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HISTORIC CONTEXT

INTRODUCTION NWIRP Dallas is an aerospace manufacturing complex constructed in 1941 as part of the U.S. World War II Industrial Mobilization Program. Known as Plancor #25, NWIRP Dallas initially consisted of 85 buildings and structures spread out over 153 acres in rural Dallas County, near the city limits of both Dallas and Grand Prairie, Texas. The original project owner, the DPC, was a governmental body assigned to fund and build a variety of industrial facilities across the United States that produced essential military goods for World War II. North American Aviation Inc. leased the government- owned plant from 1941 to August 1945, producing nearly 30,000 aircraft of three different types for the Army, Air Force, and Navy. NWIRP Dallas has been leased to six different tenants over the past six decades: North American Aviation, TEMCO, Chance Vought Aircraft Corporation, LTV, Northrop Grumman, and Vought Aircraft Industries. Today, the complex consists of 343 resources on 314.66 acres. NWIRP Dallas has a complicated but important history that details the role it played during the Second World War and its significance throughout the Cold War. Its history is not only the story of an aircraft plant but also of the growth of Dallas County and the aircraft industry in North Texas communities.

WORLD WAR II In the mid-1930s, there were definite signs that the peace established in Europe following World War I was tenuous. The first indication of trouble appeared in 1933 when Germany elected Adolf Hitler as its Chancellor and demanded equality with France and England, not disarmament. Germany withdrew from the League of Nations and secretly began to rebuild its military, a clear violation of the Treaty of Versailles. In an effort to renew its strength and demonstrate its power, Germany turned to every available technological advance in weaponry to ensure that it would never again be subjugated by Britain, France and the West. On 10 March 1935, Germany’s Defense Minister Herman Göring formally announced his country’s military rearmament program, which included all the latest technological developments in ships, tanks, guns, ammunition, and aircraft. Britain likewise began to rearm, and by the end of the year, all the major European powers and Japan had begun remilitarization programs.

It was not only Germany’s aggressive acts and rearmament that threatened peace in Europe; it was also the emergence of dictatorships in Italy, Spain, and Japan. All four countries appeared to

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prefer force, propaganda, and fear to effect political change and gain power. Germany took full advantage of its early military preparedness by participating in the Spanish Civil War of 1936–39 and annexing both Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938. The performance of the German military machine, especially the air force, or Luftwaffe, sent a clear message to Great Britain and France that they had underestimated Germany’s strength. The presence and large numbers of the German airforce in Spain and Czechoslovakia gave Europeans the perception that the Luftwaffe was much larger than anticipated.

Following the events of 1936–38, Great Britain, France, and other European allies began to rearm at a frantic pace. In order for European nations to achieve military supremacy over Germany, they would need help. France and Great Britain turned to the United States and its mass-production capability as early as 1935 in hopes of achieving military preparedness, but quickly found out that what they needed most—aircraft—was difficult to procure. America had been the leader in aviation since the late 1910s, but its industry had never mass produced aircraft. For decades, American aircraft companies fabricated each individual plane virtually by hand for a small and elite domestic and foreign market. The number of orders from European nations overwhelmed burgeoning aircraft and engine manufacturers. Fortunately for the aircraft industry and unfortunately for Europe, current American isolationist policy and neutrality laws required belligerent nations to pay cash for military goods, leaving the industry a brief period of time to prepare for the production demands of a large-scale, world war.

It was only in May 1939 when a loose— but public—diplomatic alliance developed between the dictatorships of Germany, Japan, and Italy that American leaders began to display and share France and England’s concerns for world peace and stability. The combined strength of the Axis coalition, the quick pace of overseas developments, and the defense needs of European allies provoked American leaders to develop a plan of action and turn away from its isolationist stance toward military preparedness. Any plan developed by the United States would have to balance and integrate foreign requirements and domestic needs without sacrificing or straining productive capabilities, resources, materials, facilities, and manpower.

In May 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt took the first steps toward mobilization when he ordered his Assistant Secretary of War

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and Assistant Secretary of the Navy to create a War Resources Board to manage the $11 billion defense budget and the newly formed Industrial Mobilization Program. Once planning had begun, the President declared a state of unlimited national emergency in an effort to prepare the American people for the demands of mobilization, which involved an unprecedented level of defense production. The Industrial Mobilization Program called for major changes within the country’s economic and governmental structure and altered the relationship between the private enterprise and the government, forcing them to coordinate activities in order to meet common goals (Kane 1995: 29; Vatter 1985: 10; U.S. Civilian Production Administration 1947: xiii).

The Industrial Mobilization Program’s main goals were the nation’s speedy transition from peace to war and back to peace. The program evolved through three major phases: The initial defense period, 1939–41, was characterized as the period when the United States was not actually at war but was compelled to rearm and help its allies, and itself, through weapons production and materials for defense. The second phase occurred from December 1941 until August 1945, and was characterized as the war period, when the entire American economy was directed toward winning the war through the procurement and production of ships, submarines, guns, ammunition, tanks, and aircraft. Finally, the third phase, from August 1945 to December 1947, was characterized as the transition period from World War II to the Cold War (U.S. Civilian Production Administration 1947: xiii, 3).

INDUSTRIAL MOBILIZATION: THE DEFENSE PERIOD, 1939–41 The President and a new managing agency, the Office of Production Management, began implementation of the Industrial Mobilization Program in the summer of 1939, prior to Germany’s invasion of Poland. The first step of the program was the formation of the National Defense Advisory Committee, or NDAC. Legislation allowing for the formation of NDAC can be traced to the Army Appropriation Act of 20 August 1916, in which NDAC assumed the responsibility of coordinating industries and resources for the country’s national security and welfare (U.S. Civilian Production Administration 1947: 22). President Roosevelt invoked the law on 29 May 1940 in response to conflicts in Europe and the Far East. The key players of NDAC included the secretaries of War, Navy Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor, Office of Production Management, and seven at-large members. The President served as head and final arbitrator of NDAC, but he also relied closely on the

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advice of its permanent and at-large members. The Army Appropriation Act allowed the President to nominate seven civilian members with “special knowledge of some industry, public utility, or the development of some natural resource, or otherwise specially qualified” (U.S. Civilian Production Administration 1947: 23). Roosevelt’s selections included industry officials, international dignitaries, economists, and financial experts to manage and run the entire program.

The President decided that only three members of NDAC needed to serve the Commission on a full-time basis: Danish-born William S. Knudsen, former president of General Motors Corporation (GM), advised on industrial production; Lithuanian-born Sidney Hillman, president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, advised on employment; and Edward R. Stettinus, who was associated with the United States Steel Corporation, advised on industrial materials and was former chairman of the War Resources Board. Stettinus also had family connections with two of the biggest and most influential businesses in America—E.I. DuPont de Nemours, Inc. and J.P. Morgan & Company (U.S. Civilian Production Administration 1947: 19, 20). The remaining members of NDAC—the commissioners on prices, farm products, transportation, and consumer interests—served only part-time positions.

Most of NDAC’s powers were de jure or de facto, and came either directly from the President or through the Office of Production Management. The most significant of NDAC’s powers was the ability of the group to approve or reject any defense-related contracts and procurement requests. On the subject of contract authorization, the President relied heavily on the advice of William S. Knudsen, who had been his ally, friend, and advisor throughout the Great Depression and had developed some of the most innovative and successful New Deal programs. Knudsen came to the President in the summer of 1940 and identified some of NDAC’s challenges. The Commission needed to procure supplies and materials on an enormous scale that was beyond the capacity of private industry, and the rationing of essential goods was not enough to offset the productive deficiencies of American industry. Knudsen asserted that industrial expansion was the nation’s “Problem Number 1” and additional facilities were required in order for America to meet the manufacturing demands of war (White November 1949: 159).

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THE CREATION OF THE DEFENSE PLANT CORPORATION The Industrial Mobilization Program’s budget was insufficient to cover the costs of building new factories and plants, so President Roosevelt turned to another trusted advisor, Jesse H. Jones, the head of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), for input on how the nation might meet its production needs and goals in the event of war (White 1980: 16). The RFC had been responsible for the funding of much of President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs during the Great Depression and was the governmental body that located adequate funding for the federal construction requirements.

Jesse H. Jones, along with Hans Klagsbrunn and Clifford Durr of the RFC’s legal staff, drafted legislation in May 1940 that amounted to an amendment to the existing Reconstruction Finance Act. The amendment asked Congress to grant the RFC the authority to make loans and purchase stock in corporations for the purpose of national defense; to purchase strategic and critical materials; and to authorize the construction, expansion, and equipment of industrial plants (White 1980: 16). Congress approved the legislation, and on 25 June 1940, the President signed Klagsbrunn and Durr’s amendment, which explicitly authorized the RFC to lend money and form new companies to finance a $9 billion facility expansion program (U.S. Civilian Production Administration 1947: 77, 78; White 1980: 18).

The RFC first established a Site Location Board to work with the Office of Production Management’s Plant Site Board to recommend general criteria for the location of defense plants. Factors to be considered were availability of raw materials, transportation, supply and destination of the product, housing, power and utilities, abundance of labor, and sewage. A conscious effort was made to avoid highly congested, metropolitan areas with established industrial centers, and instead select rural, underdeveloped locations (U.S. Civilian Production Administration 1947: 162; Smith 1959: 450). Both boards agreed that the majority of all the sites selected should be located deep within the interior portions of the United States and away from either the east or west coasts, considering their existing high concentration of industry and vulnerability to attack. NDAC’s preferred zone was “between the Appalachians and the Rockies” (U.S. Civilian Production Administration 1947: 79). Dispersal of the new defense industries was a favored policy of the Industrial Mobilization Program because the War Department genuinely feared that the Axis Powers might sabotage or attack American industrial facilities; the more scattered the defense plants, the less likely they were to be damaged or destroyed by such aggressive acts. By 30 June

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Table 8-1. 1940, both the Site and Plant Location boards had acquired 2,116,862 acres of land on behalf of the War Department.

The second issue that the RFC dealt with during the summer of 1940 involved project financing. Klagsbrunn and Durr envisioned four potential sources of funding when they formulated the amendment to the Reconstruction Finance Act: 1) private financing with the aid of tax amortization, 2) government reimbursement of private capital outlays (EPF), 3) government ownership with the option of private purchasing, and 4) outright government ownership (Smith 1959: 440).

NDAC, and not the RFC, offered the first two options, which attempted to get private banks or companies to finance the expansion of individual industries on land provided and selected by the Plant and Site Location boards. If a bank or company paid for construction costs up-front, the government and the NDAC offered the corporate entity special tax incentives through amortization to offset construction, capital, equipment, and machinery costs. In this manner of financing, the company not only retained complete ownership of the facility, but it also recouped all costs after a few years of operation by taking advantage of available tax credits.

Despite such incentives, NDAC’s financing options were the least attractive to both banks and private enterprise. Tax incentives did not

PAGE 8-6 NAVAL WEAPONS INDUSTRIAL RESERVE PLANT DALLAS, DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS I NTEGRATED C ULTURAL R ESOURCES M ANAGEMENT P LAN eliminate, reduce, ensure, guarantee, or affect a company’s loan payments. On the other hand, banks were extremely hesitant to loan billions of dollars without assurances from the government that the applicant would not default on its payments. The country had not yet fully recovered from the devastating effects of the Great Depression, and most companies were simply not stable enough nor were they in a financial position to provide sufficient capital to fund mobilization and related construction costs. By the end of July, NDAC failed to reach a deal with any American company for industrial expansion.

The most attractive type of financing was the third type offered in Durr and Klagsbrunn’s legislation in which the U.S. government would fund, construct, and then own a factory that would be leased and operated by a private contractor under a management-fee agreement (Jones & Angly 1951: 341). The RFC had independent borrowing authority and did not rely on Congress for its funds (White November 1949: 160). Private banking institutions preferred loaning the millions, and ultimately billions, of dollars, to the federal government rather than to private enterprises. The RFC presented this third type of contract and financing to several well-established companies, including the Packard Motor Company, Curtiss-Wright Aeroplane & Motor Company, General Motors, and Ford, in 1940. With only minimal modifications and negotiation, all parties agreed to RFC financing agreements and entered into contracts to build manufacturing plants.

This third type of financing ultimately proved the most successful method to execute the facilities construction program. Once a few initial deals were in place and ready for financing, the RFC and the President implemented Section 5d of the revised Reconstruction Finance Act and established the DPC to be responsible for brokering deals between the RFC, banks, and private enterprise for the construction and operation of new industrial facilities. On 22 August 1940, the RFC organized the DPC as the instrument by which the majority of World War II factories and plants would be financed, constructed, and operated, including NWIRP Dallas (White 1980: 18).

DPC BEGINS OPERATIONS The DPC was established purely as an interim program that derived all its authority, power, board, personnel, office spaces, supplies, and money from its parent organization, the RFC. Because the DPC was created to perform an emergency job, the DPC was given great flexibility to fulfill the erratic construction and procurement demands

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of the Industrial Mobilization Program (White 1980: 50; White November 1949: 158). The DPC’s intent was to offer financing to promote each lessee’s maximum freedom during the construction, equipping and operation of its DPC-funded facility. So long as the lessee met its production requirements, the company paid only $1 a month in rent.

The actual financing process was not rigid. The Office of Production Management, War Department, Navy, Maritime Commission, and other governmental agencies came to the DPC with preferred location, type of facility needed, operator, and the type of product to be manufactured (Table 8-1). The nominating agency provided the DPC with several types of qualifying documentation: the first was a certificate of necessity that declared the facilities of “emergency” status and necessary to the national defense; the second was a certificate of government protection that guaranteed that the contractor would be reimbursed by the government for all or part of the cost, thus protecting the government from contractors seeking additional and unwarranted payments in addition to the decided-upon cost; the last requirement for DPC financing was a certificate of nonreimbursement that required the lessee to pay the cost of supply in excess of the decided-upon expenditures (U.S. Civilian Production Administration 1947: 27).

In the type of contract offered by the DPC, the contractor constructed or purchased facilities as an agent of the DPC, which arranged the financing with private lenders. Once the funds were available or dispersed to the company by the bank/lender, the DPC— essentially an agent of the government—repaid the bank and assumed the loan on behalf of the nominating industry. Next, the agency paid 40% to 50% of the total cost to the DPC at the beginning of construction and the remainder when the funds became available (Building the Navy’s Bases 1947: 385–86). The title of the plant or factory would be vested in the DPC as soon as repayment was made to the bank, and then later transferred to the nominating agency once it made full payment. In isolated instances, the lessee/contractor chose to purchase the plant on completion of construction. In those cases, the nominating agency was reimbursed for its initial investment and the DPC was paid the remainder of the loan (Building the Navy’s Bases 1947: 386).

By the end of 1940, DPC contracts totaled $250 million and were largely the result of word-of-mouth advertising within the business community. The types of industries selected for this program varied

PAGE 8-8 NAVAL WEAPONS INDUSTRIAL RESERVE PLANT DALLAS, DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS I NTEGRATED C ULTURAL R ESOURCES M ANAGEMENT P LAN from manufacturers of ammunition and weaponry to tanks, clothing, food, ships, and aircraft. Private industry was overwhelmingly pleased with the speed and terms of the DPC-style contract and enthusiastically promoted Industrial Mobilization Program activities. Companies did not approach the DPC or the RFC for expansion and supply contracts because it was the nominating federal agency, not the DPC/RFC, that determined which companies received specific jobs. It was probably no coincidence that each of the companies selected for financing had representatives or contacts within NDAC, the Office of Production Management, or the RFC/DPC, and was generally considered by the nominating agencies as manufacturing the best possible products. The list of DPC-financed industries reads like a the Who’s-Who of American business: Chrysler, GM, Ford Motor, Studebaker, Wright Aeronautical and Curtiss-Wright Aircraft, Dow, Packard Motor, DuPont, and North American Aviation (Table 8-2). “Of the more than $11 billion in contracts awarded by the [Armed] Services during the months from June to December 1940, 60% went to 20 firms and 86.4% to only 100 companies” (U.S. Civilian Production Administration 1947: 63).

The single most heavily DPC-funded industry was aircraft, which included contracts for the construction of new facilities, equipment, and machinery for the manufacture and production of thousands of aircraft (Table 8-3). The aeronautical-facilities program contained a higher percentage of DPC contracts than any other program because it was among the most important and critical elements to mobilization and subsequent war effort. Moreover, the aircraft industry was least capable of meeting production goals, especially considering its position in September 1939, just months after the Industrial Mobilization Program began. The U.S. Air Corps, the forerunner to the Air Force, had only 2,400 combat aircraft of all types available for service, and most were obsolete. as compared with the German Luftwaffe, which U.S. intelligence knew to be 8,000-planes strong (Eltscher & Young 1998: 86). The successful Nazi drives across Europe stemmed, in large part, from Germany’s vastly superior aircraft. During this prewar period, the United States had only three manufacturers of high-powered aircraft and engines and only 13 significant plants, comprising 7,335,000 square feet of floor space and employing 45,000 workers (White 1980: 19; U.S. Civilian Production Administration 1947: 80).

In May 1940, President Roosevelt gave his famous “50,000 Planes” speech, in which he announced $900 million in appropriations to transform the armed forces into a two-ocean Navy with 50,000 of the

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Table 8-2.

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Table 8-3. newest and most advanced aircraft. T. P. Wright, Vice President of the Curtiss-Wright Aeroplane & Motor Company and NDAC aircraft advisor, informed the commission that it would take nearly five years to reach the President’s goal and would require a 400% expansion of the existing aircraft industry (U.S. Civilian Production Administration 1947: 40). Compounding the pressure to produce 50,000 planes, the President modified the order only days later for the manufacture of an additional 12,896 ‘follow-on’ aircraft to cover the need for heavy bombers (U.S. Civilian Production Administration 1947: 126). As of December 1940, NDAC finalized plans on an 82,890-plane program to be completed by June 1943. To achieve President Roosevelt and NDAC’s goals, manufacturers would have to mass-produce planes at an unprecedented scale.

NORTH AMERICAN AVIATION AND ITS EXPANSION INTO TEXAS When industrial mobilization and the aircraft manufacturing boom began in early 1940, North American Aviation was a relative

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newcomer to the industry, having actively produced aircraft for only six years. Clement Keys founded North American Aviation in 1928 as an illegal holding company to hide his embezzling activities from the Curtiss-Wright Aircraft & Motor Company, where he served as president. In the fall of 1931, Curtiss-Wright executives uncovered Keys’ fiduciary improprieties and quietly removed him as president. At the same time, the board members of North American ousted Keys and replaced him with James H. “Dutch” Kindelberger, who moved the company from Dundalk, Maryland, to Inglewood, California. In 1933, North American began manufacturing small- engined aircraft and slowly built a solid name for itself. North American’s steadily increased its business by offering customers a more diversified product line of small, medium, and large aircraft. This diversification attracted both foreign and domestic orders, and the company quickly became one of the top five aircraft manufacturing companies in the nation.

By the late 1930s, North American was inundated with more orders than its Inglewood factories could meet, and the company needed to expand its facilities. Fortunately, North American was in a good financial position and able to fund the construction of new factory spaces. North American President Dutch Kindelberger heard about a pending agreement between Consolidated Aircraft and the City of Dallas, Texas, for the construction of an aircraft manufacturing plant on land adjacent to the Hensley Army Reserve Airfield. In early 1940, a failed merger between Consolidated and Hall Aluminum caused the company to renege on its deal with the City of Dallas. Kindelberger consulted Consolidated and received permission to assume Consolidated’s contractual obligations and options to the City of Dallas for the land. North American promised to build a factory in the area if the War Department consented to the company’s use of Hensley Field for the qualification of its aircraft. North American also requested that the City of Dallas extend two runways as a condition of the sale (Bilstein & Miller 1985: 94; Barksdale 1958: 3).

North American’s requests to both the City and the War Department were granted, and by August 1940, contracts were signed. On 23 August 1940 The Grand Prairie Texan, a local newspaper, announced North American’s intention to build an aircraft plant in Dallas County. The affordable land prices, moderate climate, diminutive tax burden, abundance of electric power, and availability of labor and transportation influenced the company’s decision to expand into Texas. In addition, the proposed plant site was accessible to two highways and the Texas and Pacific Railroad, a transcontinental

PAGE 8-12 NAVAL WEAPONS INDUSTRIAL RESERVE PLANT DALLAS, DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS I NTEGRATED C ULTURAL R ESOURCES M ANAGEMENT P LAN system that extended to the company’s West Coast base of operations (Grand Prairie Texan 23 August 1940: 1).

On 28 August 1940, North American officially acquired the city- owned land, approximately 10 miles from downtown Dallas, two miles from Grand Prairie, east of Hensley Field, and north of Mountain Creek Lake. The small plot of land was insufficient for all of North American’s construction needs, so the company hired local realtor Paul Carrington to acquire additional lands (Engineer’s Final Report 1944: 2). Carrington purchased 48 parcels of land in two different surveys, the J. W. Kirk and E. Crockett Survey that were adjacent to the Hensley Field site. From August to November 1940, North American finalized the deals aggregating 152.5 acres and purchased from landowners Donnie S. Higgins, A. B. Mason, J. B. Critz, Jon A. Worsham, Dallas Power & Light Company, and the estate of Mrs. Donna Roberts Fitzgerald Crane (Figure 8-1).

The company hired Allen & Kelley Architects of Indianapolis, Indiana, to design its factory spaces for the new Dallas plant. Not much is known about this firm except that they apparently designed other aircraft and industrial plants following World War II 1. The January 1948 issue of Progressive Architecture profiled Allen & Kelley Architects’ plans on a General Motors factory in Grand Rapids, Michigan because of its integration of design with equipment. Other than the Progressive Architecture feature article, little is known about Allen & Kelley Architects except that the firm designed for North American Aviation in Texas from 1940–42.

Ernest R. Breech, the chairman of the board for North American Aviation Inc., turned the first shovel of earth at the groundbreaking ceremony on 28 September 1940. The dedicatory ceremony was held in a barren pasture northwest of Mountain Creek Lake, and many local leaders in politics, aviation, and business attended the event, including Dallas Mayor Woodall Rodgers, Dallas banker J. B. Adoue, Jr., and the President of the Dallas Chamber of Commerce (Barksdale 1958: 4). Breech announced to the crowd that North American intended to transfer only a few workers from its Inglewood, California, operations and hire the majority of its work force from the North Texas area (Bilstein & Miller 1985: 94).

At the time of the ground-breaking ceremony, the manufacturing sector was a relatively small component of the local Dallas economy. Only 16,000 of Dallas County’s 398,564 residents made their living from manufacturing jobs, which earned them $15 million annually

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(The Handbook of Texas,Vol. I. 1952: 459). The majority of work available in Dallas County before World War II was in agriculture, livestock, textiles, women’s accoutrements, and oil and petroleum (Bilstein & Miller 1985: 94). North American’s annual payroll of $10 million promised to almost double the number of manufacturing jobs in Dallas County and provide an alternative source of employment in an area that had little experience with the military aircraft industry. The new North American plant was expected to affect the small, rural town of Grand Prairie beyond merely increasing its employment base. The town anticipated its population of 2,000 to double and thereby strain available housing. Local real estate experts predicted a need for 1,000 additional homes. The City of Grand Prairie doubled its police, fire, schools, water, and sewage and power even before construction officially began (Price 7 July 1940: np).

THE DPC EXPANDS INTO NORTH TEXAS North American and Consolidated were not the only aircraft companies interested in Texas during this period; the DPC Site Location Board targeted Texas as one of the top states for industrial mobilization. Texas ultimately ranked fourth among DPC-financed states in the country. The U.S. Army Air Force (USAAF) nominated North American and its products for DPC funding in early 1940, and the Dallas County factory expansion appealed to the USAAF and the DPC for many reasons, most important of which was the plant’s proximity to a proposed USAAF base east of Hensley Field.

Construction on the USAAF base in Dallas began in October 1940. It was soon placed under Navy stewardship and renamed NAS Dallas because the USAAF already had a base in Fort Worth—Carswell Army Air Force Base. NAS Dallas was one of 80 air stations constructed under the authority of the Navy’s Bureau of Yards and Docks during World War II. The Bureau’s assignment in this period was to build a system of interconnected air bases capable of supporting 27,500 airplanes and 200 seaplanes. The Navy assigned the new NASs a variety of duties and responsibilities, but their primary mission was to keep aircraft operational and combat ready. All maintenance, from major to minor work, was performed at these bases (Building the Navy’s Bases 1947: 227). Other missions included qualifying and training new recruits and testing aircraft manufactured for use in the war.

When NAS Dallas was commissioned, it had two primary missions: the first was the training of naval aviation cadets and enlisted personnel from the Marine Corps and Coast Guard on the newest and

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Figure 8-1. Real Estate summary map. Source: Defense Plant Corporation.

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most up-to-date aircraft. This function supported NAS Corpus Christi, the second largest aviation-training base in the nation. NAS Dallas’s second principal mission was to provide mechanical support and repair and maintenance of both new and used aircraft engines manufactured at various plants around the nation. In support of this effort, enlisted personnel at NAS Dallas tested and qualified light aircraft manufactured by DPC Plancors in and around Texas (NAS Dallas Historical Record nd: 1).

The DPC found that aircraft manufacturing plants and military bases could work in cooperation with one another to make the Industrial Mobilization Program work more efficiently. As a result, the placement of Plancors close to military bases became a general trend within the program. Examples occurred in St, Louis, Missouri; San Diego, California; Columbus, Ohio; Seattle, Washington; Wichita, Kansas; Buffalo, New York; Memphis, Tennessee; Stratford, Connecticut; Fort Worth, Texas, and at many other locations (Figure 8-2).

Normally, the DPC did not contract with a company after construction and planning activities had begun, as it did with the North American plant in Dallas County. Standard operating procedures for financing called for a sponsoring agency to nominate a prospective company and the DPC approached the company with a deal. The DPC agreement with Curtiss-Wright Aircraft Corporation for a plant in Hamilton County Ohio, just outside of Columbus and Cincinnati, illustrates the program’s usual process. In June 1940, the DPC approached Curtiss-Wright officials with a $37 million construction deal for the company to manufacture aircraft motors on 200 acres in rural Ohio (White 1980: 20–22). The offer also included $20 million in additional funds for working capital, equipment, and machines. Initially, Curtiss-Wright did not agree to the terms, but after routine negotiations, the company consented and the plan was formalized on 7 August 1940 (White 1980: 20–22).

The Curtiss-Wright Ohio deal represented the majority of arrangements made by the DPC with industrial corporations, but, considering the need for rapid industrial mobilization, the DPC was willing to change its normal methods and processes for financing, planning, and construction to meet production and procurement goals. Factors that interested the DPC in the North American/Dallas County agreement centered on the plant’s proximity to NAS Dallas, NAS Corpus Christi, and the company’s sponsorship by the War Department.

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The DPC suspended its normal procedures because the War Department wanted the Dallas County/NAA factory expansion included in the Plancor construction program and part of the Industrial Mobilization Program. The DPC sent Supervising Engineer, Frank Shaw, to North American Aviation’s corporate headquarters in Inglewood to discuss the DPC’s taking over the construction, operation, and ownership of the factory space. On 4 November 1940, Shaw offered North American the basic DPC financing package in which the DPC would reimburse the company for its total investment, take over any outstanding loans, continue construction of the Dallas County plant as DPC-owned Plancor #25, and lease it to North American for $1 a month. North American and the DPC negotiated for two days and, on 6 November 1940, they signed a contract and lease for the construction of a plant, support structures, and the acquisition of equipment and machinery worth

Figure 8-2. Aerial photo of NAS Dallas and Hensley Field in relation to Plancor #25. Source: United States Naval Air Stations of World War II: Volume 2, Western States by M. L Shettle, Jr.

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$7.9 million dollars (Bilstein & Miller 1985: 94; Engineer’s Final Report 1944: 2, 3).

Even though North American signed away ownership of Plancor #25, the company retained considerable rights regarding the construction of the plant as lessee. First, the company worked with the DPC, the architects, and engineers on the design and plant layout. North American insisted that the floor plan be simple but innovative to maximize speed of production. Second, North American wanted the DPC to honor its existing contracts with Allen & Kelley Architects and James Stewart & Company, to design, supervise construction, and provide engineering services. The DPC agreed to this request with the stipulation that the architects and engineers comply with Industrial Mobilization rationing rules and War Department design criteria.

In 1940, the War Resources Board began a rationing program for items critical to the national defense and the Industrial Mobilization Program. War Resources Board restrictions on steel greatly affected the Industrial Mobilization Program’s national building program and required architects to use alternative materials, such as concrete and wood, in the construction of noncritical buildings (Kane 1995: 85–6). Owing to rationing, the DPC replaced the Mosher Steel Company of Dallas as the steel contractor for Plancor #25 in an effort to directly control the amount of steel used during the construction of the plant (Engineer’s Final Report 1944: 3).

The DPC created a set of construction designations according to the War Resources Board restrictions that guided architects and engineers in the design and construction of DPC-financed factories. Assigned building designations indicated a facility’s overall level of importance within the operations of the complex and the Industrial Mobilization Program. Type “A” buildings were considered critical to the manufacture of war-related products and thus were fireproof and constructed with steel and concrete. Types “B,” “C,” and “D” buildings were made of concrete and wood, and Type “E” designations indicated construction materials of concrete and brick (Table 8-4). Each major and minor building at Plancor #25 was assigned a DPC-construction designation (Engineer’s Final Report 1944: 10).

On 16 September 1940, the Assistant Secretary of War, Robert P. Patterson, forwarded a naval operations memo to the executives at North American Aviation requesting that they comply with certain

PAGE 8-18 NAVAL WEAPONS INDUSTRIAL RESERVE PLANT DALLAS, DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS I NTEGRATED C ULTURAL R ESOURCES M ANAGEMENT P LAN

Table 8-4.

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design criteria for aircraft manufacturing plants. Following the company’s contract with the DPC, the request turned into a requirement. Allen & Kelley Architects were forced to adhere to DPC specifications and design Plancor #25 as a “blackout” style plant. This type of design provided a measure of protection against enemy air attack or sabotage. The War Department developed a set of blackout criteria for architects and engineers. The first blackout standard addressed general plant location and the preference for inland rather than coastal states, and rural over urban areas. Second, the War Department favored dispersal of buildings instead of a closely packed factory space. They recommended a distance between buildings of 100 yards. The War Department justified this second criterion by postulating that if a bomb were dropped, the destruction of one or two facilities would not disrupt the production of the entire plant (R.E. Ingersoll to Chief of Naval Operations 16 September 1940: 1). The third blackout provision included installation of opaque shutters or mechanical curtains in all windows, skylights, doors, and other places where interior light might escape. Fluorescent, incandescent, and mercury vapor lights were installed and pointed downward in an effort to help reduce the amount of interior light emanating from the buildings. This provision also included completely sealing all entryways (R.E. Ingersoll to Chief of Naval Operations 16 September 1940: 1–2). As an additional measure against destruction under bomb attack, the War Department’s fourth blackout criterion included the design and installation of fire and bomb walls. The final provision of a blackout building incorporated camouflage techniques to prevent a possible bomber or saboteur from discovering the plant. Concealment included landscaping, painting the buildings to match the terrain, and disguising the roofs of factories by painting designs such as farms, golf courses, or residential neighborhoods (R. E. Ingersoll to Chief of Naval Operations 16 September 1940: 2, 4). At Plancor #25, the roofs were disguised as a golf course (Hanley 1986: 46).

Once Allen & Kelley Architects considered the requirements of both the owner and the lessee, they designed for the first blackout-style, DPC-financed, windowless, fully air-conditioned, and artificially- lighted factory space in the United States (Bilstein & Miller 1985: 95; Barksdale 1958: 5). Known as Facility 1, the factory featured an open and simplistic arrangement that emphasized speed of production. Its spacious internal layout facilitated the quick movement of basic materials from storage to production to shipping and receiving departments (Barksdale 1958: 5). The main manufacturing area consisted of 900,000 square feet and was

PAGE 8-20 NAVAL WEAPONS INDUSTRIAL RESERVE PLANT DALLAS, DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS I NTEGRATED C ULTURAL R ESOURCES M ANAGEMENT P LAN designed to accommodate the production of 325 AT-6 “Texan” trainers and 250 P-51 “Mustang” combat fighters per month (Engineer’s Final Report 1944: 65).

CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATIONS BEGIN AT PLANCOR #25 The DPC and North American hired several prime contractors and subcontractors from different parts of the nation to provide a variety of services in the construction of Plancor #25 (Table 8-5). J. Gordon Turnball, Inc., of Cleveland, Ohio, was an important addition to this plant’s construction team as consulting engineer. At the time, the consulting company provided numerous architectural and engineering services to the DPC building program for Curtiss-Wright factories in St. Louis and Buffalo. In addition to these plants, J. Gordon Turnball designed and constructed facilities for General Motors and several other engine manufacturing facilities, including the Guiberson Diesel Engine Company of Texas and Continental Motors Corporation (Plancor #1504), both in nearby Garland, that supplied North American with aircraft engines during World War II (Engineer’s Final Report 1944: 66). James Stewart & Company served as prime contractor to the plant’s construction and signed a contract for $1,705,000. James Stewart & Company supervised the general construction of the entire plant, with J. Gordon Turnball working as a subcontractor (Engineer’s Final Report 1944: 2).

Beginning 13 November 1940, James Stewart & Company stripped, graded, and cleared the former cotton and pasture lands into the site for Plancor #25. The Texas & Pacific Railroad began construction on a team track and spur along the south side wall of Facility 1 and placed an additional, but temporary, spur on the building’s east side (Engineer’s Final Report 1944: 2). Only a few days later, rain began to fall intermittently, but they continued over a 100-day period, culminating in 14 inches of rainfall (Engineer’s Final Report 1944: 3). The president of North American, Dutch Kindelberger, recalled the conditions: “On 2 December 1940, when the first steel was erected, it was a morass of black mud. It rained so frequently that the construction crews almost had to take soundings to see just where their trucks had disappeared” (Barksdale 1958: 6). Despite the rough weather, James Stewart & Company completed significant construction activities at the site. Plumbing, electrical lines, heating, ventilation, and fire protection systems were installed by a variety of subcontractors in November and December 1940. By 29 January 1941, James Stewart & Company had finished the steel framework and trusses for the Facility 1 manufacturing building and its seven ancillary Type “A” facilities (Engineer’s Final Report 1944: 3).

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Table 8-5.

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In only three months, enough construction was completed at Plancor #25 that North American was able to unload and store machine tools and also install pieces of permanent equipment in Facility 1 and Figure 8-3. Interior photograph of Facility 23, the other production spaces, Foundry, during World War II. Source: NWIRP such as Facility 22, the Dallas Plant Records. Drop Hammer Building, and Facility 23, the Foundry (Figures 8-3 & 8-4). During the period from January to March 1941, numerous contractors and subcontractors worked quickly to construct the Facility 1 manufacturing factory and its 12 support structures. On 8 March 1941, before James Stewart & Company completed construction, North American began manufacturing activities on the AT-6 Texan training aircraft in Facility 1 (Figure 8-5). It was vital to the DPC Figure 8-4. Interior photograph of Facility 22, the Drop that production operations at Plancor Hammer Building. Source: NWIRP Dallas Plant Records. #25—especially on the Texan—begin as soon as possible so that aviators across the country, particularly at NAS Dallas and NAS Corpus Christi, could prepare and train on the type of aircraft most likely to be flown by the USAAF and the Navy. The first full- production Texan rolled off Facility 1’s manufacturing line on 29 March 1941. North American pronounced the Texan ready for flight testing and Figure 8-5. Aerial photograph of Plant “A” facilities under towed it to Facility construction, 8 July 1941. Source: NWIRP Dallas Plant Records. 20, the Hangar. The

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Figure 8-6. Completed Plant “A” facilities, manufacturing and office buildings, circa 1941. Source: NWIRP Dallas Plant Records.

following day, North American towed it to Hensley Field, where it took its maiden flight (Engineer’s Final Report 1944: 4).

James Stewart & Company completed construction on the Facility 1 manufacturing building in April 1941 (Figure 8-6). Some of Facility 1’s ancillary buildings included an office building (Facility 2), a power generating plant (Facility 26), a million-gallon water reservoir (Facility 35), a sewage treatment plant (Facility 34), air-conditioning cooling towers, paint storage facilities (Facility 24), the Foundry (Facility 23), and the Drop Hammer Building (Facility 22), and a hangar and aircraft storage (Facility 20) (Bilstein & Miller 1985: 95). North American and the DPC celebrated the beginning of production at Plancor #25 by hosting a dedicatory ceremony for 400 distinguished guests of North American, NAS Dallas, the DPC, Industrial Mobilization Program’s Advisory Committee, and local Dallas County leaders on 7 April 1941. Attendees included Assistant Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson, William S. Knudsen, J. Buell Snyder, Colonel I. H. Edwards, Ernest R. Breech, and DPC Chief of Council Hans Klagsbrunn (Engineer’s Final Report 1944: 4). In a luncheon speech given on Facility 1’s assembly line, Robert P. Patterson reflected: “The super-human job you Texans have accomplished in erecting this great monument to defense is an example for the entire nation. There is new reason to believe that the American aircraft industry can do the unbelievable job expected of it” (Hanley 1986: 46).

The onset of production at Plancor #25 resulted in economic and industrial growth in Dallas County, as well as a population boom in nearby Grand Prairie. The DPC sought to ease housing shortages by providing lodging for the thousands of workers who poured into the area. The DPC and the Federal Works Administration funded the construction of a defense-housing colony known as “Avion Village,” located southwest and within walking distance of Plancor #25. Avion Village consisted of 300 hastily constructed prefabricated homes on

PAGE 8-24 NAVAL WEAPONS INDUSTRIAL RESERVE PLANT DALLAS, DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS I NTEGRATED C ULTURAL R ESOURCES M ANAGEMENT P LAN concrete slab foundations. According to a contemporary source: “One crew completely erected and furnished a cottage on a waiting foundation in 58 minutes and 50 seconds–and defeated its competitor by only two minutes. More adequate than many defense housing projects, Avion Village included a community center, swimming pool, parks and playgrounds, and a public school” (Barksdale 1958: 5).

INDUSTRIAL MOBILIZATION: THE WAR PERIOD, DECEMBER 1941— AUGUST 1945 As officials celebrated the completion of Plancor #25 in Dallas, events in the Pacific heightened. When Japan overran French- controlled Indo-China in May 1941, the Industrial Mobilization’s aircraft procurement program increased and diversified into the development and production of the long-range, four-engine bomber, a weapon specifically designed to exert pressure in Asia. During this period, American aircraft industry developed three types of bombers: the heavy Consolidated B-24 Liberator, the medium Martin B-26 Marauder, and the heavy North American B-25 Mitchell (U.S. Civilian Production Administration 1947: 48).

American aircraft companies already had orders to sustain themselves through 1942, and this increased demand for bombers overwhelmed the industry’s capabilities and its newly constructed facilities. Knudsen urged automotive companies to undertake the challenge of the new bomber production program in government- owned plants and in collaboration with the company that designed the aircraft (U.S. Civilian Production Administration 1947: 49). Because North American was a subsidiary of the GM and the designer of the B-25 Mitchell, the DPC turned to GM to produce the bomber at a newly completed factory in Kansas City. The Ford Motor Company owned Consolidated Aircraft and agreed to undertake B-24 Liberator production in two DPC-owned Plancor facilities: Tulsa, Oklahoma and Fort Worth, Texas.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 forced the Industrial Mobilization Program to acknowledge that the production effort offered by the automotive industry was insufficient to meet the demand and urgency for bomber aircraft. The prospect of a full-scale, two-front war made existing procurement, production, and industrial facilities dangerously deficient, and goals were sharply increased. The War Department demanded that the aircraft industry undergo additional facilities expansion to accommodate heavy bomber production and sent nominations to the DPC for the original aircraft

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designers to expand their factories. Because Consolidated was engaged in B-24 Liberator production in Fort Worth, the DPC believed that North American in nearby Dallas could cooperate on the Liberator production program. North American and the DPC were willing to expand further into Dallas County “because the people of Dallas and Texas have shown a wonderful spirit of cooperation, a genuine desire to do everything necessary to win the war, and a great aptitude for aircraft manufacture” (Dallas Morning

Figure 8-7. Plant “B” expansion plot plan as prepared by J. Gordon Turnball, Inc. Source: Defense Plant Corporation.

News 20 December 1942: np). The DPC assigned North American’s Plancor #25 an expanded production and facility order for 100 B-24 heavy bombers per month in a new manufacturing building called Facility 6 (Engineer’s Final Report 1944: 4, 65) (Figure 8-7). It was not uncommon for a DPC-sponsored Plancor to be built in two planned construction phases. Curtiss-Wright’s Plancor #17 in St. Louis was built from 1940–42 whereas its ancillary building, Plancor #17A was constructed in 1943. However, it is not clear whether a two-phase construction plan was intended for Plancor #25

PAGE 8-26 NAVAL WEAPONS INDUSTRIAL RESERVE PLANT DALLAS, DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS I NTEGRATED C ULTURAL R ESOURCES M ANAGEMENT P LAN or whether the second phase was merely a response to wartime demands. It is unlikely that Plancor #25 was intended as a two-phase plant for several reasons. First, the DPC accommodated North American’s previous commitments when it assumed stewardship of the Dallas County plant deal, which included existing architectural designs for the planned buildings. Second, the need for bomber aircraft presented itself only when construction at Dallas was nearly complete. The President’s 50,000 plane goal primarily involved building trainer and fighter aircraft to combat Germany and Japan’s known capabilities, which did not include heavy bombers. Finally, Plancor #25 had excess land available for additional construction. It is possible that the War Department incorporated North American in its expanded bomber production program because Plancor #25 had room for additional facilities and was capable of accommodating the manufacturing demands. Nevertheless, it is impossible to confirm whether the 1943 expansion of Plancor #25 was planned prior to the emergency shortages of heavy bombers in 1941.

EXPANSION AT PLANCOR #25 On 28 February 1943, North American and the DPC amended their lease to provide nearly $34 million in additional funds for the acquisition of surrounding land and the construction of a second, much larger manufacturing building, called Plant “B,” or Facility 6, along with its support structures (Figure 8-8). The funds also targeted the purchase and installation of machinery and equipment for production of the B-24 Liberator Bomber, as well as additions to existing Plancor #25 facilities, now called Plant “A” buildings (Engineer’s Final Report 1944: 4). The Plant “B” expansion contract between the DPC and North American was different from the first arrangement because the company had a limited say in the expansion. The DPC assumed complete control for the selection of the architect, engineer, contractor, and subcontractor (Table 8-6).

Consistent in Plancor construction nationwide, the DPC preferred to engage architectural-engineering firms to design and supervise their plants rather than hire separate architects and engineers. In the 1942–44 Plant “B” expansion, the DPC selected J. Gordon Turnball as the architectural engineer instead of Allen & Kelley Architects, who had designed Plant “A.” The architectural engineer’s contractual obligations included surveying the property, drawing the maps, making layouts, preparing estimates, adapting standard plans to the sites, designing unique structures, and supervising the overall construction of the Plancor (Fine & Remington 1972: 193).

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Figure 8-8. Artist’s rendition of the Plant “B” manufacturing expansion of Plancor #25. Source: Defense Plant Corporation.

The DPC again hired a variety of companies for construction services, some of whom worked on Plant “A” (Table 8-7). The DPC hired James Stewart & Company to construct and equip Facility 6 and its support buildings (Engineer’s Final Report 1944: 4–5). Interestingly, DPC hired the Mosher Steel Company of Dallas, which had been fired during the “Plant A” construction because of steel restrictions. The DPC no longer had to provide its own steel as it did in 1941, because the Office of Production Management and the Industrial Mobilization Program took control of steel rationing. Because steel was still in short supply in March 1942, the DPC required the crew for “Plant B” to adhere to its construction designations “A”–“F.” The Industrial Mobilization Program, NDAC, Office of Production Management, and DPC worked diligently with private industry to establish compliance standards so that they could provide the supply work to construction programs (U.S. Civilian Production Administration 1947: 141).

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Table 8-6.

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Contractors and Subcontractors for Plant “B” Construction at Plancor #25

Table 8-7.

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While the DPC hired subcontractors, it also negotiated the purchase of additional lands to support the construction activities for the “Plant B” expansion. DPC purchased four large parcels of land in the P. Linney and R. Huitt surveys from the Estate of Mrs. Donna Roberts Fitzgerald on 25 March 1942, the Estate of Annie I. Stevens two days later, and from W. E. Smallwood et al. on 7 August 1942. As soon as the land was purchased, the DPC ordered construction to begin.

From 22 to 30 March, several significant construction activities took place at Plancor #25. First, the Wallace Plumbing Company laid temporary water lines. Second, the Grand Prairie Construction Company began excavation on a spur of the Texas and Pacific Railroad to provide lines to the “Plant B” Manufacturing Building (Facility 6), the Wood Shop and Garage (Facility 27), and the Figure 8-9. Plant “B” final assembly area for B-24 Bomber. Warehouse (Facility 25). North Source: NWIRP Dallas Plant Records. American used the Texas and Pacific track to receive engines and parts from suppliers in North Texas, to ship and receive subassemblies from Consolidated in Fort Worth, and ship assemblies to the company’s plants in Southern California. Finally, James Stewart & Company cleared and graded the land. They also supervised Mosher Steel while it erected “Plant B” and the structural steel columns and trusses for all Type “A” buildings (Engineer’s Final Report 1944: 5).

From March 30 until the end of October 1942, the DPC had construction crews working around the clock on the “Plant B” expansion and, by December, North American began partial operation of its new bomber manufacturing plant (Figure 8-9). The first Dallas-produced B-24 Liberator rolled off the Plant “B” assembly line in March 1943 and was probably Figure 8-10. B-24 wing production in Plant “B” during World flown by North American test pilots War II. Source: NWIRP Dallas Plant Records. from Hensley Field to Carswell Army Air Force Base in Fort Worth, where it was tested and qualified (Figure 8-10). The USAAF accepted the first

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B-24 on 16 March 1943 (Engineer’s Final Report 1944: 5). Neighboring NAS Dallas did not test and qualify the bomber aircraft produced at Plancor #25, only the light AT-6 Texan trainers and P-51 Mustangs; Carswell was probably assigned the responsibility of testing heavier aircraft.

FULL-SCALE OPERATIONAL ACTIVITIES BEGIN AT PLANCOR #25 From 1942–45, North American’s employees at Plancor #25 worked three, 8-hour shifts, 24 hours a day, six days a week. Plancor #25 reportedly became the only aircraft factory in the entire nation to produce all three types of military planes—trainers, fighters, and bombers (Dallas Times Herald 29 Figure 8-11. Plant “A” final assembly area for the P-51 December 1942: np). In the first eight Mustang Fighter. Source: NWIRP Dallas Plant Records. months that “Plants A” and “B” were in joint production, North American produced aircraft worth $473 million at a rate of 18 AT-6 Texans, 16 P-51 Mustangs, and 10 B-24 Bombers a week (Figure 8-11).

To meet its production demands, North American required a base work force of 17,000 employees, which at times ballooned to 38,000 (Executive Order 11724 Installation Survey Report 1974: 5). The company quickly learned that it needed both new workers to accommodate B-24 production and replacement workers to alleviate its average 30% turnover rate. Since operations began in 1941, North American officials calculated that they had hired a total of 84,476 men and women and saw their turnover rate fluctuate as high as 100% (Rae 1968: 151; Dallas Morning News 8 October 1944: np). To train all these employees, North American created a War School at 2222 Ross in downtown Dallas, where classes were held 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and accommodated up to 3,000 students at one time (Dallas Morning News 7 January 1943: np). By the time the War School closed in 1944, workers logged 6,703,897 hours of instruction in over 40 different subjects, equivalent to the amount of instruction and class size of Southern Methodist University (Dallas Morning News 8 October 1944: np).

Despite constant advertising in local newspapers, North American had difficulty recruiting men to work in its Plancor #25 factories. The company resorted to hiring handicapped and older men, 16- 17-year- old boys, and professional men exempt from the draft. As early as

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November 1941, the shortage of available working men forced North American to recruit women into its work force. A year later, women constituted 30% of its total production force (Rae 1968: 151). Of the 6,300 employees of the “Plant A” manufacturing building in September 1943, 60% were Dallas-area women and new recruits to the industrial work force, 4,000 of whom were housewives prior to their employment at North American’s Plancor #25 (Dallas Morning News 11 September 1943). In general, women came to work in the aircraft industry “out of a patriotic desire to assist in the war effort and to augment the family income. They did not go to work with the idea of permanently displacing men in traditionally male-dominated jobs, nor did they regard their new positions as permanent feminist beachheads in the workplace” (Trimble 1990: 213).

In an effort to create loyalty among its employees, boost morale, and reduce the employee turnover and absentee rates, North American, like many other companies, sponsored recreational programs such as sports teams and tournaments, dances, beauty pageants, choirs, picnics, and outings to local amusement parks for its workers. Sports teams were divided according to gender and production areas and included popular games such as basketball, fishing, soccer, softball, baseball, football, golf, tennis, and bowling. Results of tournaments and recreational events were reported in the company magazine, North American Skyline, and its corporate newspaper, the North American Skywriter. Like many other industrial WWII publications, North American’s magazine and newspaper were cheerful and well illustrated, and included features on major production programs at the Plancor, outstanding individuals, the history of the factory, gossip, and information on friends and former employees currently serving the military (Trimble 1990: 216).

North American’s steps to appease workers and overcome its labor problems appears to have greatly influenced its employees’ production efforts during the war. The company contributed to America’s “Arsenal of Democracy” by producing nearly 15,000 AT- 6/SNJ Texans, 8,000 P-51 Mustang fighters, and more than 500 B-24 bomber aircraft. North American employees produced one of these three aircraft every 40 minutes (Dallas Morning News 4 June 1944: np). It has been reported that more planes were built at North American’s Dallas plant than anywhere else in the country—over 20,000 flyaway units and enough equipment and spare parts to total 25,000 additional aircraft (Figure 8-12) (Barksdale 1958: 7).

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Figure 8-12. Aerial view of Plancor #25 following construction, circa 1943. Source: NWIRP Dallas Plant Records.

Each of the three types of aircraft produced at Plancor #25 fulfilled different functions for the U.S. and its allies. The USAAF and Navy used the AT-6/SNJ Texan to train and prepare recruits for the newer, high- performance combat fighters and bombers (Figure 8-13). The Texan proved to be a universal trainer, Figure 8-13. The SNJ in flight. Source: Rockwell, The capable of simulating the performance Heritage of North American by Bill Yenne. of both fighters and bombers (Yenne 1989: 24). This characteristic made the aircraft both cost effective and an excellent preparatory training device for the variety of planes that new recruits might fly in combat. North American produced nearly 17,000 Texans, with Plancor #25 contributing 15,000 of this total (Donald 1997: 705). North American engineers and employees at Plancor #25 constructed 2,970 Texans from plywood and balsa wood to conserve aluminum

PAGE 8-34 NAVAL WEAPONS INDUSTRIAL RESERVE PLANT DALLAS, DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS I NTEGRATED C ULTURAL R ESOURCES M ANAGEMENT P LAN for its combat aircraft, the P-51 Mustang (Yenne 1989: 26). All North American Texans were qualified and tested to some degree by NAS Dallas pilots, whose procedures were probably abbreviated because of wartime constraints and the desperate need for the aircraft in training exercises. In all, NAS Dallas personnel directly flew and cleared 4,421 Texans at Hensley Field before they were shipped to the fleet (Figure 8-14); Figure 8-14. SNJ-45 at NAS Dallas. Source: United States NAS Dallas Historical Record nd:1). Naval Air Stations of World War II; Volume II-Western States. by M. L Shettle, Jr. North American also enjoyed great success with its P-51 Mustang. In 1940, the British approached North American about producing the Curtiss- Wright-designed P-40, but Dallas executive Dutch Kindelberger felt that the P-40 was inadequate against the speed, capabilities, and range of Nazi interceptors. Kindelberger offered to design and build a superior combat fighter for the British instead of the P- Figure 8-15. A P-51 Mustang fighter on airport runway. 40, even though the company had Source: Rockwell, The Heritage of North American by Bill Yenne. never designed or built a fighter in its history. Procurement officials from Great Britain liked Kindelberger’s idea and ordered the proposed P-51 Mustang sight unseen. North American engineers designed and manufactured the new fighter in an unprecedented 100 days at its Inglewood, California, plant (Empires of Industry 29 June 1999). The P-51’s revolutionary innovations included thin, stream-lined wings, a 2,000- pound bomb load, a jet-like radiator system, and a Rolls Royce engine that allowed the plane to regularly reach the top speed of 443 miles per hour (Figures 8-15 & 8-16). The P-51’s Figure 8-16. P-51-D Mustang fighters on production line in Plant “A” during World War II. Source:Rockwell, The Heritage long-range capability, bomb load, and of North American by Bill Yenne.

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speed were its greatest assets. The Mustang’s reserve tanks allowed it to travel over 2,000 miles before refueling. The fighter’s speed and range are the key reasons the aircraft is regarded as one of the most important fighters of World War II (Empires of Industry 29 June 1999; Donald 1997: 702). The performance of the P-51 prototype caused its demand to skyrocket. North American’s expanded facilities in Inglewood, Kansas, and Dallas were assigned the challenge of mass-producing the fighter. Plancor #25 produced nearly 8,000 P-51 Mustangs at a rate of 16 per week during the war (Yenne 1989: 57). The P-51 fought in both the European and Pacific theaters. Over Germany skies, long-range Mustang fighters escorted bombers in and out of Berlin and overwhelmed the Luftwaffe by destroying nearly half of the fleet and blasting its bases (Yenne 1989: 57). The P-51 had tremendous dive bombing and escort capabilities that enabled the USAAF and Navy to make daring daylight raids into the heart of Germany that slowly eroded Nazi resistance (Empires of Industry 29 June 1999). Chuck Yeager, one of America’s greatest pilots, flew a P- 51 over the skies in Europe and described it as “the best American fighter in the war, equal to anything the Germans put up against her” (Yenne 1989: 54). Over the Pacific, the Mustang stormed into Iwo Jima and was vital to the capture of that base, which the Americans later used to launch an invasion into the Japanese homeland. At the conclusion of fighting in both theaters, more Mustangs survived than any other fighter, with 3,303 retained in service (Yenne 1989 48, 57).

Plancor #25 won the prestigious “E” Pennant by the Army Air Force Flying Training Command on 21 September 1942, for outstanding production efforts on its Texan trainer and Mustang fighter aircraft (Engineer’s Final Report 1944: 4). The plant’s employees received the award for the production of a record 728 aircraft in a single 30- day period (Bilstein & Miller 1985: 95; Barksdale 1958: 7). The “E” Pennant was the highest honor the United States bestowed on its “civilian production soldiers” and the first awarded in the state of Texas (Hanley 1986: 47). A second “E” Pennant flew at Plancor #25 in April 1943, when the Army–Navy presented the employees with the award for the company’s continued production excellence (Dallas Morning News 7 April 1943: np).

The B-24 Liberator bomber proved to be the United States’ most extensively produced aircraft during World War II, with 19,000 total aircraft built by Consolidated in Fort Worth, North American in Dallas, and Ford at Tulsa (Donald 1997: 266–67). Plancor #25 contributed only a small percentage of the overall figure for the B-24, producing the Liberator bomber for only 19 months (Figure 8-17).

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Figure 8-17. Production layout/floor plan for B-24 Liberator production in Plant “B” during World War II. Source: Defense Plant Corporation.

Faster than the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, the Liberator’s speed, range (3,000 miles), and availability made it popular with the U.S. military and its allies. Like the Mustang, the Liberator was used in both Europe and Japan during World War II. Often escorted by the P-51, the B-24 flew deep into Germany to drop its bomb load across Nazi territories (Empires of Industry

29 June 1999). The B-24, like many Figure 8-18. B-24 Liberator Bomber. Source: The Complete other bomber aircraft, was capable of Encyclopedia of World Aircraft. flying in high altitudes over the Himalayan Mountains after the Japanese closed the Burma Road in 1942. Later in the war, the B-24 was used exclusively to ferry aviation fuel over the Himalayans to support the operational activities of the Boeing B-29 Superfortresses in China. (Figure 8-18).

PLANCOR #25 OPERATIONS ARE REDUCED By summer 1944, the Allied Forces had taken the upper hand in both Europe and the Pacific. The United States’ superior manufacturing ability, together with the quality and quantity of its military personnel, proved to be the deciding factors in victory over the Axis

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Powers. (Eltscher & Young 1998: 95, 123). From 1940–44, American factories clearly out produced both its allies and the enemy with aircraft amounting to 27% of the total munitions output, peaking at $16 billion. DPC-owned plants in the Midwest, like Plancor #25 in Dallas, produced over 35% of all aircraft, airframes, and engines used in the war (Yoshpe & Franke 1968: 49–50).

The American aircraft industry anticipated the war’s end with a combination of apprehension and optimism because the cessation of fighting meant significant cutbacks in military contracts. Dallas’s North American plant was not immune to this dilemma. Production contracts at Plancor #25 were cut back on 10 August 1944, and 3,687 employees lost their jobs when the original B-24 Liberator contract was reduced (Dallas Morning News 17 August 1944: np). A supplemental order for production of the B-29 Superfortress and nose portion of the B-25 Mitchell Bomber saved many Plancor #25 employees from dismissal, but the reprieve was only temporary (Dallas Times Herald 28 September 1944: np). Full production on the Texan and Mustang continued through January 1945, when it was reduced to approximately 60% of the earlier wartime production rates (Dallas Morning News 17 August 1944: np).

During this reduction period, the Dallas and Grand Prairie Chambers of Commerce assessed the contributions of the DPC and North American in Dallas County. In just the first eight months of 1944, North American’s total military sales topped $235,939,610, compared with $155,945,064 for all other manufactured products in Dallas County during the entire year. Grand Prairie’s population was only 2,000 when the company first came to Dallas County, but it mushroomed to 16,339 persons, largely due to the construction of Plancor #25 and NAS Dallas (Engineer’s Final Report 1944: 66). At its peak, North American paid a monthly payroll of $10,442,889, compared with $15,522,683 for other businesses and industries in Dallas County during the same year (Dallas Morning News 8 August 1944). From these figures, North American clearly stimulated significant growth within Dallas county from 1941–44. Any employment reductions at Plancor #25 would greatly affect the county’s economic growth and stability.

On V-J Day, as the world celebrated the Allied victory, North American Aviation, like many employers nationwide, gave its 29,000 employees at Plancor #25 a holiday (Barksdale 1958: 7; Engineer’s Final Report 1944: 66). During the break, company officials decided to close their Dallas factory in order to remain in the aircraft

PAGE 8-38 NAVAL WEAPONS INDUSTRIAL RESERVE PLANT DALLAS, DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS I NTEGRATED C ULTURAL R ESOURCES M ANAGEMENT P LAN manufacturing business. North American announced on Dallas radio stations and in local newspapers its decision to immediately shut down the Dallas factory on account of contract cancellations. Half of the employees were told not to return to Plancor #25 following the holiday, while the other half —approximately 17,000—were allowed to return for 15 days to prepare the plant for closure and return it to the U.S. government (Hanley 1986: 50; Bilstein & Miller 1985: 137).

INDUSTRIAL MOBILIZATION: THE TRANSITION PERIOD, AUGUST 1945–DECEMBER 1947

DEFENSE PLANT CORPORATION CLOSES SHOP In the summer of 1945, it became apparent to the Industrial Mobilization Program that the war was coming to an end. America no longer needed to fund an expansion of its industrial facilities and the DPC was officially folded back into the RFC and renamed the Office of Defense Plants, on 30 June. This action signaled the end of the DPC’s wartime work and the creation of the Office of Defense Plants’ to administer the former industrial facilities (White 1980: 89). The Office of Defense Plants recommended to the War Department that the military branches retain facilities considered critical to the manufacture of military supplies, with the remainder sold to private enterprise. On 28 July 1945 the Department of the Navy and War Department gave their consent to the disposal of excess DPC- sponsored property and, on 20 August 1945, the War Productions Board released 146 properties, including Plancor #25 (White 1980: 101).

The DPC had financed 2,098 plants in 46 different states totaling $7,939,465,000 during World War II (Table 8-8). Of that number, the DPC owned 920 plants valued at $6,055,000,000, most of which were projects nominated by the armed forces (Jones & Angly 1951). The DPC, the Industrial Mobilization Program, the War Department, and Congress considered these properties valuable not only in war but also in peacetime, because the factories would help the nation retain its military superiority. As of July 1944, the Senate War Committee and the Truman Committee urged the DPC and War Department to retain ownership of the plants and place them on standby status in the event of a future conflict or emergency (White 1980: 111).

The DPC responded to Congress and the War Department’s requests by sending its best engineers to all of its wholly owned plants and conducted surveys to determine the best postwar uses for each

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Table 8-8.

PAGE 8-40 NAVAL WEAPONS INDUSTRIAL RESERVE PLANT DALLAS, DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS I NTEGRATED C ULTURAL R ESOURCES M ANAGEMENT P LAN factory and contractor. Guided by a set of 20 questions, the engineers recorded on each Plancor’s physical and economic characteristics, contractor’s intentions following the war, importance to the Industrial Mobilization Program, and, if it was a large plant, its prospects for multiple tenancy. The engineer assessed 879 plants and plant sites that the DPC and the War Department considered critical to maintaining the country’s military prowess. The assessments were compiled in a bound report called the Briefalogue, which was first published in October 1944 (White 1980: 100).

Facility retention or disposal depended greatly on the updated Briefalogue report, ordered by the Office of Defense Plants and published in August 1945. The new volume reported that the government owned 96% of the nation’s synthetic rubber capacity, 90% of its magnesium metal, 58% of its aluminum, 50% of its aluminum fabrication facilities, 71% of its aircraft and aircraft engine industry, and the bulk of the nation’s machine tools (White 1980: 90; Jones & Angly 1951: 316). The 1945 Briefalogue also showed that the aircraft industry was the single-most financed industry of World War II and represented half of all of all DPC investment— approximately $3.8 billion (Yoshpe & Franke 1968: 50). DPC invested $2.6 billion directly in land, buildings, machines, and other equipment to build aircraft, airframes, and its parts (Jones & Angly 1951: 316). Of this number, the DPC disbursed $1.357 billion for airplane engine plants alone, yielding 14 of the 15 largest airplane plants in the nation (White 1980: 68). The DPC infused the remaining billion into aviation as capital.

The USAAF and the Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics sponsored 82% of all aircraft facilities constructed for World War II, and in the waning days of the war, the aircraft manufacturing industry lost more than $21 billion in contracts, primarily from their sponsoring agencies (Yoshpe & Franke 1968: 50; Eltscher & Young 1998: 127). As a result of the mass contract cancellation, the number of aircraft manufacturing companies was reduced from 66 to 16, as total sales, earning, and employment levels plummeted (Eltscher & Young 1998: 127). Consequently, the USAAF and Navy were left with many empty aircraft factories following the war, including Plancor #25 in Dallas County. Because it no longer actively produced aircraft for the USAAF, on 28 July 1945, Plancor #25 was added to the list of disposable properties presented to the Office of Defense Plants.

Like many other excess Plancors, the Office of Defense Plants listed the former North American Aviation Dallas County aircraft plant as

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Figure 8-19. A notice printed in the Wall Street Journal, circa 1945, advertising surplus DPC property. Plancor #25 is listed in the lower left corner. Source: Defense Plant Corporation.

PAGE 8-42 NAVAL WEAPONS INDUSTRIAL RESERVE PLANT DALLAS, DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS I NTEGRATED C ULTURAL R ESOURCES M ANAGEMENT P LAN surplus property and for sale in advertisements across the nation (Figure 8-19). The Office of Defense Plants advertised Plancor #25 as readily convertible for multiple manufacturing purposes such as commercial airplanes or parts, automobiles and trucks, refrigerators, unit heaters, or products consisting principally of sheet metal and small machined parts (Engineer’s Final Report 1944: 65–66). The two large components (Plant “A” and Plant “B”) were rated ideal for multiple tenancy and capable of operating independently of other suppliers or contractors. Its location, proximity to transportation, and abundant labor pool were also touted as advantages.

The sheer size of Plancor #25—85 buildings on a 272-acre site— worked against its outright sale to a private corporation. The plant’s nearly 3 million square feet of manufacturing space, including facilities, land, machinery, and equipment, was valued at approximately $35 million (Dallas Morning News 24 December 1945: np). In addition, the air-conditioning required to cool the factories’ high and wide bays added to operational costs (White 1980: 105). When no companies appeared to purchase Plancor #25 and many other government-owned aircraft plants, the Office of Defense Plants decided to retain ownership and seek potential tenants rather than buyers. The most important factors behind this decision to retain Plancor #25 were the plants proximity to NAS Dallas, its ability to be converted easily to wartime production, and its capability to produce three different types of aircraft (Engineer’s Final Report 1944: 65–67).

PLANCOR #25 CHANGES OWNERSHIP As the Office of Defense Plants processed the official transfer of Plancor #25 to the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics, it also sought new tenants for the factory (Dallas Morning News 31 October 1945: np). Many potential tenants, such as the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Company, placed bids with the Office of Defense Plants, but most wanted only partial occupancy or rental on a single building; these conditions did not appeal to either the Office of Defense Plants or the Navy (Notes on Telephone Conversation with Lt. Caufield 18 February 1946: np). While efforts to find a permanent tenant for Plancor #25 continued, the Office of Defense Plants and the Navy began considering an interim lease and deal proposed by former North American Aviation executives. The executives submitted a bid in November 1945 to lease “Plant A” and $800,000 worth of equipment for use in aircraft subcontracting work as well as other, more diversified, commercial products. Their offer provided jobs for a minimum of 3,000 displaced aircraft workers and included rent on

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at least one factory space until the Navy could locate a more permanent arrangement (Barksdale 1958: 13).

Executives Robert McCulloch, Dutch Kindelberger, Al Graf, and Bert Howard left North American following the closure of Plancor #25 in August 1945 and formed their own aircraft subcontracting firm, TEMCO. The company was created with $250,000 in capital collected from local businessmen, primarily Colonel D. Harold Byrd, a Dallas oil-man and TEMCO’s largest investor and stockholder (Brown 1972: 73; Barksdale 1958: 13). Through TEMCO’s local business support, the newly formed company acquired two different types of contracts prior to its bid on Plant “A” of Plancor #25. The first contract included an agreement with Fort Worth-based Fairchild Aircraft Corporation to assist with the production of the C-82 Packet cargo plane and F-24 cabin monoplane (Bilstein & Miller 1985: 137). TEMCO received a contract with local merchants to manufacture 14,000 popcorn vending machines (Barksdale 1958: 14). TEMCO’s commercial and production orders cemented the Office of Defense Plant’s decision to temporarily lease part of Plancor #25 to the Texas company.

In addition to the TEMCO/Plancor #25 lease, the Office of Defense Plants arranged other agreements for many other vacant aircraft plants across the nation. The Office of Defense Plant’s 1945–1947 efforts were stop-gap measures that attempted to sustain the financial viability of the plants while the government and Congress established legislation to formalize ownership of the properties. In February 1946, the RFC, on behalf of the Office of Defense Plants, filed a letter of intent with the War Assets Administration stating that Plancor #25 would be permanently transferred to the Department of the Navy, which could then either sell the plant outright or lease it at its discretion (Dallas Morning News 2 October 1946: np). It was not until August 1947 that Congress introduced legislation that formalized this arrangement, an act that authorized military management of an industrial reserve comprising former DPC- financed plants and tools (White 1980: 112).

President Harry S. Truman signed the Industrial Reserve Act (Public Law 883, 80th Congress) on 1 December 1947, and it became law early in 1948. The plants listed in the Act formed the basis of the new GOCO facilities program. The legislation authorized three types of GOCOs—ammunition, missiles, and aircraft/aerospace manufacturers—that provided the government with many advantages beyond the ability to lease excess properties. The military retained

PAGE 8-44 NAVAL WEAPONS INDUSTRIAL RESERVE PLANT DALLAS, DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS I NTEGRATED C ULTURAL R ESOURCES M ANAGEMENT P LAN ownership of the plants while shifting the day-to-day operational duties to a private contractor, who paid a nominal rental fee. In addition, the government possessed 145 emergency reserve plants that could quickly, and legally, be converted to wartime production in an emergency. The legislation assigned the Department of the Navy plants worth nearly $334,503,000 across the nation, including the Dallas County facilities (Yoshpe & Franke 1968: 47–49; White 1980: 112).

THE COLD WAR PERIOD

THE DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY ASSUMES COMMAND AT DALLAS Once it obtained stewardship of the former Plancor #25, the Department of the Navy renamed the factory NIRAP Dallas and began searching for a new, more permanent tenant to manufacture naval aircraft (Yoshpe & Franke 1968: 48). The Navy also assigned its own representative (NAVPRO) Lt. Commander W. J. Moyer to NIRAP Dallas, who assessed the situation at the plant and found that TEMCO utilized its manufacturing floor space extremely efficiently and had gained a respectable reputation as an aircraft subassembly manufacturer (Departmental Industrial Reserve Plant nd: 1). The 1947 NAVPRO assessment recommended that the Navy keep TEMCO at NIRAP Dallas.

The Navy followed from the NAVPRO recommendation and agreed to continue leasing part of the plant to TEMCO. The Navy and TEMCO signed a five-year lease on “Plant A” and its ancillary buildings on 7 December 1947. The company also requested a month-to-month temporary lease on “Plant B” to expand its production on the Globe “Swift” aircraft. The Navy consented to TEMCO’s use of the neighboring plant as long as the company vacated when a permanent tenant was located (Dallas Morning News 12 December 1947: np; Bilstein & Miller 1985: 137). Thus, the Navy decided on multiple-tenancy for NIRAP Dallas, with TEMCO subleasing “Plant A” from an experienced aircraft manufacturer engaged in prime contracting work for the Navy, who felt that established companies, with previous Navy and governmental contracts, were ideal tenants for its 26-different GOCO plants, including NIRAP Dallas (Yoshpe & Franke 1968: 50).

THE NAVY LOCATES A NEW TENANT FOR NIRAP DALLAS Immediately following the war, the Pentagon became alarmed about communist aggression and the Soviet Union’s acquisition of the atomic bomb. It again recommended that coastal aircraft companies

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move to inland locations (Hanley 1986: 50; Brown 1972: 50). In one area of the Mid-Atlantic Coast, 10 major aircraft, airframe, and engine companies —Pratt & Whitney, Grumman, Republic, Glenn L. Martin, Fairchild, Chance Vought, Hamilton Standard Propellers, Sikorsky Helicopter & Aircraft, and United Aircraft Corporation— were located within a short distance of one another (Dallas Morning News 18 December 1947: np).

One of these companies, Chance Vought Aircraft Corporation, occupied a Navy-owned manufacturing plant in Stratford, Connecticut, that was built as part of the World War II industrial facilities expansion. The 11-building plant provided only 400,000 square feet of space, which proved to be increasingly insufficient for the company’s burgeoning jet aircraft program (Figure 8-20) (Building the Navy’s Bases in World War II 1947: 397). Since Vought first occupied the Stratford site in 1940, the company grew in a haphazard fashion, increasing fivefold. No surrounding or adjacent lands were available to build new facilities, due to the presence of 10 other major aircraft corporations conducting similar business in the Figure 8-20. Vought manufacturing facility in Stratford, Connecticut. Source: Chance Vought News. vicinity (Barksdale 1958: 18; Wings for the Navy 1943: np). Vought concluded that continued operation at Stratford would not be cost effective if their products continued to shift to high-speed jet aircraft and missiles. These programs required more space, additional facilities, and longer airport runways (Rae 1968: 188). However, the company had no space to build additional facilities or runway extensions because of area congestion and increased air traffic, which made the testing and qualifying of aircraft difficult (Hanley 1986: 50).

The Department of the Navy was aware of Vought’s problems at its Stratford facilities and in December 1947, invited the company to examine the NIRAP Dallas factory (Dallas Morning News 4 December 1947: np). Chance Vought had been producing quality naval and military aircraft for decades and had an excellent reputation for fulfilling contracts and maintaining its facilities. The company proved to be an excellent candidate for tenancy at Dallas.

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Jack Hospers, vice president of Vought’s sales and service, recalled the differing reactions in Stratford and Dallas to the Navy’s offer: “The mayor of Stratford did not seem to care whether Vought was there or not. Dallas sent a high-level delegation to discuss the possibility of a relocation” (Hanley 1986: 50).

After Vought’s meeting with the Dallas officials, the company sent a survey team to North Texas to assess the facility, conditions and climate (Dallas Times Herald 18 December 1947: np; Hanley 1986: 50). Vought’s survey team returned to Stratford with a positive report on NIRAP Dallas: It liked the low taxes, the 10–15% lower wage market, the weather conditions, and the highly efficient production rates achieved by employees under North American and TEMCO. Even though Connecticut-area residents had decades of experience in aircraft manufacturing, Vought’s survey team found Dallas County’s labor pool superior to Stratford’s, in more abundant supply, and vastly more patriotic than that on the Atlantic Coast (Hanley 1986: 50). The most important factors to Vought officials was NIRAP Dallas’s design: It was planned with care, purpose, and specifically for aircraft production, which promised to save the company time and money. Operations at Stratford were costly in proportion to earnings because the plant was not equipped or arranged for maximum efficiency (Barksdale 1958: 18).

The Vought survey report influenced the Board of Directors, for they voted to relocate the plant in May 1947. Once the move was approved and the Navy was notified, the cities of Dallas and Grand Prairie were informed that Chance Vought, a subsidiary of the United Aircraft and Transport Corporation, would be locating its $17 million annual payroll in Dallas County. The formal announcement came in April 1948 and caused a flood of applicants at the Texas Employment Commission office. Approximately 4,000–5,000 applicants requested job opportunities at Vought (Dallas Morning News 18 April 1948: np; Dallas Morning News 20 April 1948: np). Four months later, on 8 August 1948, the Navy and Vought signed a formal lease on NIRAP Dallas’ Plant “B” manufacturing building and its support structures, which amounted to the majority of all structures at the complex (Bilstein & Miller 1985: 138).

As a condition of its lease with the Navy, Vought also agreed to sublease the Plant “A,” Facility 1 manufacturing building and a few of its structures to TEMCO. This multiple tenancy agreement and the wholesale move of a manufacturer from one Navy-owned plant to another was a unique step in the brief history of the GOCO program

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itself, but was consistent with Department of Defense (DOD) policies on aircraft industry dispersal (Rae 1968: 188). The Navy agreed to install a long, metal chain-link fence between the TEMCO and Vought sides of the plant as part of an overall improvement project at the NIRAP Dallas facility. The modification was made from September 1948 until early 1949, and coincided with Vought’s relocation from Stratford to Dallas (Figures 8-21 & 8-22).

VOUGHT MOVES TO DALLAS As part of its 1948 contract, the Navy agreed to help its new tenant move more than 27 million pounds of company-owned equipment from Stratford to Dallas. Early in negotiations, Vought expressed a Figure 8-21. Aerial photograph of Chance Vought facilities at NIRAP Dallas, circa 1947–48. Source: NWIRP Dallas Facility desire to retain its own equipment Records. rather than lease all of NIRAP’s equipment and machines. When North American left Dallas in 1945, employees took or destroyed nearly $200,000 worth of the NIRAP’s equipment, machines, and tools (Final Report on Accountability nd: np). Considering the facility’s incomplete stock, the Navy may have agreed that helping Vought move its equipment was more cost effective than replacing the missing pieces. Vought’s relocation to NIRAP Dallas included shipping more than 50,000 special tools, jigs, templates and presses 1,687 miles Figure 8-22. The front gate and chain-link fence between Plant from Connecticut to Texas. The “A” and Plant “B,” circa 1947–48. Source: NWIRP company used automobiles, trucks, Dallas Facility Records. trains and 1,006 freight cars to carry the 27,077,078 pounds of machinery in a two-year move touted as the largest relocation in American industrial history (Barksdale 1958: 18–19; Bilstein & Miller 1985: 138; Rae 1968: 188–89).

One reason Vought wanted to retain its equipment and machines was because the company felt its existing managers and trainers could

PAGE 8-48 NAVAL WEAPONS INDUSTRIAL RESERVE PLANT DALLAS, DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS I NTEGRATED C ULTURAL R ESOURCES M ANAGEMENT P LAN teach their new employees faster on familiar systems. Vought planned to hire the vast majority of its employees from North Texas, except for 1,300 key Stratford personnel, including the company’s engineers, designers, managers, trainers, executives, and corporate officials. Vought funded the cost for moving its employees and agreed to help locate housing accommodations. The company had 16 full-time employees working under Vought’s housing supervisor Ted Mitchell, whose sole job was to locate housing for 1,200 to 1400 families making the move to Dallas (Dallas Times Herald 30 November 1948: np; Dallas Morning News 12 September 1948: np).

The City of Grand Prairie did not have enough available housing for more than a thousand new families, and began work immediately to build homes and apartment communities for Vought’s transferred employees. In April 1948, Acadia Heights, a new housing subdivision near the plant, along with fifty 8-unit apartment homes funded through the Federal Housing Authority, was begun (Figure 8-23) (Dallas Morning News 25 April 1948: np). In a single year, Grand Prairie furnished Vought with 193 new homes at a cost to the city of $752,450, but this tremendous effort still proved inadequate. In a joint venture between Vought and the cities of Grand Prairie and Dallas, construction commenced on an Figure 8-23. Map of the Acadia Heights subdivision in relation additional 100 homes in a to NIRAP Dallas and NAS Dallas. Source: NWIRP Dallas neighborhood called the Little Payne Facility Records. Addition (Dallas Morning News 25 April 1948: np). It took the cities of Dallas and Grand Prairie over a year to build enough housing to accommodate Vought employees who were tranferring from Connecticut to Texas (Rae 1968: 188–89).

Vought carried out its move in incremental phases in order to keep up its production, staggering its production activities from late 1947 to 1 July 1949. production activities. In Connecticut, the company to continued manufacture its F4U Corsair piston-engine fighter, while it used its partially occupied Dallas facilities to produce Vought- designed support aircraft and the initial preproduction prototypes of the company’s newest products (Bilstein & Miller 1985: 138).

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EXPANSION OF NIRAP DALLAS Vought’s main complaint about its Stratford facilities was the sparse and inadequate manufacturing space. In sharing space with TEMCO, Vought officials feared they would outgrow NIRAP Dallas as they had Stratford. To ease this concern and accommodate Vought’s expanding jet aircraft and missile production requirements, the Navy decided to construct additional facilities at NIRAP Dallas (Bilstein & Miller 1985: 138; Barksdale 1958: 18). The Navy contributed $12.4 million to a 1948–49 expansion at Dallas that included new facilities and production equipment for Vought, which provided the company enough space to meet productive commitments, reduce overall backlog, and increase research and development capabilities (Barksdale 1958: 19). Vought contributed $2,927,289.93 of its corporate funds to further expand its Plant “B” buildings at NIRAP Dallas (Analysis of Leasehold Improvements nd: 1).

Vought undertook research and development activities on several Navy-sponsored projects in the late 1940s that required modern and larger engineering and laboratory space. Facility 49, a 129,000- square-foot building adjacent to the Facility 7 office building, was the largest project undertaken during the post-World War II expansion. This building accommodated a new Engineering Department and Laboratory Building (Chance Vought News 30 September 1948: 4).

Facility 6, the Plant “B” manufacturing building, received four newly constructed internal processing areas that increased Vought’s productive capacity on its F4U Corsair, F6U Pirate, F7U Cutlass, and F8U Crusader jet aircraft programs. Some of these projects were already in production, while others were simply in the development and testing phases, prior to Vought’s relocation to NIRAP Dallas. Along the west end of Facility 6, the Navy built and installed equipment for a Metallite Processing Department. Vought created and patented Metallite during World War II, but used it only on the production of aircraft after 1945. Metallite was a light, malleable aluminum alloy bonded to both sides of a balsa wood sheet. The final product was only a quarter-inch thick and highly resistant to wrinkle or damage (Jones 1977: 229). The inherently stiff Metallite provided Vought with an alternative to both aluminum and steel because it was lightweight and improved aerodynamics and performance in jet aircraft. An added benefit of Metallite was its relatively low cost to Vought, since it was entirely manufactured at NIRAP Dallas. However, despite Metallite’s use in the production of some aircraft skins, Vought still relied on aluminum, steel, and other light-weight

PAGE 8-50 NAVAL WEAPONS INDUSTRIAL RESERVE PLANT DALLAS, DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS I NTEGRATED C ULTURAL R ESOURCES M ANAGEMENT P LAN alloys for most of its manufacturing activities. The three major processing areas added to Facility 6 in the expansion were devoted to heat treatment of both steel and aluminum, and for the anodizing, dichromate, and other metal-working processes (Chance Vought News 30 September 1948: 4).

The final building constructed at NIRAP Dallas was Facility 76, a million dollar, 58,000-square-foot final production hangar located adjacent to Hensley Field. Vought needed Facility 76 for production activities related to the company’s first jet aircraft programs, the F6U Pirate and F7U Cutlass. The hangar was used for painting, Metallite testing, final inspection, engine run-up, and preflight preparations of high-performance jet aircraft (Chance Vought News 30 September 1948: 4; The Flying V News July 1949: 1, 3).

The Navy extended Hensley Field at NAS Dallas as its last project in the 1948–49 NIRAP expansion, which occurred from August 1949 to 1 March 1950. The Department of the Navy provided partial funding, and the City of Dallas appropriated $256,000 to extend the north–south runway at Hensley from 5,200 to 7,500 feet. The added length gave Chance Vought adequate runway distance to test the Pirate and Cutlass jet aircraft (Flying V News August 1949: 1). The expansion at NIRAP Dallas benefited both Vought and the Navy. By increasing Vought’s manufacturing capacity, the company reduced its overall backlog and the Navy received its products faster. The expansion also gave the Navy an opportunity to upgrade and catalog its new and valuable industrial holding at Dallas. Between 1947 and 1966, the Department of the Navy controlled 11 GOCOs involved in the manufacture and testing of jet and rocket engines (Yoshpe & Franke 1968: 50). The improvements to NIRAP Dallas represented the Navy’s goal to improve and modernize some of its GOCO facilities, which probably occurred at other sites nationwide. For example, Navy-owned NIRAP St. Louis, occupied by McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, also underwent expansion during this period.

VOUGHT BEGINS PRODUCTION AT NIRAP DALLAS Much of the 1948–49 facilities expansion at NIRAP Dallas was related to the manufacture of Stratford-designed products: the F4U Corsair, F7U Cutlass, F6U Pirate, and the Regulus Missile. Designed in 1938 and in production since 30 June 1941, the Navy used the F4U Corsair extensively in both Europe and the Pacific during World War II. It was one of the few propeller-driven aircraft used in combat after 1945 (Figure 8-24) (Jones 1977: 171, 173; Donald 1997: 256). The Corsair remained in production longer than any other American

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fighter; manufacturers supplied 12,571 aircraft to the Navy, Marines, and USAAF (Jones 1977: 174; Donald 1997: 256). Vought produced six versions of the Corsair in Stratford for almost 10 years and one version at NIRAP Dallas from 1947 to 1952 for service in the Korean War.

The Chance Vought F6U Pirate was Figure 8-24. F6U Pirate. Source: U.S Naval Fighters by Lloyd S. Jones. also designed in Stratford but produced in both Connecticut and at NIRAP Dallas, but in far less numbers than the Corsair (Figure 8-25). Responding to the Navy’s early 1944 request for a jet-propelled fighter, the Pirate was Vought’s first production jet aircraft and also the company’s first product made of its patented Metallite technology (Jones 1977: 229). On 2 October 1946, Vought entered the Pirate in a Navy’s Bureau of Figure 8-25. F4U Corsair in flight. Source: U.S Naval Fighters Aeronautics’ competition at Muroc by Lloyd S. Jones. Dry Lake, California. As a result of the prototype’s performance, the Navy ordered 30 production Pirates. From the outset, Vought encountered problems in the design and testing of the production aircraft; most notably, the prototype flew at speeds of nearly 600 mph but the production Pirate reached only 478 mph (Jones 1977: 231). This problem did not discourage the Navy from ordering an additional 35 F6U Pirates. The first Vought-produced Pirate entered naval service in July 1949, but the Pirate’s poor performance prevented the aircraft’s operational use by the Navy and it was relegated to training units (Jones 1977: 231; Donald 1997: 231). Production on the Pirate began in Stratford, but ended at NIRAP Dallas, when the Navy cancelled its order for 35 new Pirates in mid-1950 (Donald 1997: 231).

When Vought introduced the Pirate at the Muroc Dry Lake competition in 1946, it also showcased the F7U Cutlass (Figures 8-26 and 8-27), the company’s second jet aircraft. The Cutlass featured an unusual design, which Vought based on German aerodynamic research carried out during World War II. (The Navy provided American manufacturers with German research in late 1945.) Guided

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by the data, Vought engineers in Stratford prepared a prototype to compete in a Navy design competition at the Naval Air Test Center in 1946 (Donald 1997: 257; Jones 1977: 248, 251). The resulting design produced an unorthodox twin-jet, carrier-based fighter with sharply angled flying surfaces, afterburners, and no tail (Jones 1977: 248, 251).

Vought produced its first two F7U Figure 8-26. F7U Cutlass in flight. Source: U.S Naval Fighters Cutlass prototypes in Stratford. The by Lloyd S. Jones. first flew on 29 September 1948 and the second crashed during testing on 14 March 1949. Despite the crash, the Navy ordered 14 additional Cutlass jets, which were manufactured entirely at NIRAP Dallas (Jones 1977: 251). The problems that caused the 1949 crash were corrected in these production models and the Cutlass proved to be the first U.S. naval jet to reach supersonic speeds (Donald 1997: 257).

Figure 8-27. Cutlass jet aircraft in final assembly area of Plant “B.” Source: Chance Vought News, circa 1953.

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Vought produced over 300 F7U Cutlass jet aircraft at NIRAP Dallas from March 1950 through 1955. The vast majority of these production models were used by the Marines for high-speed mine-laying tests; a few served with the Navy’s Blue Angels as demonstration aircraft (Jones 1977: 252).

In 1947, while the company was negotiating its lease on NIRAP Dallas with the Navy, the Bureau of Aeronautics asked Chance Vought to begin initial development on a guided missile. The Navy introduced guided missiles to its arsenal immediately following World War II, when German scientists, who were researching rocket weapons for the Nazis, came to Figure 8-28. Regulus I in flight. Source: Regulus: The Forgotten Weapon by David K. Stumpf. America to work for the U.S. military at the White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico (Guided Missiles 1997: np). The DOD defined the missile as an “unmanned vehicle moving about the earth’s surface whose trajectory or flight path is capable of being altered by a mechanism within the vehicle” (Chance Vought News March 1953: 5). The broad and vague DOD definition mentions nothing about the missile’s size, speed, power plant, direction of travel, or deployment, most likely to prevent America’s communist enemies from assessing the United States’ increased defensive and striking power with the addition of this weapon to its military arsenal (Chance Vought News March 1953: 5).

Chance Vought named its guided missile the Regulus (Figure 8-28). The simple, innovative, and versatile design of the Regulus made it affordable and desirable to the Navy, and an uncredited source described it as “a very ordinary, unsensational, inexpensive missile, but one of the most fiendish and destructive little devices ever conceived by the tortured mind of man” (Barksdale 1958: 19). Vought’s guided missile was the first designed specifically to carry an atomic warhead and could be launched from submarines, cruisers, guided missile ships, aircraft carriers, and land bases (Chance Vought News March 1953: 1, 5; Vought Vanguard 8 November 1957: np). The Regulus was economical and easy to install, with little

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modification to the launching vehicle. Vought equipped each training and testing Regulus with tricycle landing gear so that it could be recovered and reused, enabling the Navy to use each production Regulus at least 10 times. Its inexpensive and quick installation, combined with its ability to be reused, cut the Regulus’s cost to one- tenth that of comparable programs carried out by other aerospace companies (Chance Vought News March 1953: 1). In 1949, when construction was completed on NIRAP Dallas’s new engineering building (Facility 49), the company moved its missile program from Connecticut to Texas, where all Regulus production models were manufactured.

THE KOREAN CONFLICT: 1950–1956 The proliferation of communism throughout the world and resulting Cold War (1946–89) fueled the aviation industry following World War II. The Korean War (1950–1953) was the first conflict of this period. Its origins resulted directly from the spread of communism into Asia following World War II and the threat it represented to the democratic nations of the world. Following Japan’s surrender to allied forces, the Soviet Union occupied North Korea and the United States controlled the south. When the United Nations (U.N.) called for free, unified elections throughout Korea in 1948, the Soviet Union refused to permit North Koreans from voting and instead proclaimed a communist dictatorship, renaming the country the People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea). Following this move, Russia withdrew its troops from Korea, leaving behind an entrenched communist regime and a well-trained, well-equipped North Korean Army (Korean War 1997: np). South Korea’s smaller and ill-equipped army was incapable of defending itself when the North crossed the 38th parallel boundary line in a surprise invasion on 25 June 1950. Within hours of the invasion, the U.N. Security Council called for an immediate cease- fire. North Korea ignored the order and, two days later, the Security Council urged U.N. members to assist South Korea in expelling the communist invaders. President Harry S. Truman came to the defense of South Korea by providing weapons, and supplies and directing Army General Douglas MacArthur to assemble ground forces and inspect the battlefront. By July, the U.N. appointed General MacArthur as Supreme Commander of a 16-nation UN force, consisting of 300,000 Americans that included the Marines, Air Force, and Navy (Korean War 1997: np).

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PRODUCTION FOR THE KOREAN WAR BEGINS AT NIRAP DALLAS When the Korean conflict developed in June 1950, the American aerospace industry was asked to meet the supply needs of the U.N. force. MacArthur’s military strategy relied heavily on the use of airpower, bombs, and missiles. By the end of the conflict, Navy and Marine Air Corps flew 276,000 offensive sorties, pounded the enemy with 177,000 tons of bombs, and blasted them with over a quarter of a million rockets (Caras 1965: 195). Vought saw an immediate increase in its orders as a result of the Korean War and was the beneficiary of Navy and Marine contracts for both its aircraft and missiles. Of all its products manufactured for Korea, Vought received the most orders for its Regulus missile, 514 of which were used during the war. The company’s F7U Cutlass was its most popular jet aircraft manufactured at NIRAP Dallas during the conflict (Vought Vanguard 8 November 1957: 7).

Chance Vought began work on the Cutlass following the company’s relocation to Dallas, flying the first prototype at Hensley Field on 29 September 1948. (Donald 1997: 257–58). Just months before communist North Korea invaded the South, the Navy placed one of several orders for the Cutlass, which remained in production through 1955 (Donald 1997: 258). However, the expense and the problems associated with maintaining Cutlass jets prevented the Navy, or any military branch, from using this jet in combat during Korea (Jones 1977: 252).

In fact, the F4U-5N Corsair was the only Vought-designed aircraft that saw combat action during the Korean War. Shortly before the North Korean invasion, the Marines ordered 110 Corsairs in a new combat attack version. The Marines used the Corsair to fly low-level reconnaissance and night operations, surprising North Korean forces. One squadron of F4U-5N Corsairs used its superior radar systems to locate and attack ground forces in total darkness and with great accuracy, while other Marine Corsairs squadrons wreaked havoc on communication centers (Jones 1977: 175). Even though the Corsair was considered obsolete by the time conflict erupted in Korea, one of its pilots gained fame as a night-fighting ace by downing five enemy aircraft in only 18 days and another destroyed a far superior Soviet MiG-15 fighter (Jones 1977: 175–76).

VOUGHT AND THE NAVY EXPAND PLANT “B” FACILITIES The Vought aerospace products ordered by the armed forces from 1950–55 were already designed, tested, and in production by the time war erupted in Korea. With increased orders and demand for the

PAGE 8-56 NAVAL WEAPONS INDUSTRIAL RESERVE PLANT DALLAS, DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS I NTEGRATED C ULTURAL R ESOURCES M ANAGEMENT P LAN company’s aircraft and missiles, Vought needed new workers and additional facilities to meet its contractual requirements for the F7U Cutlass, Corsair, and Regulus. At the outset of the war, Vought had only 8,200 employees at NIRAP Dallas. The company’s prewar payroll of $32 million jumped to nearly $100 million by war’s end. Vought employed 18,000 employees from 1950–53 (Executive Order 11724 Installation Survey Report 1974: 5; Dallas Morning News 7 October 1951: 1).

Early in 1951, Vought publicly announced a 3,000-person hiring program at NIRAP Dallas in response to the company’s production schedule on the F7U Cutlass aircraft for the Navy. The new Cutlass personnel raised employment at NIRAP Dallas from 8,000 to 11,000 (Dallas Morning News 26 September 1951: np). Vought quickly found the increase was insufficient, and determined that the company needed to hire at a pace of 240 persons for more than a year to meet its production requirements on the Regulus, F4U Corsair, and its subcontracting commitments for components of the Boeing B-47 Stratojet Bomber and Lockheed’s P2V Neptune Patrol bomber (Chance Vought News October 1951: 1). In 1953, during the height of the Korean War, employment at NIRAP Dallas peaked at 18,000 persons, a number that remained constant to the end of the war (Executive Order 11724 Installation Survey Report 1974: 5).

Vought looked for all levels of production workers–skilled, semiskilled, and unskilled categories–from the North Texas labor pool. The company advertised that jobs as “tool designers, tool planners, researchers, jig builders, time study men, sheet metal fabricators, machinists, assemblers, and bench hands” were available for men, but opportunities for women were limited at NIRAP Dallas (Dallas Morning News 26 September 1951: np). Most of the workers hired at NIRAP Dallas during the Korean War came from Dallas, Grand Prairie, Arlington, Ft. Worth, and Irving. The remaining labor pool came from all over rural North Texas. Overall, the Korean War hiring program at NIRAP Dallas had wide-ranging and positive affects on the economy in North Texas.

In addition to hiring new employees during the war, Vought needed additional manufacturing space at NIRAP Dallas for its Cutlass and Regulus programs. In late 1951, Vought announced a $4 million Spring Building Program that included construction of new facilities, upgrading existing NIRAP buildings, and adding new parking lots to accommodate the hiring program (Dallas Morning News 7 October 1951: np; Chance Vought News April 1952: 1). Vought, rather than

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the Navy, funded the majority of construction on the new buildings at NIRAP Dallas. The Navy provided the land for the Spring Building Program, while Vought supplied the funding, contractors, and architects. By law, the Navy retained ownership of the new facilities, but Vought recouped all its construction costs through government tax credits that were very similar to incentives offered during World War II. The House of Representatives Committee on Government Operations developed procedures for contractor-sponsored construction at Navy-owned GOCO sites as part of the 1947–48 National Industrial Reserve Act (White 1980: 112; Commander, Naval Air Systems Command 29 March 1981: 1). They consisted of the following:

• The contractor requested written permission to build on a site or modify a building from the GOCO NAVPRO on-site representative • NAVPRO forwarded the request to the Department of the Navy Property Management and Disposal Services, which approved or denied the new facilities • The Navy asked the GOCO contractor to provide an inventory and dollar value of construction costs, machines, equipment, and tooling • The Department then considered whether to amortize the yearly taxes on the building. The criteria for approving tax deferments are unknown, but were probably linked to the amount of naval orders produced by the GOCO making the request. Since most of the products manufactured at NIRAP Dallas were used exclusively by the Navy, Vought did not pay taxes on any of its Korean War-period facility improvements until 1971, pursuant to Public Law 388 (D Whitney Thornton to James F. Taylor 15 November 1971: 1).

After examining Vought’s Spring Building Program plan, the Navy agreed to fund the construction of one building and to supervise the construction of the other new facilities on government-owned land. The Navy’s Bureau of Yards and Docks approved contractor’s choices for architect, builder, and designs prior to construction. In some cases, the Bureau of Yards and Docks supplied the architectural drawings when they found the proposed design inadequate. Between 1952 and 1954, Vought spent more than $8.7 million for additional facilities and improvements as part of the Spring Building Program.

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The cost was more than double the initial $4 million estimate (Chance Vought News June 1953: 1).

Vought began its construction of a new parking lot, the installation of new air conditioning in all cafeteria buildings, and the construction of at least two new buildings, Facilities 93 and 94, in April 1952 (Chance Vought News April 1952: 1, 4). The Navy paid for three improvements to existing facilities, whereas Vought funded the new parking lot and air conditioning systems. The Farwell Company of Dallas replaced the air conditioning units in Facilities 11, 12, and 31 at a cost of $47,000 between April and June 1952. Another facility improvement that benefited the employees of NIRAP was the construction of a 16,400-square-yard parking lot west of the Plant “B” high bay area. The addition of 400 parking spaces eased overcrowding at the plant and made it easier for Vought employees to exit the plant via Jefferson Boulevard and Southeast 14th Street. The Reinhart Company of Fort Worth built the parking lot at a cost of $70,000 (Chance Vought News April 1952: 1). The last improvement to existing NIRAP buildings included the replacement of the Plant “B” fire alarm system, the installation of new sprinklers in both Plants “A” and “B”, and the installation of oil bath filters in the air conditioning systems of Plant “B” (Chance Vought News April 1952: 4).

Facility 93 was the first new building constructed as part of the Spring Building Program. The Bureau of Yards and Docks supplied Vought with the architectural drawings, and James Stewart & Company performed all the general construction, which began June 1, 1952 (Chance Vought News April 1952: 4). Vought spent more than $1.3 million on Facility 93, which met the company’s need for a large and conveniently located warehouse, manufacturing, and shipping building. The one-story, 78,000-plus-square-foot masonry structure (Facility 93) was built between the railroad sidings on the south side of Plant “B” (Facility 6) to provide Vought with railroad loading docks on the building’s north and south sides (Chance Vought News April 1952: 4). Vought used Facility 93 to ship finished products, such as the Regulus, Cutlass, Pirate, and Corsair to the Navy and to receive and then ship subassembly work back to the prime contractor. James Stewart & Company constructed a loading dock and special features for shipping and receiving Lockheed and Boeing nose sections. Internally, the building was equipped with unique bridge cranes and a monorail system for moving materials from one end of the building to another (Chance Vought News April

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1952: 4). James Stewart & Company completed construction on Facility 93 in 1953, at the height of Vought’s Korean War production.

When construction began on Facility 93 in June 1952, Vought was still planning Facility 94, a research, design, and structures test lab for the Regulus I Missile Program. Vought hired architects Corgan, Lane & Associates A/E of Dallas to design its 88,647-square-foot, hangar-type laboratory, with steel columns, steel trussing, and “Robertson” metal siding, which matched existing Plant “B” structures constructed during World War II (Chance Vought News April 1952: 4). In the summer of 1953, Carpenter Brothers Construction Company of Dallas began the general construction on Facility 94’s structural test lab located northwest of the Plant “B,” high bay area. It was completed on 1 January 1954 and the Navy paid the entire $1.7 million cost (Chance Vought News April 1952: 4; Chance Vought News June 1953: 1).

Along with Facility 94, Vought decided to fund and build five additional buildings: Facilities 95, 97, 102, 103, and 106. The first two supported its Regulus Missile program while the others served jet aircraft production. Construction on Facility 95 began sometime in 1953 and was completed in early 1954. The Bureau of Yards and Docks supplied the architectural drawings and O’Rourke

Figure 8-29. Facility 97 under construction in the summer of 1953. Source: Chance Vought News.

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Construction Company of Dallas performed the general construction activities related to the 8,190-square-foot building. Facility 95 provided Vought with a test cell building for the Regulus Missile at a cost of $215,180.09. Test cells furnish both the power and control mechanism for guided missiles. They are either self-contained rocket motors or air-breathing jet engines, but may also be airfoils or outside booster charges from ramp or tube launchers (Guided Missiles 1997: np). Vought tested these power sources in Facility 95. On 18 June 1953, Vought broke ground on Facility 97, a $1.7 million guided missile hangar to store and test the Regulus (Figure 8-29). Harwood K. Smith & Joseph M. Mills A/E of Dallas designed Facility 97 with almost 70,000 square feet of workspace that contained a high bay area, electronics test areas, storage, and office and workroom space for expanded production on the Regulus. O’Rourke Construction Company completed Facility 97 in January 1954 (Chance Vought News June 1953: 1). Vought used Facility 97 primarily to check and ground test the Regulus prior to its delivery to the West Coast for flight operations (Chance Vought News June 1953: 1–2). Regulus missiles leaving the Plant “B,” Facility 6 production lines were taken to Facility 97 for final installation of the missile’s internal components and the individual testing of all electronic systems. Following this process, Vought employees moved the missiles to flight testing, which included the simulation of engine start-up, take-off, climb, cruise, and let-down simulation (Chance Vought News June 1953: 1).

In 1954, Vought completed the last of its three buildings—Facilities 102, 103, and 106—as part of the company’s Spring Building Program. All three buildings were related to Vought’s jet aircraft program in one way or another. The Bureau of Yards and Docks supplied architectural plans for the facilities and O’Rourke Construction Company provided the general construction services. Facility 102, a machine tool storage building, was the first constructed. The 27,649-square-foot building was used to store the specialized machine tools required to manufacture jet aircraft and cost Vought $149,373.33. The second finished building, a jet-engine test cell building (Facility 103), provided the company with 5,253 square feet of laboratory space and was used to test the F7U Cutlass and, later, Vought’s F8U Crusader. Facility 103 cost only $109,836.88. Facility 106 was the last of the buildings constructed as part of the Spring Building Program, and Vought used the 6,289-

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square-foot building to assemble jet engines for the Pirate, and Cutlass and, later, the Crusader and Corsair II manufacturing programs. The building, which initially cost Vought $63,874.41, underwent expansion during the Vietnam War period.

EXPANSION OF TEMCO’S PLANT “A” FACILITIES In 1952, the Navy awarded TEMCO Figure 8-30. TEMCO’s subassembly work in Facility 1, Plant its first contract to manufacture a “A,” circa 1950–52. Source: NWIRP Dallas Facility Records. complete aircraft—McDonnell Aircraft Corporation—the F3H Demon, designed by (Barksdale 1958: 15). The company also won contracts for major subassembly work on the Boeing B-47 Stratojet, Lockheed P2V Neptune, Martin P5M Marlin, and the Convair B-36 aircraft that were used on the war front. TEMCO also reconditioned Douglas C54 aircraft for use in Korea (Figures 8-30 & 8-31). The Navy needed the carrier-based Demon and other products delivered on a timely basis, but TEMCO suffered a rising backlog due to inadequate facilities, and an expansion of the Plant “A” side of NIRAP Dallas seemed the only expedient remedy. During the Korean War, TEMCO did not enjoy the same financial position as Vought and thus could not afford to fund the construction of new facilities. The Department of the Navy had contributed more than $1.7 million to Vought’s Spring Building Program and, in an effort to be fair, offered the same amount to TEMCO for a 1956 Naval Facilities Expansion Program. Under this program, the Navy funded construction of two new buildings for TEMCO, Facilities 104 and 105, and an addition to TEMCO’s Facility 2 office building, which ultimately cost $2.2 million, at NIRAP Dallas (TEMCO Tidings 16 January 1953: 1).

The Navy hired James Stewart & Company, the same firm that provided previous construction services during World War II and with both of Vought’s expansions at NIRAP Dallas, to construct a 58,000-square-foot addition to TEMCO’s Facility 2 office Figure 8-31. Finished aircraft on NIRAP Dallas property, east building. Ground was broken on the of Plant “A,” Facility 1. Circa 1952–53. Source: NWIRP Dallas Facility Records. $800,000 addition on 31 March 1953

PAGE 8-62 NAVAL WEAPONS INDUSTRIAL RESERVE PLANT DALLAS, DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS I NTEGRATED C ULTURAL R ESOURCES M ANAGEMENT P LAN and completed on 1 December 1953 (TEMCO Tidings 17 April 1953: 1). TEMCO used the extra space to hire additional engineers and office staff to accommodate the company’s expanded workload (Figure 8-32).

Smith & Warder A/E and T. C. Bateson Construction Company, both of Dallas, provided the drawings and construction services for the TEMCO buildings in the 1956 Naval Facilities Figure 8-32. Aerial view of TEMCO’s Plant “A” buildings, Expansion Program. Construction on (Facilities 1 and 2), following the Korean War expansion project. Source: NWIRP Dallas Plant Records. Facility 105, a paint stripping structure northeast of Plant “A,” Facility 1 and adjacent to Jefferson Boulevard, began in June 1955 and was completed in 1956. It cost the Navy $105,600 (TEMCO Tidings 17 June 1955: 1). The building provided TEMCO with an 8,048-square- foot subassembly area for refurbishing work on the Boeing B-47 Stratojet, Lockheed P2V Neptune, Martin P5M Marlin, and the Convair B-36 aircraft. TEMCO stripped the paint and cleaned aircraft in Facility 105 prior to painting in Facility 104, the largest and most expensive of the two buildings constructed in the naval expansion of TEMCO-leased property (Figure 8-33) (TEMCO Tidings 17 June 1955: 1). In July 1953, construction began on Facility 104, a paint hangar, but it was not completed until early 1956. The nearly 46,000- square-foot building cost the Navy $1.3 million and enabled TEMCO to move all its final production processes and paint functions on the Demon from Plant “A,” (Facility 1) into Facility 104 (TEMCO Tidings 16 January 1953: 1; TEMCO Tidings 2 July 1953: 1; TEMCO Tidings 17 June 1955: 1).

Completion of Facility 104 also coincided with the company’s development of its first production jet aircraft at NIRAP Dallas. The TEMCO Model 51 originated in a 1947 design called the TE-1 Buckaroo, which failed to find buyers among the U.S. military or in the civilian market. TEMCO redesigned the Buckaroo as a lightweight primary jet trainer, called Figure 8-33. A TEMCO employee utilizing new painting operations in Facility 104. Source: NWIRP Dallas Plant the Model 51, in the early 1950s. The Records.

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Figure 8-34. The TT-1 Pinto in flight. Source: The Complete Encyclopedia of Aircraft.

company manufactured the prototype and later production models in Plant “A,” Facility 1 and used Facility 104 for all final production and painting related to the Model 51 (TEMCO Tidings 17 June 1955: 1). On 26 March 1956, the Model 51 prototype flew at nearby Hensley Field, NAS Dallas, in front of Navy officials, who ordered 14 production aircraft under the TT-1 designation. The Navy purchased the TT-1 to test the feasibility of using the jet aircraft for its primary training program (Donald 1997: 876). The company held a contest in which they allowed its employees to select the name of it first company-designed production jet. The winning name was the TT-1 Pinto (Figure IV-34) and, on 15 July 1957, actress Jayne Mansfield and her daughter came to NIRAP Dallas to christen the first Pinto to roll off the TEMCO production line (TEMCO Tidings 19 July 1957: 1).

When the T. C. Bateson Construction Company completed Facilities 104 and 105 in 1956, TEMCO’s manufacturing and office space was nearly double its original productive capacity, making the Plant “A” manufacturing facilities at NIRAP Dallas one of the best subcontracting production factories in the nation. The improved facilities enabled the company to win additional Demon contracts, one for the Pinto, and a multimillion dollar Republic F84F Thunderstreak jet fighter-bomber subassembly contract for the production of the airplane’s aft fuselage (TEMCO Tidings 16 January 1953: 1; TEMCO Tidings 16 July 1954: 1; TEMCO Tidings 17 June 1955: 1; Donald 1997: 876). The Thunderstreak project alone required 1,200 employees in addition to the company’s existing 6,500 employees. This project, coupled with existing contracts on the

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Demon, Pinto, and other subassemblies, forced TEMCO to hire even more workers (TEMCO Tidings 16 January 1953: 1; TEMCO Tidings 16 July 1954: 1). TEMCO’s Korean War hiring program raised the company employment levels to 7,893 in January 1953. Employment peaked in 1957, when more than 11,000 workers collected a weekly payroll of $728,000, or $60 million annually (TEMCO Tidings 19 November 1954: 1; Barksdale 1958: 16). TEMCO’s employees came from cities throughout North Texas: Grand Prairie, Arlington, Ft. Worth, Irving, Dallas, Denton, McKinney, Waxahachie, Kaufmann, Gunter, Corsicana, Lewisville, Lake Dallas, Mesquite, Roanoke, Commerce, Venus, Midlothian, Scurry, Ennis, Lancaster, Argyle, and Seagoville. Some came from as far as Eustace, in Henderson County (78 miles), Hillsboro, in Hill County (70 miles), and Blue Ridge, in Collin County (just under 70 miles) (TEMCO Tidings 18 April 1952: 1).

TEMCO’s production increase benefited the local economy as well as its employees. Earnings were spent largely in 181 North Texas cities and communities, with an estimated $11.7 million on food, beverages, and tobacco; $7.7 million on homes and household maintenance; $4.2 million on clothing and education; $3.4 million on automobiles; and $1.8 million on hobbies, movies, sports, and other forms of recreation (TEMCO Tidings 17 November 1955: 2). The company had 2,500 suppliers in over 40 states, nearly a third of this business came from 788 Texas-based companies earning $28.5 annually (Barksdale 1958: 16; TEMCO Tidings 1 April 1955: np; TEMCO Tidings 17 November 1955: 2). In addition to payroll and supplies, TEMCO spent nearly $340,000 in utilities, telephone service, telegrams, and postage stamps, and another $300,000 in freight expenses per year (TEMCO Tidings 17 November 1955: 2).

POST-KOREAN WAR PRODUCTION CONTINUES AT NIRAP DALLAS The end of war in Korea did not stop or slow defense spending and contracts for America’s aviation industries. Western democratic nations genuinely feared the spread of communism in Asia and its entrenchment in Eastern Europe, leading to increased production of nuclear weapons, vehicles to transport those weapons, and the creation of new and superior jet aircraft for Cold War combat and reconnaissance. The U.S. defense strategy focused on containing communism within the areas already affected—Soviet Union, China, North Korea, North Vietnam, Cuba, East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia.

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The rise in Cold War defense spending and contracts also signified a change in America’s aviation industry to an aerospace industry, as production shifted to the manufacture of jets, helicopters, guided and intercontinental supersonic missiles, aircraft for space travel, rockets, and satellites. The Department of the Navy Figure 8-35. The F8U Crusader. Source: The Complete Encyclopedia of Aircraft. recognized this transformation and responded by changing the name of its 26 aircraft-producing GOCO facilities from Naval Industrial Reserve Aircraft Plants (NIRAP) to Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plants (NWIRP) in 1952 (D. Whitney Thornton to James F. Taylor 15 Nov 1971: 1). The new name accurately reflected the variety of products that the GOCOs manufactured during the Cold War period.

Vought began its transition from an aviation to an aerospace company in the late 1940s with the design of its Regulus missile and jets, but it was determined to keep up with the demand for new, more competitive and technologically superior products in the global fight against communism. The expanded facilities and personnel at NWIRP Dallas allowed Vought to begin research and development on a second generation of jet aircraft and missiles, products that moved the company to the forefront of the American aerospace industry. In the early 1950s, Vought began simultaneous development on the Regulus II guided missile and F8U Crusader at NWIRP Dallas.

In September 1952, the Department of the Navy selected a Vought proposal for a carrier-based supersonic air- superiority fighter from eight other competitors because of the company’s attention to the fighter’s low-speed characteristics. Vought spent nearly four years designing and developing the new all-weather F8U Crusader (Figure 8-35). The Navy ordered a Figure 8-36. Crusader jet aircraft outside Facility 15 and west of Hensley field at NAS Dallas. Source:NWIRP Dallas Plant prototype on 29 June 1953 and the Records. sleek, arrow-like fighter made its maiden flight at Edwards Air Force Base in California on 25 March 1955.

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The Crusader cruised past Mach 1 with little difficulty (Jones 1977: 312). The 52-minute test flight at Edwards demonstrated to the Navy that the fighter had great potential and they ordered 318 production models. By 30 September 1955, after the first production model flew at Hensley Field in Dallas and subsequent test flights proceeded with few problems, the Navy ordered an additional 473 units worth $100 million (Figure 8-36). In May 1956, Vought received additional orders for the F8U Crusader, which, combined with earlier orders, totaled more than $275 million (Jones 1977: 312, 314; Chance Vought News December 1955: 1). Ultimately, Vought produced 1,261 Crusaders for the U.S. Navy and 42 for France at NWIRP Dallas (Donald 1997: 900; Wagner 1968: 423; Jones 1977: 314).

The Crusader appealed to the Navy in many ways. It had a high rate of climb due to its Pratt & Whitney J57-P-4A engine, which offered 16,200-pounds. of thrust. It carried four 20-mm cannons, two Sidewinders in its fuselage sides, and thirty-two 2.75 inch missiles. Furthermore, the Crusader had an exceptional combat ceiling, could penetrate the speed of sound in level flight, and be refueled in mid-air. Vought designed the F8U for faster-than-sound operation from both land and aircraft carriers, further improving the Navy’s capability to control the air and seas (Jones 1977: 312; Wagner 1968: 423; Chance Vought News December 1955: 1). The Crusader joined U.S. Navy Squadron VF-32 in 1957 and remained in service until the late 1980s (Donald 1997: 900; Green & Swanborough 1981: 203; Wagner 1968: 423).

The Crusader won Vought a great deal of attention and praise in its first two years of production. An F8U-1 Crusader, flown by Commander R. W. Windsor, set a national speed record at 1,015 mph in August 1956, only months after production began (Wagner 1968: 423; Vought Vanguard 8 November 1957: np). On the basis of Figure 8-37. John H. Glenn in his record-setting F80-IP Crusader on July 17, 1957. Source: Chance Vought News. this outstanding record, Vought won the prestigious Thompson Trophy for speed, and later that year, the company received the Collier Trophy for the Crusader’s design and development. The Bureau of Aeronautics awarded its first-ever Certificate of Merit to Vought for the Crusader in the same year (Jones 1977: 312). Finally, the Crusader set the transcontinental speed record for a single-engine aircraft, a record that still stands. Marine Major John H. Glenn

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accomplished this feat on 17 July 1957, when he flew an F8U-1P Crusader from Los Angles to New York at 725.55 mph and 35,000 feet, with three in-air refuelings (Figure 8-37) (Wagner 1968: 423; Vought Vanguard 17 July 1957: 1, 3).

The Crusader’s success led Vought to further evolve the design to produce the F8U-3 Crusader III, a new aircraft that physically resembled its predecessor but performed differently. The Navy ordered three prototypes of the Crusader III to enter into competition against the McDonnell Phantom II in 1958. On 11 June, the Crusader III made its first supersonic run, an in an August flight, the jet reached Mach 2, climbing 60,000 feet at a 300 angle. The plane peaked at nearly 76,000 feet before the engined stalled and pilot John Konrad glided the Crusader III to a dead -stick landing at Edwards Air Force Base (Jones 1977: 314, 317). The Navy ordered 15 production F8U-3s after the August flight, but the engine stall problem persisted. Ultimately, the Phantom II outperformed and was more durable than the Crusader III, and Vought produced only 3 of the 15 models ordered. Those three were later relegated to NASA for high speed research (Jones 1977: 317).

At the height of the Crusader program in 1956, Vought began testing the Regulus II prototype at Hensley Field, even though the Navy had placed a $14 million order for continued production on the Regulus I missiles just months before (Chance Vought News February 1956: 1). Vought did not intend to wait until the Regulus I was obsolete before it offered the second version of the guided missile to the Navy. Confident of the product and its ability to sell, the company began immediate production on the Regulus II following the successful May flight tests (Figure 8-38). Production occurred in four buildings: Plant “B,” Facility 6; the Structures Lab, Facility 94; the Test Cell

Figure 8-38. Regulus II. Source: Regulus The Forgotten Weapon by David K. Stumpf.

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Laboratory, Facility 95; and the Final Production Missile Hangar, Facility 97.

Vought’s gamble paid off when the Navy placed a $12 million order for production of 59 of the Regulus II in July 1956 (Chance Vought News July 1956: 1; Vought Vanguard 8 November 1957: np). The Regulus II was as versatile and affordable as its predecessor, but was capable of a much higher level of performance. Production Regulus II missiles came equipped with a J-79 jet engine that reached speeds of Mach 2 and a ceiling of 60,000 feet. Like the first version, the Regulus II could be launched from submarines, ships, and land bases, and was also recoverable after flight because of its wheeled landing gear (Vought Vanguard 8 November 1957: np). During the testing of the Regulus II, the Navy used each of their 59 production missiles 6 to 18 times before being retired. No other guided missile in the Navy’s history and arsenal had ever lived as long or performed as well in a testing environment as the Regulus II (Vought Vanguard 8 November 1957: 6).

The Department of the Navy was so impressed with the performance of both the Regulus I and II that Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Arleigh Burke referred to Vought’s guided missiles as the “harbingers of the Navy of the future” (Chance Vought News December 1956: 1). Following this proclamation, the Department of the Navy placed a $26 million production order for both the Regulus I and II guided missiles. With this order and contracts on the Crusader, Vought’s backlog soared to over $500 million (Chance Vought News December 1956: 1). In addition, the Navy ordered a nuclear submarine, The Halibut, designed and constructed specifically to launch the Regulus II Missile (Vought Vanguard 8 November 1957: 6). The Regulus II proved to be such a prolific and innovative missile that the Smithsonian Institute selected it for an exhibit of historic aerospace regalia that included the original Wright Brothers’ airplane and other pioneering rockets, missiles, and aircraft (LTV News 17 June 1966: np).

In May 1959, Vought continued its foray into the aerospace industry by winning a $1 million NASA contract for both the manufacture and assembly of the Scout research rocket. NASA developed and supplied the instrument payload, engines, stage separation devices, jet vanes, and fin assemblies, while Vought developed the nose section, airframe, and constructed a launching platform. NASA shipped the assemblies via road rail to Facility 6, Plant “B” from other manufacturers, and Vought produced its pieces and assembled

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the complete 70-foot, 35,000-pound, four-stage solid rocket at NWIRP Dallas (Vought Vanguard 1 May 1959: 1). Vought built the three-piece Scout rocket launcher in jigs located in Facility 94’s structural test lab. The 109-foot steel tower was assembled, erected, and painted, just west of the Facility 6, Plant “B” manufacturing building in August 1959. After Vought and NASA employees checked and qualified the launcher, it was taken down, loaded on railroad cars, and transported, along with the Scout rockets, to Wallops Island, Virginia, where the missile was fired (Vought Vanguard 21 August 1959: 1).

CONFLICT DEVELOPS AT NWIRP DALLAS AS TEMCO MERGES WITH VOUGHT Between 1948 and 1959, Chance Vought leased three-fifths of NWIRP Dallas and used its Plant “B” facilities to develop and produce stages of the Regulus I and II guided missiles, Scout missile, Corsair, Pirate, Cutlass, Crusader, and Crusader III aircraft. During the same period, TEMCO used its Plant “A” facilities to produce airframe sections and engine assemblies for prime contractors such as Douglas, Lockheed, McDonnell, Boeing, and Pratt & Whitney, and worked as a prime contractor on the production of the TT-1 Pinto trainer aircraft and development of the Corvus missile (Executive Order 11724 Installation Survey Report 1974: 7; Departmental Industrial Reserve Plant, Chance Vought Aircraft Corporation, Dallas, Texas, DOD-387 nd: 1). Vought and TEMCO's peaceful coexistence became tenuous as both businesses grew. The Navy received complaints about the joint tenancy issue from both its NWIRP Dallas lessees as early as 1950. The fence installed between the Plant “A” and Plant “B” properties was not sufficient to prevent tension.

Vought and TEMCO's main problem at NWIRP Dallas stemmed from the fact that the lessees had inadvertently become competitors for naval contracts and within the aerospace industry as a whole. In addition, TEMCO's presence prevented Vought from expanding its own facilities in a national emergency (Departmental Industrial Reserve Plant, Chance Vought Aircraft Corporation, Dallas, Texas, DOD-387 nd: 1, 4). TEMCO's continual growth and request to further expand its facilities angered Vought management, and the situation was discussed extensively in NAVPRO reports to the Department of the Navy during this period (Departmental Industrial Reserve Plant, Chance Vought Aircraft Corporation, Dallas, Texas, DOD-387 1958: np; Departmental Industrial Reserve Plant, Chance Vought Aircraft Corporation, Dallas, Texas, DOD-387 nd: 1, 4).

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Vought tolerated the situation and did not pressure the Navy to change the joint tenancy arrangement until 1960, when TEMCO merged with Ling-Altec Electronics to form Ling-TEMCO Electronics and Missile Company (Bilstein & Miller 1985: 137; Brown 1972: 75; Departmental Industrial Reserve Plant, Chance Vought Aircraft Corporation, Dallas, Texas, DOD-387 1958: np). Immediately following the merger, the Department of the Navy cancelled TEMCO's newly awarded $400 million Corvus Missile contract. The reasons for the Navy's decision are unclear, but following the cancellations, TEMCO's new president, James Ling, announced his plans to expand TEMCO's position in the aerospace industry and take over Vought (Brown 1972: 80–81).

Early in 1960, Ling and his business associate, John Coughenour, began to buy up Chance Vought stock in an effort to legitimize their position within the aerospace industry and the Dallas business community. Chance Vought Aircraft enjoyed a stellar reputation in the aerospace industry and with the Navy. The combined company would assume Vought's established relationship with local banks and wield greater power as one of North Texas' largest employers (Brown 1972: 82). In October 1960, Ling called a meeting of the TEMCO board to obtain official approval for the acquisition of Vought stocks and a commitment of $10 million of the company's funds to purchase them (Brown 1972: 85).

In the short year that James Ling owned TEMCO, he managed to increase sales to $148.4 million, winning the company the #285 spot among the Fortune 500. In the same period, Ling acquired more than 10% of Vought stock, which legally required him to notify Vought management of his intentions to take over the company (Brown 1972: 85). In January 1961, Vought's board of directors refused to consider a merger with TEMCO and launched a publicity campaign that vilified Ling and his activities, calling him "an uncouth predator making raids on the innocent" (Brown 1972: 77, 87; Dallas Morning News 9 August 1962: np). As word of Ling's takeover plans spread throughout the Dallas financial community, ferocious local opposition began to form. "The Ling-TEMCO merger was friendly, and most Dallasites felt Ling had not overreached himself, but Chance Vought was another matter all together; therefore his battle to acquire Vought split the town and created acrimony that would not subside for years and earn Ling a reputation as dangerous and untrustworthy" (Brown 1972: 84).

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Despite the personal attacks and bitter resentment among Vought employees and local business leaders, Ling was able to acquire 40% of Vought stock by March 1961, making him the majority shareholder and capable of calling a special vote on the proposed Ling-TEMCO Vought merger (Brown 1972: 87). Vought management, including President Frederick O. Deitweiler, responded to Ling's vote by resigning in protest and disgust. The remaining leadership worked hard to prevent a vote, even requesting help from its Washington, Figure 8-39. LTV offices, Facility 2, following the merger in DC, connections, but ultimately, on 9 1962. Source: NWIRP Dallas Plant Records. June 1961, the shareholders were issued proxy statements to vote on the Vought-TEMCO merger (Dallas Morning News 9 August 1962: np; Brown 1972: 87; Vought Vanguard 9 June 1961: 1). Stockholders issued the results of the proxy vote on 30 June 1961 and Ling-Temco Vought (LTV) was officially formed. The combined company now employed more than 20,000 people and had assets of $195 million, a backlog of $305 million in orders, and encompassed activities in the fields of aerospace, communications and test systems, commercial and industrial products, sound systems, aerosystems, and information handling systems (Figure 8-39) (Vought Vanguard 9 June 1961: 1; Vought Vanguard 30 June 1961: 1–2).

LTV TRIES TO PURCHASE NWIRP DALLAS Immediately following the merger, James Ling, the new president of LTV, met with NWIRP Dallas's NAVPRO representative to lay out the company's new business philosophy. Ling's long-term goal for LTV was diversification from Navy projects into commercial ventures, or achieve some sort of balance between the two interests. Ling articulated his strategy to NAVPRO representatives, which was later recounted in NWIRP Dallas official reports:

The corporation's mission is to conceive, design, manufacture, assemble, and test products for agencies of the Department of Defense, other branches of the government and other aerospace contractors. These aerospace products primarily consist of complete aircraft and missile weapon systems, major subassemblies of commercial transports, space launch systems, airport transit systems and numerous research and development

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projects. (Executive Order 11724 Installation Survey Report 1974: 2)

Ling also wanted to move the company away from manufacturing line and quantity production into limited and specialized manufacturing activities. The new philosophy also stressed increased research and design of new products for both the military and commercial sectors (J. E. Moody to Commissioner of Utilization and Disposal Services 18 August 1961: np).

NAVPRO notes from the meeting indicate that the Navy's representative communicated Ling's new goals to the Department of the Navy, which was displeased not only by the merger between Vought and TEMCO but also by the change in the company's business philosophy. The Navy had considered both Vought and TEMCO highly qualified contractors, but after the merger, its opinion of LTV was uncertain (J. E. Moody to Commissioner of Utilization and Disposal Services 18 August 1961: np). Until this time, the Navy had chosen tenants for its GOCOs who were their prime contractors or who worked exclusively in military production. Despite the Navy's attitude toward LTV, it could not evict the company from NWIRP Dallas because of a preexisting lease with Vought (Lease No. N0w6137u), executed in 1958 and valid through 1971 (Special Disposal Plan 1 April 1971: np). As Vought's new owner, LTV became the beneficiary of the lease that covered all the land and buildings at NWIRP Dallas, including approximately 309 acres of land and 3.1 million square feet of manufacturing space; therefore, the Navy was contractually obligated to retain LTV as tenant through 1971 (J. E. Moody to Commissioner of Utilization and Disposal Services 18 August 1961: np).

NAVPRO apparently informed LTV of the Navy's ambiguity toward the company's business philosophy; LTV responded by offering to purchase NWIRP Dallas. NAVPRO arranged a meeting between James Ling and representatives of the Navy's Utilization and Disposal Services in August 1961 (J. E. Moody to Commissioner of Utilization and Disposal Services 18 August 1961: np). At the meeting, Ling attempted to persuade the Navy that it should sell NWIRP Dallas at a "bargain price," or below fair market value, due to the number of contractor-funded leasehold improvements, which dated to the 1947–49 expansion and included all subsequent construction and maintenance. Records of the meeting clearly indicate that Ling's arguments were unpersuasive and in fact offended the representatives of the Utilization and Disposal Services, who

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informed LTV that even if the sale was authorized, it would be at fair market value and brokered by the General Service Administration (GSA) under section 203(e) (3) (G) of the Federal Property and Administrative Service Act of 1949 (J. E. Moody to Commissioner of Utilization and Disposal Services 18 August 1961: np). The GSA served as the agency responsible for federally owned property sales and transfers.

On 11 September 1961, a month after the meeting, the Navy informed LTV management that the DOD would include a national security clause in any bill of sale that required LTV to maintain the plant according to existing naval GOCO standards for a period of time stipulated by the Navy rather than DOD. Other stipulations prohibited LTV from making any major alterations to NWIRP Dallas for 10 years, and included provisions for periodic and surprise inspections by NAVPRO representatives. In addition, LTV was required to give priority status to all DOD contracts (Environmental Statement for the Disposal of the Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant Dallas, Texas 19 June 1971: 3; Restriction Covering Sale of NWIRP, Dallas nd: Attachment A; J. E. Moody to Commissioner of Utilization and Disposal Services 18 August 1961: np). The DOD requirements reflected the Navy's assessment of NWIRP Dallas as the most complete manufacturing plant in its GOCO program and possibly the nation. NWIRP Dallas was different from most Navy- owned GOCO facilities because of the plant's capablility to produce a variety of military-related products rather than a few specialized services (Departmental Industrial Reserve Plant, Chance Vought Aircraft Corporation, Dallas, Texas, DOD-387 1958: 2; Special Disposal Plan 1 April 1971: np). The Navy was clearly cautious about selling such a valuable resource, and explained its concerns to LTV at its initial meeting and during subsequent communications (J. E. Moody to Commissioner of Utilization and Disposal Services 18 August 1961: np).

Another indication of the Navy's apprehension about selling NWIRP Dallas is revealed in the length of time that the Utilization and Disposal Services took in sending LTV's request to purchase the facility to GSA. It was not until 1970, close to a decade after the initial meetings, that GSA informed LTV of its appraisal; NWIRP Dallas was worth $68,748,321.00, but the government would sell the complex for $31,946,000 (General Services Administration 14 April 1972: 2; Special Disposal Plan 1 April 1971: np; Curtis A. Roos to GSA 30 October 1970: np). The GSA based this figure on the sale of other GOCOs to contractors, specifically the sale of Air Force Plant

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#14 at Burbank, California, to the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, which bought the plant at 25%–50% of its fair market price. The GSA's offer to LTV allowed the Department of the Navy a return of 68.4% on its investment since 1947 (General Services Administration 14 April 1972: 1; Paul T. Flynn to GSA 15 October 1971: 1–2).

The GSA's 1970 appraisal of NWIRP Dallas's land, facilities, equipment, machines, and tools was more than double LTV's assessment, which took into account depreciation costs, leasehold improvements, and other contractor investments (Paul T. Flynn to GSA 15 October 1971: 2). LTV was extremely agitated by the delay and the appraisal, and responded to GSA:

LTV has spent considerable effort and money obtaining independent outside appraisals on the subject facility. Age and obsolescence of buildings and equipment, need for modernization of water and waste disposal facilities, and the current depressed conditions of the aerospace industry are major factors influencing the Contractor's evaluation of the NWIRP. (C. J. Brenner to Commander, Naval Air Systems Command 8 March 1972: 1)

In anger, LTV demanded that its purchase of NWIRP Dallas be contingent on the company's continued use of NAS Dallas's Hensley Field runways to test its products. The company also wanted the Navy to fund a water treatment facility and clean up a hazardous waste spill that had contaminated Mountain Creek Lake (General Services Administration 14 April 1972: 1–2). The Texas Water Quality Board, responding to complaints from Dallas County citizens, discovered the spill, informed the Navy, and required LTV to clean up the area to the State's satisfaction. LTV wanted to defer the $4.54 million treatment facility and $2.6 million cleanup costs to the Navy in an effort to offset the high GSA purchase price, but the Navy refused to pay for either (Robert P. Selm, P. E. to E. A. Tharpe II, ASA 22 August 1970: np; C. L. Turner to Commander, Naval Air Systems Command 3 August 1971: np; A. H. Clancy, Jr., to LTV Aerospace Corporation, Vought Aeronautics Division 23 April 1971: np). The Navy also told LTV that it could not guarantee the use of Hensley Field ,because the airfield was owned by the City of Dallas, not the federal government; LTV would have to negotiate with the City to resolve that issue (C. L. Turner to Commander, Naval Air Systems Command 3 August 1971: np; Special Disposal Plan 1 April 1971: np).

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On 11 February 1972, LTV informed the Navy and GSA that the company was no longer interested in purchasing NWIRP Dallas. LTV based its decision on the GSA $31 million purchase price, the Navy's refusal to pay for a treatment facility or to cleanup Mountain Creek Lake, money difficulties, and DOD restrictions on plant operations. Furthermore, the City of Dallas refused LTV's request for continued use of Hensley Field because the airfield was restricted to DOD use only (General Service Administration 14 April 1972: 2). In reality, rising Cold War tensions and the conflict brewing in Vietnam

Table 8-9.

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over the spread of communism were the primary factors that complicated and delayed the plant's sale, rather than animosity between LTV, the Navy, GSA, and DOD.

THE VIETNAM PERIOD, 1965–1975 Conflict over control of Vietnam raged for almost two decades, beginning in 1954, when the country was split in half along political lines. Like Korea in 1945, Vietnam was divided at the 17th parallel into North Vietnam, a communist government supported by the Soviet Union, and South Vietnam, with a Republican government backed by the French and other democratic, Western nations. Not long after the partition, the U.S. military assumed the job of training the South Vietnamese army to defend itself against the North and its guerillas, known as the Viet Cong. The goal of the Viet Cong was to disrupt South Vietnam's social, political, and economic improvement programs through violence, including the assassination of political leaders and attacks on industrial facilities, farms, military bases, and small, rural villages. The Viet Cong's objective of spreading communism through force was done covertly, sporadically, and gradually.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy received a report on the Viet Cong from his military advisor, General Maxwell D. Taylor, which detailed the North's infiltration of South Vietnam. The President's advisors informed Kennedy that more equipment was needed for the South Vietnamese army to repel the Viet Cong. By 1963, the United States had spent $400 million dollars on military aid and had sent more than 16,000 military advisors to Vietnam to assess the best strategy to combat the rebels. On 2 and 4 August 1964, the USS Maddox, a destroyer cruising in the Gulf of Tonkin, was attacked by the Viet Cong patrol boats. The Maddox returned fire after the second attack, sinking the North Vietnamese boats. President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered air attacks in retaliation for the hostile actions, and the North Vietnamese responded with terrorist attacks on American installations in the South.

As a result of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the U.S. military devoted its full attention to South Vietnam and, by June 1965, American troops were engaged in combat with the Viet Cong. The initial U.S. presence numbered 50,000 troops and reached 500,000 by early 1968. Defense spending soared as America's military commitment in Vietnam increased. Aerospace companies, like LTV, became the beneficiaries of increased contracts. It was during these early stages of the Vietnam conflict that LTV attempted to purchase NWIRP

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Dallas. Despite its heated negotiations for the plant, LTV continued production on its jets, missiles, rockets, and on new products for the Army and NASA (Table 8-9).

LTV BEGINS PRODUCTION FOR VIETNAM WAR From 1964 to 1974, when the United States was actively involved in the Vietnam conflict, the military ordered nearly 30,000 jet aircraft and helicopters from the nation's aerospace industries (The Aerospace Industry 1997: np). The Crusader was LTV's first jet aircraft to receive a production order for use in Vietnam. The Navy placed a $48 million order for the F8 Crusader in 1962 and an additional order worth $175 million for the remanufacture 446 of the fighters as photo planes in 1966 ("Manufacturing Technology Contracts" 3 October 1986: np; LTV News 7 September 1962: 1). The Crusader's combat effectiveness was tested and proved during the conflict in head-to-head battle against the Russian MiG-17 and MiG-21 jet aircraft. Its rugged construction made the Crusader a formidable weapon against the MiG, responsible for downing 17 MiG-17s and 4 MiG-21s (Jones 1977: 314).

The A-7 Corsair II, a new jet created by company engineers during the Vietnam period, was the most heavily ordered LTV jet aircraft. The Corsair II was of similar configuration as the Crusader but incorporated different structural assemblies. The Navy ordered three A-7 prototypes on 19 March 1964, with the first flying at Hensley Field on 27 September 1965, almost four weeks ahead of schedule (Donald 1997: 899). Pleased with the Corsair II's performance, the Navy selected the jet to replace many of its outdated Douglas A-4 Skyhawks already in service (Figure 8-40). In November 1966, the Navy awarded LTV a $32 million contract for 16 of the light attack bomber, each of which cost approximately $2 million. The Corsair II entered service with U.S. Navy Squadron VA-147 on 1 February 1967 (Figure 8-41)(Donald1997:899;http:// www.wpafb.af.mil/ museum/modern_flight; Dallas Morning News 18 November 1966: np). Vice Admiral William F. Bringlt, Commander of the Seventh Fleet, declared the Corsair II the "workhorse" of the Navy's operations in North Vietnam because of the fighter’s all-weather capabilities (LTV News 5 January 1967: 1, 4). The Corsair II served in 27 different squadrons in Vietnam, flying more than 90,000 combat missions (Donald 1997: 899). During the war period, LTV produced 866 Corsair II for combat use (LTV Profile 22 July 1971: 3).

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In addition to jet aircraft orders, LTV provided other services to the Navy. On 6 March 1965, LTV updated the electrical systems of two long-range instrumentation ships, the USS Huntsville and the USNS Watertown. The Navy's Bureau of Ships awarded LTV the $21,925,774 contract for the modification, renovation, and repair of the ships, which were originally slotted for communications use in Vietnam, but later reassigned to NASA Figure 8-40. A-7A aircraft aboard USS America. Source: LTV for use in the Apollo Space Program. Aerospace Corporation. NASA used the USS Huntsville and the USNS Watertown to monitor and track the Apollo spacecraft as they re-entered the Earth's atmosphere (Dallas Morning News 5 March 1965: np). NWIRP Dallas manufactured the electrical systems, but the installation occurred at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida (Dallas Morning News 30 March 1968: np).

Following the merger of TEMCO with Vought, LTV began producing for other military branches and for NASA. In 1962, just prior to the Vietnam buildup, LTV researched and developed a space pack called the SMU (self-maneuvering unit), which enabled astronauts to assemble vehicles and transfer goods from one Figure 8-41. The A-7 Corsair II. ship to another in space (Dallas Times Source:http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/modern_flight Herald 13 August 1962: np). The company's successful work on the SMU led to a contract for the design and manufacture of a manned space flight simulator at NWIRP Dallas. The simulator was "a maneuvering, ground-based device which can simulate numerous phases of space missions including launch, orbit, rendezvous, earth and lunar landings, and many others." Eight of NASA's astronauts for the Apollo Space Mission trained on the manned space flight simulator at NWIRP Dallas in May 1963 (LTV News 17 May 1963: 1).

Also in 1963, LTV received an $10,687,500 extension to the existing Scout missile production program for 23 additional launch vehicles, a program that Vought began with NASA in May 1959. NASA used Scout missiles to launch satellites into the Earth's orbit (LTV News

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17 May 1963: 1). NASA again extended the Scout missile program and LTV's role in its production on 30 August 1965. The $9.2 million award required the company to manage the entire program on a trial basis that lasted 16 months, from 1 July to 31 October 1966. LTV's responsibilities included assembling the Scout, testing, and launching, as well as mission planning and evaluation of the field data (Dallas Times Herald 30 August 1965: np). LTV's performance as manager of the Scout program earned the company prime contractor status and two additional Scout missile contracts worth nearly $14 million, in June 1972. As prime contractor, LTV was responsible for both the Scout launch vehicles and its motors. NASA's order called for the delivery of 15 units at the rate of 1 per month beginning in November 1973 and ending in February 1975 (LTV Profile June 1972: 1). Between 1962 and 1970, LTV's earnings of $44,445,000 on NASA contracts placed the company 12th among 100 contractors providing products or performing services for the space agency (LTV Profile February 1970: 2).

During the Vietnam period, LTV also performed work for the Army, which awarded it a $79.4 million contract for the Lance Missile, a weapon designed for use in a general or limited war and capable of combat operations in all types of weather and terrain. The Lance Missile System protected advancing ground forces in the field and also carried the Army's nuclear fire support (LTV News 7 June 1963: 1). LTV's second Army contract was for the XM561 one-quarter ton cargo truck worth $2.5 million. Both the Lance Missile System and XM561 were developed at NWIRP Dallas in LTV's engineering buildings, but neither was manufactured at Dallas owing to the lack of adequate facilities as well as final production commitments on jet aircraft and NASA products. LTV manufactured the Lance Missile System and XM561 at the Warren Ordnance Plant in Detroit, Michigan, an Army-owned GOCO facility (LTV News 21 December 1962: 1).

LTV EXPANDS NWIRP DALLAS TO MEET ITS PRODUCTION DEMAND From 1965–75, LTV sales to the Navy, Army, and NASA topped $3.75 billion, and the company's production efforts for the DOD, combined with an ambitious commercial program, strained NWIRP Dallas facilities (Brown 1972: 26). The overcrowding forced LTV to transfer manufacturing on its Army contracts to Detroit, so the company sought to expand of its existing facilities in order to accommodate its wartime and commercial production. In October 1966, LTV began a $21 million facility and equipment modernization program, of which the Navy contributed $4 million (Table IV-10).

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The modernization program's goal was to keep LTV competitive, efficient, and able to meet the company's overwhelming military and commercial orders (LTV News 7 October 1966: 3).

Although no major construction occurred at Plant “B,” Facility 6 as part of the expansion, the factory's high bay area received the bulk of the funds for equipment modernization or replacement (LTV News 7 October 1966: 3). The company spent most of its expansion funds on the construction of 15 new buildings, additions to Facilities 76, 110, 128, and 197, and the installation of a new parking area that provided 1,000 additional parking spaces (LTV Profile February 1969: 1).

The Facility 76 addition included a 50,000-square-foot avionics lab, an acceptance test lab for government and contractor-furnished equipment, and a repair center for aircraft computers, radar, and gyros. An addition to Facility 197, an acoustics and fuel systems test lab, provided expanded space for testing of vibration problems in advanced, supersonic jet aircraft. LTV's improvement to the Fuel Calibration Lab, Facility 110, doubled the company's capacity for testing aircraft fueling systems, a job generally performed by the Navy at other GOCOs (LTV Profile February 1969: 1).

Table 8-10.

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Facility 194, an office and engineering building, was the first new building constructed as part of the Vietnam Expansion Program. The 100,000-square-foot facility supported the A-7 Corsair II production program. (Leasehold Improvements Over $25,000 11 April 1974: 1). Architect Dale Y. Foster and Leo L. Landauers & Associates supplied the architectural drawings, and an unknown firm built Facility 194 at a total cost of $1,320,480. In a 1974 NAVPRO report, Facility 194 is listed as one of the most significant construction projects undertaken by LTV at NWIRP Dallas (Executive Order 11724 Installation Survey Report 1974: 8).

LTV undertook construction of several different facilities and areas of NWIRP Dallas in 1967. Construction activities included the installation of a 250,000-square-foot concrete ramp area extending from the production lines at Facilities 1 and 6 to Hensley Field and storage facilities, or Line Shelters, scattered across the eastern portion of NWIRP Dallas. LTV requested this project on 9 January 1967, and received approval on 23 June 1967 (Leasehold Improvements Over $25,000 11 April 1974: 2). The new concrete ramp expanded airport operations and capabilities at NWIRP Dallas for LTV's commercial and military programs, specifically the A-7 Corsair II, Crusader, Boeing 747, and McDonnell-Douglas DC-10. The ramp's construction cost $940,977.00.

Part of the Vietnam Expansion included the installation of eight prefabricated, metal Engine Run-Up Line Shelters—Facilities 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 211, 212, and 213—in the eastern portion of NWIRP Dallas (Figure 8-42). The Navy approved the shelters on 19 April 1967 (Leasehold Improvements Over $25,000 11 April 1974: 1). Engine Run-Up Line Shelters provided space to store, inspect ,and test individual jet aircraft prior to flight testing at Hensley Field. Once a jet was manufactured in Facilities 1 and 6, LTV employees moved the aircraft down the newly Figure 8-42. Line shelters constructed in the eastern portion of NWIRP Dallas during the Vietnam War. Source: NWIRP installed concrete ramp to a Line Dallas Plant Records. Shelter, where it was tested and then

PAGE 8-82 NAVAL WEAPONS INDUSTRIAL RESERVE PLANT DALLAS, DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS I NTEGRATED C ULTURAL R ESOURCES M ANAGEMENT P LAN moved through Gate 48 or Gate 49 to Hensley Field at NAS Dallas. Each unit provided 3,300 square feet of space and at a combined cost of $94,357 (Leasehold Improvements Over $25,000 11 April 1974: 1).

The two remaining buildings constructed in 1967 were small support buildings. The first, Facility 219, a raw materials warehouse, was used to store aluminum, steel, wood, and other production goods. The 60,594-square- foot warehouse cost LTV nearly $500,000. Located in the southwest portion of NWIRP Dallas and away from manufacturing centers, Facility 219 was accessible to Crusader Drive, which was used to transport the raw materials to the appropriate production facility. The second building, Facility 195, a cooling tower, cost $45,000 and supported expanded air conditioning needs in the newly constructed buildings.

Three LTV-funded buildings were added at NWIRP Dallas in 1968, the largest of which was Facility 198, a machining center. LTV requested the new facility on 3 May 1967, which was approved later that month. The 205,658-square-foot building cost $3.6 million and provided LTV with a variety of manufacturing support functions, both commercial and military (Leasehold Improvements Over $25,000 11 April 1974: 1). With LTV's expanded manufacturing program, the company needed a large and modern machining center to make, shape, and forge specific parts for jet aircraft, missiles, rockets, and commercial airliners. Both large and small parts, made of metals and alloys, were machined through heat, pressure, and chemical processes on large presses and dies in Facility 198.

The remaining two 1968 buildings, Facilities 222 and 223, were completed within two months of each other. Facility 222, a 9,311- square-foot paint preparation area, served the company's commercial and military production programs, specifically the A-7 Corsair II, Boeing 747, and McDonnell-Douglas DC-10. LTV used Facility 223 to store ammunition magazines for installation on the Crusader, Crusader III, and Corsair II. Because of its strict military application, the Navy—rather than LTV—funded the 1,250-square-foot facility at a cost of $50,000 (Table IV-11) (Leasehold Improvements Over $25,000 11 April 1974: 2; LTV Profile February 1969: 1).

The last building constructed as part of the Vietnam Expansion was Facility 220, an office building located immediately south of Facility 194, in the westernmost portion of NWIRP Dallas. The three-story, 155,526- square-foot office building cost LTV over $3 million dollars

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and housed materials and computer systems related to the A-7 Corsair II program. The Navy approved construction of Facility 220 on 29 May 1968, and LTV hired Dale M. Mills, a Dallas architect- engineer, to supply the architectural drawings. Facility 220 was completed in 1969.

In March 1968, Texas Governor John Connally awarded LTV the Governor's Industrial Expansion Award on the basis of the company's Vietnam Expansion Program and its effects on the total economic growth of North Texas. The Dallas and Grand Prairie Chambers of Commerce nominated LTV for the prestigious award because the expansion afforded North Texas residents increased employment opportunities, which in turn heightened local expenditures and capital investments (LTV News 15 March 1968: 1). During the Vietnam period, employment at NWIRP Dallas soared to 25,000, a figure approaching World Figure 8-43. The city of Grand Prairie during the 1970s. War II employment levels. Even so, Source: NWIRP Dallas Plant Records. the Navy estimated that LTV was understaffed by nearly 10,000 employees (Executive Order 11724 Installation Survey Report 1974: 5).

The growth of NWIRP Dallas also coincided with the growth of the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex (Figure 8-43). By 1974, the overall population of the Metroplex reached 2.5 million, with the City of Dallas representing 894,000 and Grand Prairie 63,000 residents—a considerable jump from the nearly 400,000-Dallas County population figure in 1940, when NWIRP Dallas was built (Executive Order 11724 Installation Survey Report 1974: 9; Bilstein & Miller 1985: 94). Since the plant's initial opening, the Metroplex had grown into the transportation hub of the Southwest, serviced by the Dallas-Ft. Worth Regional Airport, major interstate highways, and numerous freight lines (Executive Order 11724 Installation Survey Report 1974: 11). Grand Prairie Chamber of Commerce officials credited NWIRP Dallas, the Navy, and the facility contractor with bolstering the suburb's economy, spurring development and growth, and providing North Texas residents with expanded employment

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Table 8-11. opportunities. Randle Lee, vice-president of commercial development for the Chamber of Commerce, compared the impact of the aircraft industry in North Texas to that of oil in West Texas (Dallas Morning News 9 August 1987).

LTV OPERATIONS IN POST-VIETNAM TO 1992 Following the end of the Vietnam War in the mid-1970s and the reduction of military-related contracts, LTV was forced to layoff over half its work force. With the Cold War period coming to a close, the company relied more on commercial contracts and orders from foreign nations to keep its business afloat. Consequently, LTV had no funds to purchase NWIRP Dallas, and this factor, combined with restrictions placed on the sale, forced the company to abandon its plan to buy the complex. The Navy subsequently declared NWIRP

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Dallas a surplus property, but little buyer interest and the nation's depressed economic conditions forced it to reconsider divestiture. Furthermore, the Navy argued that as long as LTV devoted a substantial percentage of its production activities to DOD- or NASA- related contracts, the company could continue to lease NWIRP Dallas. With few viable alternatives, the Navy renewed LTV's lease, No. N0w6137u, ensuring that NWIRP Dallas was preserved for future mobilization emergencies (Special Disposal Plan 1 April 1971: np; Executive Order 11724 Installation Survey Report 1974: 1).

Since the major Vietnam Expansion of 1966–69, LTV has made no major leasehold improvements at NWIRP Dallas except for routine maintenance and the cleanup of Mountain Creek Lake. As a condition of the lease renewal, LTV was required to install a new water treatment plant according to the specifications of the Texas Water Quality Board and the Environmental Protection Agency. In 1974, LTV constructed an Industrial Waste Treatment Plant and Collection System in the westernmost portion of the plant at a cost of $2,851,300. The company also connected the NWIRP Dallas water storage tanks to the City of Dallas water main, providing quality drinking water to employees for the first time in almost a decade. Finally, the last maintenance requirement at NWIRP Dallas was the replacement of the World War II-era cooling tower, Facility 129, at a cost of nearly $2.6 million (Executive Order 11724 Installation Survey Report 1974: 16).

The worldwide recession of the early 1980s and the expense of required facilities maintenance rendered LTV financially vulnerable. The company was able to keep its doors open through its subcontracting work and continued production of its famed Corsair II jet aircraft. The Corsair II sustained LTV throughout the late 1970s and 1980s. Both the Navy and Air Force placed orders with LTV for the jet, but the DOD purchased aircraft modification kits and other maintenance supplies rather than complete production models. The 42 new production Corsair II jets manufactured at NWIRP Dallas in this period were ordered by the French military, with additional units requisitioned by the Greek and Portuguese air forces in the late 1980s (Donald 1997: 899–900). The Corsair II was a superiorly designed jet, and its performance and limited maintenance requirements allowed the aircraft to remain in active service throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The U.S. Navy deployed the Corsair II in combat during the Desert Storm conflict. In 1993, the last version of the Corsair II, in service with the U.S. Air National Guard, was retired (Donald 1997: 899). NATO countries still fly models of the Corsair II today.

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The Corsair II and subcontracting work fueled LTV's survival in the lean and often cyclical aerospace environment of the 1980s. In 1981, LTV won its largest contract ever, a $1.3 billion subcontract from Rockwell International Corporation, a California-based company, to build the aft fuselage of the B1B Stealth Bomber (Dallas Morning News 9 August 1987). The Stealth contract, a subcontracting job for the U.S. Air Force C-17 Cargo plane, and commercial work for Boeing sustained and allowed LTV to rehire many employees who had lost their jobs in the declining aircraft market following the Vietnam War. By the late 1980s, LTV employment rebounded to 15,800 persons, with an annual payroll of $211.3 million. Throughout the late 1980s and to the present, no complete jet aircraft or commercial product has been manufactured at NWIRP Dallas (Dallas Morning News 9 August 1987).

PRODUCTION AT NWIRP DALLAS FROM 1992 TO THE PRESENT In 1992, Northrop Grumman, a prestigious Southern California-based company, purchased LTV and became the new tenant of NWIRP Dallas. A leader in Stealth technology, Northrop Grumman purchased LTV because of its decade-long experience manufacturing pieces of the Stealth Bomber. Northrop Grumman valued LTV's expertise and wanted NWIRP Dallas employees to work on the company's burgeoning Stealth Fighter program. Northrop Grumman also used

Figure 8-44. Aerial view of NWIRP Dallas, 1991. Source: NWIRP Dallas Plant Records.

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NWIRP Dallas to refurbish its Gulf Stream aircraft, but has never manufactured a complete product at the complex. In the last few years, the company reduced employment levels at the facility in an effort to reorganize its corporate structure and determine the best way to utilize the factory.

In its tenure at NWIRP Dallas, Northrop Grumman has made no major leasehold improvements except for routine maintenance; however, in 1997–98, the company renovated its office space in Facilities 2 and 7, which required a massive 5,000-person layoff. Also during this time, the Navy decided to divest itself of NWIRP Dallas and other aircraft-related GOCO facilities. The Navy gave Northrop Grumman the first opportunity to purchase NWIRP Dallas, but the company declined, preferring to lease rather than own the property. The Navy offered to sell NWIRP Dallas to the City of Dallas, which currently owns both Hensley Field and the former NAS Dallas complex. The city accepted the proposal and on 24 March 1999, Congress took the first step in the transfer of NWIRP Dallas to the city with the passage of Senate Bill S-694 (Figures 8-44 & 8-45).

Figure 8-45. Aerial view of NWIRP Dallas, 1991. Source: NWIRP Dallas Plant Records.

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OWNERSHIP OF NWIRP DALLAS CHANGES Throughout the transfer of the property to the City of Dallas, Northrop Grumman continued on as lessee of NWIRP Dallas, filling orders for the B-2 Stealth Bomber manufacturing program as well as the Joint STARS, E-2C, and Global Hawk programs. In the third quarter of 1999, Northrop Grumman experienced a backlog at most of its production facilities, but at NWIRP Dallas, the company experienced a significant slow- down. Grumman attributed the decrease in work to the conclusion of the B-2 bomber program. The reduction in B-2 work reduced profits at NWIRP Dallas by half, from $104 million to $51 million. As a result of reduced sales and profits, the company decided to sell its Dallas division (PR Newswire 18 October 2000: np).

In July 2000, Northrop Grumman entered into talks with The Carlyle Group about purchasing the Dallas division and assuming the lease at NWIRP Dallas. The Carlyle Group, a Washington, D.C.-based private venture capital firm, developed a reputation for acquiring and successfully operating 11 defense-related companies, including Power Paragon and United Defense Industries, maker of the Bradley fighting vehicle. The Carlyle Group offered to purchase all of Northrop Grumman’s aerostructures divisions – not just the Dallas division. Northrop Grumman’s commercial aerostructures unit generated annual sales of $706 million and employed some 6,000 people at production facilities in Dallas, Texas; Hawthorne, California; Stuart, Florida; and Milledgeville and Perry, Georgia. Northrop Grumman agreed to the sale of its whole aerostructures sector, so long as The Carlyle Group agreed to assume more then $400 million in employment liabilities and taxes. The Carlyle Group agreed to Northrop Grumman’s terms. On 24 July 2000, The Carlyle Group officially purchased Northrop Grumman’s entire aerostructures sector for $1.2 billion dollars. When publicly announcing the deal, The Carlyle Group confirmed that there would be no significant changes in overall workforce levels and that it would keep aerostructures’ headquarters at NWIRP Dallas, operating under the historic name, Vought Aircraft Industries, Inc. (PR Newswire 24 July 2000: 12:21; PR Newswire 24 July 2000: 12:05; hoovers.com; thecarlylegroup.com).

The new company formed by The Carlyle Group marked the return of a well-respected name in the aerospace industry and combined the design and manufacturing capabilities of the Vought Aircraft Company, Northrop Corporation, and Grumman Corporation. The new director of aerostructures operations, Gordon Williams,

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elaborated on the importance and combination of the three companies under the name Vought Aircraft Industries: “Our new company name carries with it a tradition of excellence. The Vought legacy of achievement in aerospace design, manufacture, and technology innovation has made us what we are today – the premier aerostructures supplier in the world”. Vought Aircraft Industries assumed all of the previous subcontract and prime contract work for the Boeing Company and Gulf Stream Aerospace at NWIRP Dallas, supplying the firms with fuselages, empennages, wing center sections, flight control surfaces, doors and nacelle components, as well as the entire integrated work for the Gulfstream V business jet (PR Newswire 24 July 2000: 12:21; PR Newswire 24 July 2000: 12:05).

Immediately following the July 2000 creation of Vought Aircraft Industries, NWIRP Dallas became the center of the company’s fabrication and major assembly operations. Vought Aircraft Industries continued production work for Boeing on both commercial and military projects at NWIRP Dallas. Current commercial products include various structures for the Boeing 737, 747, 757, 767, and 777. Current military subcontract work for the Air Force and Navy include major structures on the C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft. NWIRP Dallas employees manufacture the nacelles, horizontal and vertical stabilizers, and universal aerial refueling panels for the C-17. Other military-related products manufactured at Dallas under Vought Aircraft Industries include the E-2C Hawkeye outer wing panels, S-3A Viking wing folds, V-22 fuselage subassemblies, and the wings for the Global Hawk unmanned air vehicle (PR Newswire 24 July 2000: 12:21).

Northrop Grumman’s sale of its aerostructures sector to The Carlyle Group and the renaming of the division to Vought Aircraft Industries only minimally affected operations at NWIRP Dallas, but has delayed the sale of the federally owned property to the City of Dallas from 2002 until 2006. In the meantime, the Navy and the City of Dallas has agreed to keep Vought Aircraft Industries as the lessee of NWIRP Dallas throughout and following the transfer of the property from the military to the private sector. However, during the six-year transfer period, Vought Aircraft Industries is precluded from engaging in any leasehold improvements at NWIRP Dallas without the formal and written consent of the Navy, the City of Dallas, and the Texas State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO).

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