Post by Keith Heitmann on Mar 31, 2002 1:22:13 GMT -5
There are a number of interesting articles in the Dec. 9 Chicago Tribune newspaper Transportaion section today. Here's a summary of one about the war effort in Detroit during WWII.
General Motors not only built 6x6 truks, but also built more Grumman TBM (The "M" is GM's designator) "Avenger" torpedo bomber than Grumman did. GM also built the Norden bombsight. When GM shifted to war production in 1940-41 it found that it had thousands of 1939 car ashtrays in stock and no cars to put them in. So GM shipped railroad cars of ashtrays to Boeing in Washington, which installed them in every heavy American bomber it built including the "Memphis Belle" and the "Enola Gay". Of the 2,665,196 military vehicles of all types procured for the armed forces, GM manufactured 854,000.
Fisher Body, then a GM division, built 16,000 tanks.
Ford also built the Grumman TBF ("F" is Ford's designator) "Avenger". Ford's Willow Run plant built three B-24 Liberators every hour around the clock for a total of 8,685. The liberator was the most numerous heavy American bomber during WWII. Ford also manufactured 7.2% of all aircraft used during the war. They manfactured 93,217 trucks, 277,896 jeeps, 4,291 gliders, and 2,718 tanks and tank destroyers, plus 12,500 armored cars and 13,000 amphibious vehicles.
Willys-Overland produced 380,000 Jeeps.
Packard built thousands of Rolls Royce Merlin engines which not only powered the famous P-51 Mustang but an adapted version was developed for marine applications. PT boats such as JFK's PT-109 was powered by three big Packard engines made in Detroit.
Pontiac built 20mm Oerlikon AA guns.
Buick built 1,000 aircraft engines per month.
Dodge built the 1-1/2 ton truck.
Chrysler not only built tanks, but along with Ford also built Jeeps. Of the 20,000 tanks built by Chrysler, 18,000 were the M-4 Sherman. Chrysler also built engines for the B-26 Marauder bomber which bombed the Daimler-Benz engine factory in Germany during the war. Daimler-Benz bought Chrysler during the 1990s. How's that for irony.
Oldsmobile produced 48,000,000 rounds of artillery shells and 350,000 precision parts for aircraft engines.
Also made in Detroit were mess kits, gyrocompasses, gun feeds, and map cases.
National Automotive Fibres, a automotive supplier of seatbacks and cushions, produced thousands of parachutes for the US Army.
In 1941 Houdaille Hershey of Decatur, ILL., had perfected a system of chrome plating bumpers for cars built at Chrysler's Lynch Road Dodge plant on Detroits east side.
In 1944 under secret contract to the Manhattan Project, Lynch Road retooled the plating process to make the gaseous diffusers that would convert unranium 238 into weapons grade U-235 for the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Even the Japanese used parts stamped "made in Detroit USA"! Actually, the when the Naval Air Museum at Pensacola rebuilt one of the few surviving Mitsubishi fighters they stripped the airframe before refurbishing and found various aluminum underskin panels with serial numbers from the Aluminum Corporation of America,which had been obtained in the 1930s before western boycotts.
The massive Detroit Tank Arsenal tank assembly plant built half the American tanks used in the war. There were 16 other companies in the US also building tanks. This plant built more tanks in a month than the enemy did during a year. Between 1941 and 1997 when it was closed, the Tank Arsenal built more than 60,000 tanks for WWII, Korea, Vietnam and the Persian Gulf.
General Motors not only built 6x6 truks, but also built more Grumman TBM (The "M" is GM's designator) "Avenger" torpedo bomber than Grumman did. GM also built the Norden bombsight. When GM shifted to war production in 1940-41 it found that it had thousands of 1939 car ashtrays in stock and no cars to put them in. So GM shipped railroad cars of ashtrays to Boeing in Washington, which installed them in every heavy American bomber it built including the "Memphis Belle" and the "Enola Gay". Of the 2,665,196 military vehicles of all types procured for the armed forces, GM manufactured 854,000.
Fisher Body, then a GM division, built 16,000 tanks.
Ford also built the Grumman TBF ("F" is Ford's designator) "Avenger". Ford's Willow Run plant built three B-24 Liberators every hour around the clock for a total of 8,685. The liberator was the most numerous heavy American bomber during WWII. Ford also manufactured 7.2% of all aircraft used during the war. They manfactured 93,217 trucks, 277,896 jeeps, 4,291 gliders, and 2,718 tanks and tank destroyers, plus 12,500 armored cars and 13,000 amphibious vehicles.
Willys-Overland produced 380,000 Jeeps.
Packard built thousands of Rolls Royce Merlin engines which not only powered the famous P-51 Mustang but an adapted version was developed for marine applications. PT boats such as JFK's PT-109 was powered by three big Packard engines made in Detroit.
Pontiac built 20mm Oerlikon AA guns.
Buick built 1,000 aircraft engines per month.
Dodge built the 1-1/2 ton truck.
Chrysler not only built tanks, but along with Ford also built Jeeps. Of the 20,000 tanks built by Chrysler, 18,000 were the M-4 Sherman. Chrysler also built engines for the B-26 Marauder bomber which bombed the Daimler-Benz engine factory in Germany during the war. Daimler-Benz bought Chrysler during the 1990s. How's that for irony.
Oldsmobile produced 48,000,000 rounds of artillery shells and 350,000 precision parts for aircraft engines.
Also made in Detroit were mess kits, gyrocompasses, gun feeds, and map cases.
National Automotive Fibres, a automotive supplier of seatbacks and cushions, produced thousands of parachutes for the US Army.
In 1941 Houdaille Hershey of Decatur, ILL., had perfected a system of chrome plating bumpers for cars built at Chrysler's Lynch Road Dodge plant on Detroits east side.
In 1944 under secret contract to the Manhattan Project, Lynch Road retooled the plating process to make the gaseous diffusers that would convert unranium 238 into weapons grade U-235 for the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Even the Japanese used parts stamped "made in Detroit USA"! Actually, the when the Naval Air Museum at Pensacola rebuilt one of the few surviving Mitsubishi fighters they stripped the airframe before refurbishing and found various aluminum underskin panels with serial numbers from the Aluminum Corporation of America,which had been obtained in the 1930s before western boycotts.
The massive Detroit Tank Arsenal tank assembly plant built half the American tanks used in the war. There were 16 other companies in the US also building tanks. This plant built more tanks in a month than the enemy did during a year. Between 1941 and 1997 when it was closed, the Tank Arsenal built more than 60,000 tanks for WWII, Korea, Vietnam and the Persian Gulf.