Images from the Arsenal of Democracy

IMAGES from the ARSENAL of DEMOCRACY

CHARLES K. HYDE

A PAINTED TURTLE BOOK

DETROIT, MICHIGAN

To the memory of Henry C. Hyde (1910–2001), Technical Sergeant, United States Army Signal Corps, Pacific Theater, New Guinea and the Philippine Islands, 1944–45, and for all who served.

© 2014 BY WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS, DETROIT, MICHIGAN 48201. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT FORMAL PERMISSION. MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CONTROL NUMBER: 2013941850

ISBN: 978-0-8143-3981-7 (ALK.: JACKETED CLOTH)-

ISBN: 978-0-8143-3982-4 (EBOOK)

CONTENTS

PREFACE

ABBREVIATIONS

1. Preparing for War before Pearl Harbor

2. Planning Defense Production after Pearl Harbor

3. Aircraft Engines and Propellers

4. Aircraft Components and Complete Aircraft

5. Tanks and Other Armored Vehicles

6. Jeeps, Trucks, and Amphibious Vehicles

7. Guns, Shells, Bullets, and Other War Goods

8. The New Workers

9. Celebrating the Production Achievements

INDEX

PREFACE

This book grew directly out of my work in researching the well-known Arsenal of Democracy story. What has inspired me and at the same time has driven me to write this book is a remarkable collection of surviving photographs portraying the wartime auto industry. The Automobile Manufacturers Association (AMA)—the auto industry trade association at the time of World War II—reconstituted itself on 30 December 1941 as the Automotive Council for War Production (ACWP), with the stated goal of coordinating auto industry war work. By the end of the conflict, the ACWP had collected an enormous amount of information about how the auto industry had operated during the war. The documentation includes many thousands of photographs of war products and war production in auto plants throughout the United States. In the early 1950s the AMA donated the wartime records to the National Automotive History Collection (NAHC), part of the Detroit Public Library.

I wish to thank many individuals who helped me along the way. First and foremost are the archivists and librarians who assisted my efforts with considerable skill, energy, patience, and good cheer. Paige Plant and Mark Bowden of the National Automotive History Collection (NAHC) at the Detroit Public Library were extremely helpful, as was Barbara Fronczak, who processed the collection of the Automotive Council for War Production held by the NAHC. Terry Hoover, Chief Archivist at the Benson Ford Research Center at The Henry Ford, in Dearborn, Michigan, helped me navigate through the war records of the Ford Motor Company. Gregory Wallace, the director of the General Motors Heritage Center in Sterling Heights, Michigan, and Christo Datini, the archivist, were also extremely helpful. David White at the Richard P. Scharchburg Archives at Kettering University in Flint, Michigan, led me to additional General Motors materials relating to war production. Randy Talbot, Command Historian at the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Command (TACOM) in Warren, Michigan, made TACOM’s historical images available to me.

I owe a special thanks to friends and colleagues for their assistance and encouragement. Mike Davis, the author of an earlier pictorial history of the Arsenal of Democracy and a good friend, made his extensive photographic collection available for my use and encouraged me to move forward with this book. Larry D. Lankton, longtime colleague and friend, shared research files he had compiled quite a few years ago, when he had planned to write a book similar to this one.

ABBREVIATIONS

ACAD

The Automotive Committee for Air Defense

ACWP

Automotive Council for War Production

AMA

Automobile Manufacturers Association

DPC

Defense Plant Corporation

NDAC

National Defense Advisory Commission

OPM

Office of Production Management

QMC

Quartermaster Corps

SPAB

Supply, Priorities, and Allocations Board

WPB

War Production Board

ARCHIVAL COLLECTIONS

ACWP

Automotive Council for War Production Collection, National Automotive History Collection, Detroit Public Library

BFRC

Benson Ford Research Center, The Henry Ford, Dearborn, Michigan

CCA

Chrysler Corporate Archives, Detroit, Michigan

CKH

Author’s private collection

FDRL

Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, New York

GMCMA

General Motors Corporation Media Archives

NAHC

National Automotive History Collection, Detroit Public Library, Detroit, Michigan

SA/KU

Richard P. Scharchburg Archives, Kettering University, Flint, Michigan

SM

Buick Gallery and Research Center, Sloan Museum, Flint, Michigan

TACOM

Tank-Automotive Command, U.S. Army, Warren, Michigan

WPRL

Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan

WSK

William S. Knudsen Collection, National Automotive History Collection, Detroit, Michigan

1

PREPARING FOR WAR BEFORE PEARL HARBOR

Most Americans did not view war in Europe as a threat to U.S. security despite the escalating situation abroad, including Adolf Hitler’s aggressions in Eastern Europe starting in March 1938 when he annexed Austria to Germany, the official start of World War II in September 1939 after Hitler invaded Poland, and the Nazi conquest of Holland, Belgium, and France beginning in May 1940. Many U.S. citizens believed in Fortress America, the notion that the oceans that separated the United States from Europe and Asia would protect America from any military threat. President Franklin D. Roosevelt believed otherwise, and began a series of efforts to rebuild the country’s weak armed forces and simultaneously develop a defense industry capable of supplying an expanded military force in time of war. The U.S. Congress and the country more generally were unwilling to wholeheartedly support rearmament before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.

In late May 1940, Roosevelt resurrected the National Defense Advisory Commission (NDAC), a World War I advisory body, to launch rearmament and to build a defense industry to support an enlarged military capability. He put William S. Knudsen (1879–1948), president of the General Motors Corporation, in charge of defense manufacturing. The intense Nazi bombing of British cities starting in July 1940—known as the Battle of Britain—brought greater urgency to Roosevelt’s efforts. In late August 1940, Roosevelt created a federal agency, the Defense Plant Corporation (DPC), to build and equip new defense production facilities.

With Knudsen taking the lead, the automobile industry began to move slowly toward increasing defense production. The Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, the principal industry association, held their annual meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City on 15 October 1941, where Knudsen called on industry leaders to produce half a billion dollars’ worth of aircraft parts and sub-assemblies. Eighty-five men met in Detroit ten days later, including representatives from the auto industry, the aircraft industry, the tool and die industry, the military services, and several executives from the NDAC. They established the Automotive Committee for Air Defense (ACAD), which aimed to match the automobile manufacturers with aircraft parts they were able and willing to make. In November, the ACAD established a display of parts needed for B-24, B-25, and B-26 bombers in a vacant auto plant in Detroit. As a result of these actions, scores of auto companies signed contracts with aircraft companies and the military services to make aircraft components, marking the start of a long and fruitful relationship among the three parties.

Roosevelt delivered his inspirational fireside chat by radio on 29 December 1940, warning the nation of the dangers posed to the United States by the rising tide of totalitarianism in Europe and Asia. He called on America to become the arsenal of democracy and to materially assist our European allies in their fight to stop fascism. Roosevelt replaced the largely advisory seven-member NDAC with the Office of Production Management (OPM) on 7 January 1941, with Knudsen and Sidney Hillman serving as its co-directors.

The passage of the Lend-Lease Act by Congress on 11 March 1941 drastically changed the landscape of the emerging defense industry. This law gave the president wide discretion to lend, lease, sell, or otherwise transfer military equipment and supplies to any nation whose defense was deemed vital to the safety of the United States. Lend-Lease placed enormous pressure on American industry to increase defense production. Over the course of the war, aid disbursed under Lend-Lease accounted for roughly one-third of American defense production, amounting to roughly $51 billion—with $22 billion going to Great Britain and $12 billion to the Soviet Union. More than thirty nations received aid under Lend-Lease.

With the start of intense bombing of British cities in