Which gives you an idea of the distance between washington and business and what its production possible in this country. In the end, seven minus right. Already by the time bombs on pearl harbor, american wartime production is already approaching the level of germany. Already approaching the level of nazi germany. Its going to gear up even faster, but the basic structure, with knudson. Remains the same. If you dont do it from the topdown, with washington tried to give orders, and is demanded of the new dealers had antiwar productions our, someone who would have this kind is wizard of oz, handson autoloaders and make the decisions in measure output and allocate resources from a centralized bureau. He said no, this has to happen from the bottom up. You dont shut down civilian production right away. Add the military orders on in fact yours begin to convert to meet the contracts and demands of the contracts and pretty soon youll be able to have a process in which the conversion to wartime production to tracks and tanks and planes will be complete. The other key element that knudsen did was to make sure the contracts are going to go to an innovative sector. One was the Automobile Industry, biggest employer in the country, but also the one in which the largest engineering staffs who take any challenge thrown to them and make that kind of conversion was underway. Not just in terms of switching civilian vehicles to military vehicles and trucks. It was not as easy as it looked because even from the civilian truck to military chart, the whole bunch of specifications, the whole range of capabilities, lets try overland over logs and those kinds of things that no civilian truck manufacturer would be able to undertake. But also tanks. The military had never heard of the sword thing. The Big Industrial kinds of transportation companies. He says let me call my friend, kiichi calle at chrysler and say can you make a tank . He said ive never seen a tank, but if you take me out someplace or i can see one and drive around, well be able to see you on that hand and thats exactly what happened in the chrysler tank arsenal becomes the largest manufacturer during the Second World War. But also, aircraft engines are retooling to provide the aircraft engines for Companies Like boeing and lockheed and curtis and all the other airplane manufacturers for military and finally planes themselves come in the most classic example being will run outside of detroit, where ford takes on what seemed like the Impossible Task of building b. 24 liberator planes coming hugely complex machinery and manage to bring it out. Like lacey and if so easterner crabcakes plans provided by Lloyd Crimmins company and makes the wildcats and also the tbm avenger torpedo bombers. George h. W. Bush pd plan, the one he was shot down in, that is tbm avenger as were thousands of others in the course of the war. America not a motive industry, one key aspect of a productive and innovative quality. Also the Aviation Company as well. These Aviation Companies at this time is no Defense Industry to speak of. Is their commercial companies that do military orders, supply those, but experiences building a whole range of aircraft for customers. So the shift to military aircraft becomes simply a process of retool and redesigning twikis kinds of demands. And also the engineers tapping the skills of engineers have been involved in commercial planes for years and turning them to say, can you design a bomber that will do this . And you design a fighter that will do that . And i discovered working on this book, every single plane that the United States flew in the Second World War, except one, was a product of poor design. Boeing, even than the 29 mustang were all designs leading insurers. All they wanted were the orders and knudsen gets them started with that process and resulted in thousands and thousands of planes. Not just the United States, the allies as well. These are p. 51 mustang with british markings, which were sold originally to the bread. Pritts came over to dutch kindleberger in north american aviation and said can you make war hawks come a standard american warplane fighter in kindleberger says i can design a lot better plain enough for you. Give me 100 days. And he did and he designed the p. 51 mustang, but then when the british got the idea of putting the rollsroyce engine on it, then you got the best of the Second World War and those rules were his vengeance produced in detroit, where bill knudsen had approached the president of packard inciting engines could first for the british spitfire, then also for the p. 51 mustang. All the planes prewar design except one, the one that came out of the crimmins plant up in new york. The only reason ive been using images that always because i want to have an excuse to show you this one. This is during the war. This is a failed carrier landing. As you can see, that pilot is in a bit of trouble trying to land on this carrier and theres one of his that i am certain of getting out of the way if it comes in with this. This is a photograph taken from the grumman aircraft paper and they are particularly proud because that plane didnt crash. It just powered out, circled back again and then landed safely in the process. Thats the one other plane that it come about, the one plan that was designed, put into production less than two years am the one that comes to dominate the skies of the pacific. Then the construction industry. Here, the man who dominates the scene have been mobilized for this process is the other main character in the book, who is henry kaiser. Henry kaiser is the man who was involved furstenberg construction, one of the builders of the hoover dam and he and his colleagues, people like stephen ductile, bechtel corporation, harry morris, morrison knudsen, a different knudsen, not my guy. Probably the Largest Construction Firm in the world right now. Any other company, stone and webster, tennessee eastman became involved in wartime construction. All of these understood in the process of rcl Enterprises Say hes not to construct docks for pearl harbor, for example and prepare military facilities, but also to build ships. Kaisers liberty ships a classic example at a time in which it took to build constantly shrink down to fewer and fewer days until by 1942 they could launch a liberty ship every five days if they had to. In fact, theres a great story about a woman it comes to christen one of the liberty ships at the portland art, kaisers here in portland, oregon and she comes out with a champagne bottle in the ship certicom. It started as launched and is sailing into the south. So he comes back to us its been a minute, lady. Therell be another one along in a few minutes. And not just ship the thing. Ship hoping. Magnesium is essential for aircraft manufacturing, which kaiser became heavily involved in the process. Feel manufacturing. Kaisers supplied steel for his liberty ships built the most modern steel plant in the world out of california at fontana, california as part of the process. They become involved in the process. Again, do anything, build anything and not only meet deadlines, but bring you under deadline in the process. The amounts of the Chemical Companies, particularly thou and dupont from above so many of their other rivals another Chemical Companies become again involved in a whole variety of production efforts in order to make the arsenal that would make this wartime Production Development possible here. And in the case of doubt, one of the most contributions they make as they explain in the book is akin to the magnesium. It was herbert dow who discovered this magnesium involved in the plant in midland, michigan. Nice, light metal here, very flammable, but also very hard at the same time. He said to himself, this is before world war i, someday someone will make a way to make something out of this. It would be the Construction Materials the future. I dont know how theyre going to figure it out, but he began stockpiling and the stockpiles in the formula become the basis for american macneice and industry being able to supply lightweight parts for american airplanes in the process. Plastics spirit world war ii was the making of the plastics industry in this country. In fact, i found a wonderful article in american machines magazine from 1942, singing to the readers, are you finding with regard to the work you do in terms of machining that you cant get the kind of copper and steel components that she used to need to make dies for production kinds of things. Try plastics. Give it a shot. Its very inexpensive, easy to get, period dow comes into the war in another way and that is what the problem of shifting wartime material across the atlantic and eventually across the pacific at the same time. This stuff has got to be secured. Its got to be wrapped so it is sealed, so it is not going to corrode in the spirit, we can liberty ships. So dow comes up with a substance in order to do this. I talked to a guy who worked for a shipping company in the midwest, with more supplies than ohio had been being prepared for shipment overseas. Crew members of the dow salesman showed up with sheets of this staff, which was totally transparent, very strong, clings to everything that you can use to wrap up and make it watertight, but you can also see what youre wrapping up. They say we call it saran and you should give it a try. And of course it was a wonder. You could wrap everything, machine guns, tanks, rapid and saran wrap and after the work goes on to become one of the staples of the new Consumer Industries that spring up out of this wartime production taking place. And then dupont. We cant leave out dupont as well because when the Manhattan Project organizers realize that they are going to be involved in taking what are basic Laboratory Experiments in terms of splitting the atom i have to turn these now from basically a set of theoretical calculations and experiments into real Industrial Production, one company they turn to automatically in order to bring this up is dupont. Dupont they realize engineers are used to handling hazardous substances. There used to construction under very tight schedules. The army you sent to book power plants for example, so dupont takes on the job of creating an industrial process that never existed before as they do first at oak ridge in tennessee, but then of course the enormous facilities in hanford, washington, where it would be process for the atomic bomb that will be dropped on nagasaki. This is the process said bill knudsen sets in motion through the top prime contractors, down to the subcontractors come on through the rest of the American Economy and industry gets underway. By the time of pearl harbor, is a wartime production which is coming from a standing start to approaching that of nazi germany. When the effort gets rolling with the full conversion of Automobile Industry, for example to wartime production, the United States is out producing all the access of powers combined in by the end of 1943, the American Economy is producing more material than germany, the soviet union in Great Britain combined. Ford motor co. Alone produces more than miscellaneous economy as a whole. And in fact, we producing a steel of lebanon and other Raw Materials to enable the british had were the number one wartime manufacture of airplanes. We produce enough Raw Materials to produce the number two and number three aircraft producers in the process. The numbers are staggering obviously in textbooks, 280,000 warplanes, 8800 warships they were producing five aircraft carriers the month during world war ii. Youre talking 86,000 tanks. 3. 5 million trucks. Studebaker, remember studebaker quake studebaker log provides 200,000 to the red army. Studebaker translated back to the soviet statistics union during the Second World War. As little as stalin and his army to go across Eastern Europe to the gates of berlin, studebaker trucks. 2. 5 million machine guns in the process, many produced by companies that had never seen a machine gun before. Companies like remington typewriter, National Postage meter, rocco, the jute box Company Based out of chicago, which produced and one carbines under contract, using design created by winchester. And then over 41 billion rounds of ammunition. Outpouring, just as knudsen had promised in the one you could depend upon to bring about kind of it during a war based mass production. So if we look at this overall accomplishment, we have to ask ourselves, how did they do it and is it the kind of faith the American Economy could do again . I happen to think the answer to the latter question is yes. I also happen to think if we look at the reasons why this place might happen, it begins to become clear why it is a reproducible effect by the economic boom that came after the war as those production muscles used for wartime production will shift back to civilian production, why not kind of boost and write a productive boost would be possible. First of all, you have to be life again at the orders here, the money spent, 311 in world war ii wartime production in todays dollars about 3 trillion. Thats a big stimulus check the faq think in terms of stimulus. If your most prized by numbers alone, its simply a matter spending a lot of money. Remember, thats not simply money poured into the economy were given out in large portions to favor corporations. This is money used to buy things the government needs desperately and going to the most project is innovative set reset the economy in the process and those are the companies mobilize and put to work. Aviation industry, Automobile Industry and the others. The second thing to keep in mind here as well if this involves the creation of a whole new labor force in order to fill the jobs necessary of this wartime production. Not just of course women who become involved in a couple something close to 5 million would go to work in wartime fact trees. Not just africanamericans. Something like 1 million move from the south up to Industrial Centers to work how the chrysler tank arsenal, who go to work in all the other kinds of wartime industries in the process, but also as well work force, which is incredibly mobile. In other words, people were free to go where they needed to go to make this war work. You chase after the wages. Something like 20 Million People leave their homes to go find work in wartime factories drawn by conditions, drawn by better pay, drawn by opportunity that these kinds of wars in industrial search was able to create. Mobility of labor, key aspect. People can go for the productivity is based in set up. In other words, unlike the Southern Union and even in britain, no one tells American Workers were to go. Although washington word about this process, even to the end of the ward they dont do this. The same is true for business, too. It is a voluntary system washington created. Nobody told anybody what to make. You are offered a chance contract, the people were drawn to achieve a government contract to ship your player to production and make a contribution to the war effort and make money while youre doing it. It wonderful book in 1942 call your business goes to war put together by an outfit called america. Introduced in appendix b of books and pages, which suggest to you if your business make these kinds of things, these are the wartime production you could ship to an offer to make. If you make razor blades, for example, you could shift to make in a blaze that go into the mercury engines. If you make fun mowers, you could shift to manufacturing machining shrapnel to use for high explosive shells. If you make vacuum cleaners, vacuum cleaners make the transition to making home outliners. If you go through the pages come its fascinating to see what was being put out there. These are things industry done, changes that may be carried out saying you can do this, too. You did a government contract then make in this kind of shift in this direction. So the wartime production miracle turns out to be a production miracle whisperings died of wartime necessity, not of washingtons decision that a war had to be one and that it would take on any means necessary in order to achieve it to the direction, but that the real industrial miracle with the American Free enterprise system turned loose on a major project, in which it could address the challenges and overcome them. I guess in the end, thats really the conclusion that i had to draw working on this book is that i hope people will draw as they read it is that the real freedoms foraged is not the arsenal of democracy that will knudsen coined traversable soul for his fire chat, the real freedoms for just the American Economy. The real freedoms for just 20 turns out loose and take away the restrictions and the constraints upon it, it can accomplish anything. It can accomplish any goal they assessed before it. I have to say is working on this book, one of the things i find so fascinating about it was not just the role of people that will knudsen and others played in the process, but the other people drawn into it. Is this man, Kaiser Ntt Keller and Charlie Sorensen who built the 21st, but also the people he sat in the factories and work in the factories, who made their lives for themselves. The stories a