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Mobilizing U.S. Industry in World War II: Myth and Reality

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Mobilizing U.S. Industry in World War II: Myth and Reality M C H A~ R ~A I? ~ ! 50 obilizing U.S. Industry in World War II Alan L. Gropman r A popular Government, without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. JAMES MADISON to W. T. BARRY August 4, 1822 MOBILIZING U.S. INDUSTRY IN WORLD WAR I1: MYTH AND REALITY Alan L. Gropman McNair Paper 50 August 1996 INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL STRATEGIC STUDIES NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY Washington, DC NATI()NAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY [] President: Lieutenant General Ervin J. Rokke, USAF [] Vice President: Ambassador Willi~un G. Walker INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL STRATEGIC STUDIES [] Director & Publisher: Dr. Hans A. Binnendijk Publications Directorate & NDU Press Fort Lesley J. McNair, W,'tshington, DC 20319-6000 [] Phone: (202) 685-421(] [] Facsimile: (202) 685-4806 [] Director & Managing Editor: Dr. Frederick T. Kiley [] Vice Director & General Editor: Major Thom~Ls W. Krise, USAF [] Chief, Editorial & Publications Branch: Mr. George C. Maerz [] Senior Editor: Ms. Mary A. Sommerville [] Editor: Mr. Jonath:m W. Pierce [] Editor for this issue: Ms. Mary A. Sommerville [] Distribution Manager: Mrs. Myrna Myers [] Secretary: Mrs. Laura Hall From time to time, INSS publishes McN~dr Papers to provoke thought ,'rod inform discussion on issues of U.S. national security in the post-Cold W:tr era. These monographs present current topics related to national security strategy ,and policy, defense resource m~magemcnt, international affairs, civil-milit~u'y relations, military technology, and joint, combined, and coalition operations. Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations, expressed or implied, are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of ttw National Defense Hniversity, ttw Department of Defi, nse, or any other U.S. Government agency. Cleared for public reh, ase; distrihution unlimited. Portions of this publication may be quoted or reprinted without further permission, with credit to the Institute for National Strategic Studies, W~tshington, DC. A courtesy copy of reviews and tearsheets would he appreciated. For sale by the II.,S. (;overnment lhinting Office Superintendent of D,~cuments, Mail Stop: SSOP, Washingt,n, I)(" 204(12-9328 ISSN 1071-7552 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................... v 1. INTRODUCTION ..................... 1 2. MOBILIZATION ACTIVITIES BEFORE PEARL HARBOR DAY ...................... 9 3. EDUCATION FOR MOBILIZATION ....... 15 4. INTERWAR PLANNING FOR INDUSTRIAL MOBILIZATION ..................... 19 5. MOBILIZING FOR WAR: 1939TO 1941 ... 31 6. THE WAR PRODUCTION BOARD ....... 55 7. THE CONTROLLED MATERIALS PLAN .. 69 8. THE OFFICE OF WAR MOBILIZATION AND RECONVERSION ............... 83 9. U.S. PRODUCTION IN WORLD WAR II . 93 10. BALANCING MILITARY AND CIVILIAN NEEDS ................... 107 11. OVERCOMING RAW MATERIAL SCARCITIES ...................... 115 12. MARITIME CONSTRUCTION ........... 123 13. PEOPLE MOBILIZATION: "Rosie the Riveter" . ................. 127 14. CONCLUSIONS .................... 139 APPENDIX A: Production of Selected Munitions Items .................... 141 APPENDIX B: The War Agencies of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government ....... 147 ABOUT THE AUTHOR .................. 167 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I was most fortunate to be assisted by many people while writing this account of World War II U.S. Industrial Mobilization. Five people in particular stand out. Dr. Gary E. Weir of the Naval Historical Center provided very wise counsel. Mr. Terrance J. Gough of the Anny's Center of Military History was especially supportive in his analysis of all of the drafts, continually broadening my research anti making me reevaluate my inquiry. I also received essential help from Ms. Sarah Mikel's ace reference librarian, Rosemary Marlowe-Dziuk, of the National Defense University Library. Ms. Marlowe-Dziuk llas that indispensable quality common only to great librarians---curiosity. All my research problems became hers. I also owe a debt of gratitude--as even the most casual reader will notice--to the graphics office at the National Defense lJniversity. Don Barry and Alex Contreras assigned Ms. Nancy Bressi to assist me in developing the visual aids in this numbers-reliant essay. Ms. Bressi has the soul of an artist and the temperament of Job. My chief adviser in this effort was Mr. Thomas Candon, a young graduate student wise and mature beyond his years. Mr. Candon read and critiqued every draft and checked all the data displayed in the numerous charts. Without Mr. Candon's wise advice and assistance, this treatise would have been markedly inferior. Of course, I bear responsibility for all errors of fact and judgment--probably arising because I failed Io heed the sage advice of Dr. Weir and Mr. Gough and the sagacious suggestions of Mr. Candon. V MOBILIZING U.S. INDUSTRY IN WORLD WAR I1: MYTH AND REALITY • INTRODUCTION At a dinner during the Teheran Conference in December 1943, Joseph St;din praised United States manufacturing: I w,'mt to tell you from the Russi~m point of view, what the President ;rod the United States have done to win the w~tr. The most import;rot things in this war are machines. The United States has proven ttutt it c;m turn out from 8,000 to 10,000 airpl~mes per month. Russia c~m only turn out, at most. 3,000 airpl~mes a month .... The United States, therefore, is a country of machines. Without the use of those machines, through Lend-Le&se, we would lose this wal-. 1 It was more than airplaJ~es, of course. The Soviets received, in addition to thousands of tanks and airplanes, hundreds of thousands of trucks from the United States, which vastly enhanced the mobility of the Soviet ground forces. The United States also supplied St',din's factories wilh millions of tons of raw materials and thousands of machine tools to assist the Soviet Union in manufacturing trucks and all the other implements of modem war including tmlks. 2 World War II was won in largest part because of superior allied am~aments production, s The IJnited States greatly outproduced all its "allies and "all its enemies and, at its output 2 MOBILIZING U.S. INDUSTRY IN WORLD WAR II peak in late 1943 and early 1944, was manufacturing munitions almost equal to the combined tt)t',d tff both its friends mid adversaries. The prodigious arms manufacturing capability of the United States is well known by even casual readers of World War II history, if its decisiveness is not as well understood. But myths provoked by sentimentality regarding United States munitions production have evolved in the half century since the war ended, and these have become a barrier to comprehending the lessons of that era. When viewed in isolation the output is indeed impressive. United States Gross National Product grew by 52 percent between 1939 and 1944 (nmch more in unadjusted dollars), munitions production skyrocketed from virtually nothing in 1939 to unprecedented levels, industrial output tripled, and even consumer spending increased (unique among all combatants). But United States industrial production was neither a "miracle" nor was its output comparatively prodigious given the American advantages of abundant raw materials, superb transportation and technological infrastructure, a large and skilled labor force, and, most importantly, two large ocean barriers to bar bombing of its industries. 4 Germany, once it abandoned its Blitzkrieg strategy, increased its productivity more than the United States, Britain, mad the Soviet Union, and despite German attacks on Britain and the Soviet Union, these states performed outstandingly too. 5 This is not to say that United States logistics grand strategy 6 was not ultimately effective. The United States anti its allies were, of course, victorious, and we lost far fewer lives than m~y of our adversaries and fewer than our main "allies. Stalin was correct when he hailed American production. But the halo that has surrounded the era needs to be examined because there were enormous govenunental, supervisory, labor-management relations] and domestic politicai frictions that hampered the effort--and there is no reason to think that these problems would not handicap future mobilization efforts. With enormous threats looming in the mid 1930s and increasing as Europe exploded into war at the end of the decade, the United States was in no way unified in its perception of the hazards, nor was there any unity in government or business about what to do about it. 8 In the end, America and its allies were triumphant, and logistics played the ALAN L. GROPMAN 3 decisive role, but the mobilization could have been more efficient and America could have produced more munitions more quickly and perhaps have ended the war sooner. A nostalgic look at United States industrial mobilization during World War 11 will not make future mobilizations of any size more effective. Certainly none of the major World War II adversaries was less prepared for war in 1939 than the United States. There were fewer than 200,000 men in the Army, only 125,200 in the Navy, and fewer than 20,000 in the Marine Corps. Those troops on maneuvers in 1939 and 1940 used broomsticks to simulate rifles and trucks to represent tanks. 9 Despite war orders from Britain and France in 1939 and 1940 and Lend-Lease shipments to Britain, the Soviet Union, China and elsewhere ",ffter Lend-Lease took effect in March 1941, there were still five million Americans unemployed at tile end of the year. ~° Hitler's Germany had long since absorbed its unemployment by building arms and German infrastructure. In the United States, great progress had been made by the time production peaked in late 1943, compared with the situation in 1941, but output could have been even higher. The fact that it took from August 1939, when the first federal agency designed to analyze mobilization options--theWar Resources Board--was inaugurated, to May 1943, when the final supervisory agency was put in place--the Office of War Mobilization--should be instructive.
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