Constantine Higgins

Catalogue Reference:(IWM) D6210

Constantine Higgins a technician from Kingston, Jamaica, fits a wheel to a tank in a factory in the north of England in this photograph taken between 1939 and 1945. Mr Higgins was part of a skilled labour force from the West Indies which contributed to the war effort in Britain where manufacturing industry was geared to producing the machinery of war. In 1942 alone more than 8,600 tanks were built. First used in 1917, tanks (tracked armoured vehicles with weapons mounted in a turret) were vital battlefield weapons in the Second World War.