On This Day, 2 September 1918

Birmingham Mail

Monday 2 September 1918

WORKERS’ HEROISM.

STIRRING DEEDS AT THE VC MUNITION FACTORY

Stirring tales of heroism are now made public in connection with the recent explosion at a Midland munitions works—the V.C. factory, as it has happily been termed. It was heroism confined neither fleeting moments nor few people; so general was it, in fact, that accounts of individual exploits have been brought to light only with the greatest difficulty.

The disaster resulted in 134 workpeople being killed and over 150 injured. A whole building of three floors was totally destroyed, yet—certainly before the dust had settled—the work of rescue had begun. Hundreds men who had just gone off the day shift came hurrying back and helped their comrades of the night shift, labouring right through the night and the following day. And this with the full knowledge that other explosions might occur any moment, for several fires bad been started and explosives were present in profusion.

An officer noticed that the trays of the conveyor, which carried T.N.T. from the stores to the mills, were burning at the highest point. The fire was creeping down from tray to tray towards the store—towards 15 tons of T.N.T. The officer and two other men climbed the supports of the conveyor and tipped the T.N.T.—tray after tray—on to the ground, thus averting a further explosion.

Magnificent devotion to duty was shown by four men, who worked throughout the night on a heap of ruins formed by the collapse of a mill. Hearing a man’s voice, they steadily made a way through the iron girders and debris till finally they found their man pinned down by a girder and a thick teak door. The way to him was barred by rigid iron pipes. Work was possible for only one man at a time, so they toiled in relays, cutting their way through door and pipes till at 9.30 the following morning, they extricated him, happily, alive.

Many workers—both men and women—who were injured insisted on “carrying on” till exhaustion compelled them to desist.

A woman canteen helper was knocked off her bicycle outside the factory, partially stunned, and received injuries to her ankles. On recovering sufficiently she reported to the Red Cross station and worked till all the injured had received attention.