The Civilian Repair Organisation (CRO) was a branch of the British

Air Ministry The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the Secretary of State ...

(later, of the

Ministry of Aircraft Production Ministry may refer to: Government * Ministry (collective executive), the complete body of government ministers under the leadership of a prime minister * Ministry (government department), a department of a government Religion * Christian ...

), formed in 1939 to co-ordinate maintenance and repairs of military aircraft by civilian firms. It should not be confused with the Civil Repair Organisation, which carried out similar functions for the UK Air Ministry in India between 1943 and 1945.

Background

Following the outbreak of World War II, on 11 September 1939 the No.1 Civilian Repair Unit (CRU) was established at the Cowley works of

Morris Motors Morris Motors Limited was a British privately owned motor vehicle manufacturing company formed in 1919 to take over the assets of William Morris's WRM Motors Limited and continue production of the same vehicles. By 1926 its production represent ...

, to be staffed by civilians under the management of the Air Ministry. On 6 October 1939, Sir Kingsley Wood (the

Secretary of State for Air The Secretary of State for Air was a Secretary of State (United Kingdom), secretary of state position in the British government, which existed from 1919 to 1964. The person holding this position was in charge of the Air Ministry. The Secretar ...

) officially appointed William Morris (Lord Nuffield) as Director General (Maintenance), to organise and manage the Civilian Repair Organisation (CRO), to control the CRU and participating civilian firms. Nuffield, as the head of Morris Motors, had been in charge of the

shadow factory A shadow is a dark area where light from a light source is blocked by an opaque object. It occupies all of the three-dimensional volume behind an object with light in front of it. The cross section of a shadow is a two-dimensional silhouette, o ...

for aircraft production at

Castle Bromwich Castle Bromwich () is a large suburban village situated within the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull in the English county of the West Midlands. It is bordered by the rest of the borough to the south east; also Sutton Coldfield to the east and ...

. CRO administration was established at

Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the s ...

. On 14 May 1940, supervision of the CRO was transferred from the Air Ministry to the newly formed

, under

Lord Beaverbrook William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook (25 May 1879 – 9 June 1964), generally known as Lord Beaverbrook, was a Canadian-British newspaper publisher and backstage politician who was an influential figure in British media and politics o ...

. The No.1 CRU was supplemented by the No.1 Metal and Produce Recovery Depot (MPRD), established adjacent to the existing Cowley works. At Cowley, a support unit was established in the form of No.50 Maintenance Unit (MU), to transport damaged aircraft and parts to the CRU and to firms participating in the CRO, and also to collect non-repairable parts and scrap for materials reclamation at MPRD. Individual Maintenance Units came under the control of No.43 Group,

RAF Maintenance Command RAF Maintenance Command was the Royal Air Force command which was responsible for controlling maintenance for all the United Kingdom-based units from formation on 1 April 1938 until being renamed RAF Support Command on 31 August 1973. History ...

.Sturtivant 2007, pp. 87-92 IWM-L94 Swordfish repair 205196340

The civilian firms under individual contracts from the CRO were mostly existing companies engaged in the production, maintenance, repair and operation of aircraft in the UK. Those were supplemented by additional companies in the engineering and woodworking industrial sectors. Repairs to whole aircraft or parts of aircraft were often carried out in dispersed industrial factories, then transported to airfields for re-assembly and test flying, before re-delivery to RAF units. For cases of minor repairs that could be achieved quickly, aircraft could be flown to a CRO firm based at an airfield, repaired, and flown out the following day by the same pilot; these were known as "Fly In" repairs.Leaders and Commanders
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List of firms participating in the CRO

Principal ref: Sturtivant 2007

Summary of operations

In the period May 1940 to July 1945, CRO had returned a total of 79,000 aircraft to the flight line. At that point, of all the heavy aircraft then flying in the RAF, 36.5% (3,285) had been processed through CRO. Activities continued for several years after the end of World War II.Postan 1952, pp. 316-319

Notes

Bibliography

*Postan, M.M. 1952. ''History of the Second World War - British War Production''. HMSO *Sturtivant, Ray and Hamlin, John. 2007. ''RAF Flying Training and Support Units''. Air-Britain {{ISBN, 0-85130-365-X *Wright, Peter. "From Scraps to Scrap", ''Aeromilitaria'', December 2010 Aviation organisations based in the United Kingdom Air Ministry during World War II 1939 establishments in the United Kingdom Organizations established in 1939