Hoover in the UK kept Model 375 and 262 in production until 1940. When aluminium was no longer available, they made them out of zinc, which made the cleaners much heavier. More and more men were pulled off the vac production lines to help with war production contracts. The earliest contracts came in 1938, before the outbreak of the war, for 4,200 cylinder studs for de Havilland, and 1,500 hot air blowers.
Over the course of the war, Hoover's London factory turned out 78,000 blowers, 10,000 motors, and over half a million rotary transformers, amongst numerous other electrical and mechanical components. Almost every British plane had a substantial number of Hoover-made parts in it!
In 1940, Hoover and it's employees bought and presented the nation with a Spitfire, named 'The Sky Sweeper', and £200,000 was leant to the government, free of interest.
By 1941, production of complete cleaners had long-since been halted, but the manufacture of spare parts continued, and a reduced service staff of 400 (later cut down to 150, then 122) helped maintain the peace-time half-yearly service routine. As a result, very few Hoover cleaners went out of service during the 6-year war period!
Of the 21 service depots, three were destroyed in bombing raids, although new premises were quickly located. Hoover House on Regent Street, the London Sales and Service HQ, was damaged by bomb-blasts on three occasions.
Within a month of VE day, Hoover's cleaners were back in stores, and most sold out within a day!
Sorry this picture isn't clear - the book's too old and rare to jam into the scanner! The diagram shows all the Hoover-made parts in a Halifax Bomber...[this post was last edited: 1/15/2011-18:06]
