Viney, a member of Len Gooch's family that has the original picture in it.

In Denis Le P Webb's book, Never a Dull Moment, p165 -166 he describes taking a party of Senior American Aircraft Executives around some of Supermarine's dispersed facilities in mid 1941 (before Pearl Harbour) and then lunching them at The Polygon Hotel.

"The two sitting either side of me seemed genuinely astonished at what we had managed to produce after the raid. (The two main factories had both been put out of action in late September, 1940.)

"Gee - no! Give us a large factory where we can feed in raw materials at one end and push the finished product out the other, then yes - we can do it - but Jesus - how in Hell do you organise a set up like this?" I had some difficulty in explaining this myself!!"

Webb says how he told the visitors that they had essentially maintained the structure of the original factories but instead of a messenger going across the shop floor they now had "motorcycle and sidecar messengers" doing it and lorries were now going from site to site with parts instead of hand trolleys within the factory.

"But didn't you all get around a table and plan this thing?"

"I could only reply, "Christ no! There wasn't time!"

 

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