National Aircraft Factory No. 3 Aintree At the beginning of 1917, 70 acres of land, next to Aintree Racecourse, were requisitioned under the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA). The land was to be used to build the third National Aircraft Factory; the other two were located at Waddon in Croydon and Heaton Chapel in Stockport. About 3,000 men, mainly Irish, were engaged in construction work. By 1918 the buildings were sufficiently built to accommodate the office staff and production equipment for Bristol F2B Fighters to be built; The Aintree Racecourse itself was used as a landing strip.
The factory was operated by Cunard and its primary objective was to aid the war effort by building 500 Bristol Fighters. These were needed to supply the new and rapidly-growing Royal Air Force. Production was under the auspices of the newly-created Air Ministry, but only 126 aircraft had been built by the time the war ended in November 1918.
In 1920, to take advantage of the large number of surplus aircraft parts, the Aircraft Disposal Factory (ADC) was established. The company had several sites across Britain and took over the National Aircraft factory sites at Aintree, Waddon and Heaton Chapel.
The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War One was over 37 million.