areas of military production prepared their own dispersal factory plans: Alvis had 20 sites in Coventry alone, producing vehicles and munitions. Soon after the total destruction of the Alvis factory by enemy action in 1940 Alvis were operating eight dispersal factories and thus managed to resume deliveries of their most important products. They were allocated nine further dispersal factories following further enemy attacks and after Pearl Harbour at the end of 1941 Alvis organised, equipped and managed a new shadow factory to make variable pitch propeller hubs. Rover managed and controlled six shadow factories on behalf of the Government and ran eighteen different dispersal factories of their own. When the Birmingham Small Arms plant at Small Heath, the sole producer of service rifle barrels and main aircraft machine guns, was bombed by the Luftwaffe in August–November 1940, it caused delays in productions, which reportedly worried PM Churchill the most among all the industrial damage during the Blitz. The Government Ministry of Supply and BSA immediately began a process of production dispersal throughout Britain, through the shadow factory scheme. Later in the war BSA controlled 67 factories from its Small Heath office, employing 28,000 people operating 25,000 machine tools, and produced more than half the small arms supplied to Britain's forces during the war. In British India in 1942, a Small Arms Factory in Kanpur was built as a shadow for the Rifle Factory Ishapore. List of dispersal factories (incomplete) Extent In June 1939 the response to a question in parliament was: 31 shadow factories were complete or under construction. The Air Ministry was responsible for 16 and, of those 16, 11 were working to full capacity. By that time large numbers of Bristol engines and aircraft were being made in Government owned shadow factories and in the Dominions and other foreign countries. In February 1944 Parliament was advised there were 175 managing agency schemes or shadow factories. National Archives catalogue entries Information concerning the shadow factory plan and shadow factories can be found among the following records and descriptive series list code headings held by The National Archives. For the full set of references (including German shadow factories) see the Catalogue below: See also References External links Building Beauforts in Australia The Shadow Scheme a 1-hour 10 minute documentary released 15 July 2013 – A contemporary critic of the pre-war expansion of UK aircraft production United Kingdom in World War