The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War by A. J. Baime

Author:A. J. Baime [Baime, A. J.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2014-06-03T04:00:00+00:00

Drafted into the military: 1,737

Enlistments: 1,472

Found another job: 843

No place to live: 314

Needed at home: 334

Next Edsel led the senators into a conference room where a stack of blueprints three feet high sat on a table. The blueprints showed changes that the army wanted made to the bomber. The Liberator had been designed by Consolidated Aircraft in 1938, the first prototype was in flight a year later, and the bomber was then put into production. It had all happened so fast. Now wanting to improve the design, the army was sending over dozens of changes every week.

Nothing threw a wrench into the mass-production process like changes to the product that the manufacturer was trying to produce. Ford Motor Company was using hard-steel dies at Willow Run, according to automaking methods—a controversial move, aviation experts were quick to point out early on. Steel dies could not be altered. If the airplane part changed, the steel die that crafted that part became garbage and needed replacing. A new one had to be created from scratch.

The army’s latest request was for a new machine gun turret built into the nose of the Liberator below the cockpit. Bomber crews flying the Liberators overseas had asked for this change, to help defend against attacking enemy fighters coming at them straight on. When Edsel ventured to Washington to beg General Arnold to stop the requests for changes to the airplane, the General replied: “I’d feel as if I had blood on my hands if I ignored those boys’ suggestions.”

So now Edsel’s men had three months to begin delivering bombers with this new nose turret—a huge job.

Edsel introduced the Truman Committee to Willow Run’s new daily superintendent, an engineer named Mead Bricker who’d practically grown up in the Rouge. “Now, look,” said Bricker, and he began to explain what happened when the government asked for a change to the bomber. “We’ll show what it means in delay, what it means in equipment, what it means in jigs and fixtures and the whole conglomeration of things that goes into that kind of engineering process.” Bricker then led the senators onto the Willow Run assembly line, where the deafening noise made them cringe in their suits. Bricker pointed to a specific machine that made a piece of an airplane wing. And if that airplane piece was altered?

“You affect this whole line of procedure,” he screamed over the assembly-line roar. He went through all the steps that were needed to make the part and detailed how it all had to change. “That has all got to be designed and blueprinted and put in operation.”

“Now you may not be familiar with all these things,” Bricker continued, “but this is what happens every time we get a new bale of changes that have to do with this plane. Until you find out, gentlemen, what kind of plane you’re going to build, and until you perfect the design, we can’t guarantee to meet any schedule.”

“Well,” Truman spoke up, “I certainly can see how changes jimmy up your fellow’s program.

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