So Ian, and Henk will know more of this probably, were were the factories, and what did they make during WW2?

Interesting subject!

Lex

email (option): welbike@welbike.net

There is a booklet called "BSA Munitions of War" that lists the armourments made by the BSA group and where they were made.
jules Dassen has good quality reproductions of them if you want one.
Mine is currently out on loan so I can not give any more details.
There was a companion booklet "On War Service" that lists the motorcycles.
There is a separate book about Lanchester Cars (a BSA subsidiary ) war efforts.
All up I think that BSA had a lot more factories than just 28.
BSA had bought a lot of it's suppliers after WW I so was a lot bigger company when WWII started than most people would think

email (option): bsansw@tpg.com.au

OK thanks Trevor!

Here some stuff I found on the web:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Small_Arms_Company

It says here BSA had 67 factories:

[urlhttp://www.rifleman.org.uk/Birmingham_Small_Arms_Co.htm[/url]

Interesting too: http://www.bsatrust.org/

Cheers,

Lex

email (option): welbike@welbike.net

Yes..I think I got my 'numbers crossed' there..It was 67 factories with 28,000 workers.The word 'factories' gives a misleading impression. After the 1940 air raids which caused extensive damage at Small Heath (over 1600 general and specialised machine tools were lost in one raid), BSA rapidly dispersed production to a large variety of facilities..basically whatever was available and frequently not purpose built.. For instance some assembly work was set up in a disused concrete works and at sites as far away from Small Heath as Scotland and North Wales. As a measure of the importance of BSA to the war effort, in the three months following the worst air raid no infantry rifles were produced in the UK..
Before the war pilots used Small Heath as a navigation marker to guide them to Birmingham Airport..It was a massive site with a canal on one side and a railway on the other...So it can't have been too difficult for the Luftwaffe bomber crews to find either....Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com