Rose Davies

Forewoman Rose Davies was one of thousands of women who worked at the Castle Bromwich Aircraft Factory in Birmingham — the largest Spitfire production facility in the world. At its peak, the factory employed 12,000 workers and produced 320 Spitfires per month. Davies started as an assembly line worker at 18 and was promoted to forewoman by 20, supervising a team of 40 women responsible for the final assembly of Spitfire fuselages. The work was precision engineering — tolerances of thousandths of an inch — and the women matched and often exceeded their male counterparts in quality and speed. Castle Bromwich produced over 11,000 Spitfires during the war, more than half of all Spitfires built. Birmingham's industrial heritage celebrates Davies and her colleagues as the women who built the aircraft that won the Battle of Britain.