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 .p158 [[ | ]] [[ | ]]  .p158 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrill_C._Meigs | Merrill Church "Babe" Meigs ]] "astounded" by 1942 60,000 airplane production forecast, 125K for 1943
  . [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_aircraft_production_during_World_War_II | actual ]] 47K 1942, 85K 1943, 96K 1944
 .p159 Meigs taught Senator Truman to fly

Freedom's Forge

How American Business Produced Victory in World War II

  • Arthur Herman . 2012 . Bvt Lib 940.531 HER .

  • p003 PROLOGUE

  • p014 Ch01 THE GENTLE GIANT

  • p009 Henry Morgenthau George Catlett Marshall

  • p020 Model T traversed the line start to finish in 90 minutes, 500 per day

    • When William S. Knudsen arrived at Ford Detroit in 1913

    • 10 hours per day, 6 days per week, so 50 cars per hour, 3000 cars per week
    • 4500 hours of work in 60 hours, ...
    • Soon to 8 hours per day, 5 days per week

  • p029 Knudsen showed a muffler with two minute assembly time to purchasing agent Donald O'Keefe, turned down

  • p029 Two weeks later, Knudsen is Chevrolet VP
  • p031 Knudsen: Speed produces nothing, accuracy is the only straight line to production. From workshop mentality to modern manufacturing. Sales went from 72K to almost 250K in 1922
  • p032 Knudsen: "I vanr vun for vun!" (Chevrolet sales up to Ford sales)
  • p033 "flexible mass production", constant modification and change
  • p034 1927 Chevy forced Ford to replace Model T with Model A, stopping production for almost a year
  • p035 Chevy outsold Ford almost every year until 1986

  • p058 Ch03 THE WORLD OF TOMORROW

  • p066 Ch04 GETTING STARTED

  • p107 Ch06 ARSENAL OF DEMOCRACY

  • p108 Republic Steel . Tom Girdler fought unions

  • p109 "I've never done it before, but I can do it again" Jesse Jones about Henry Kaiser

  • p111 Machine gun production tools, belt driven, 20 to 70 years old
  • p112 Knudsen: complete retooling of most American factories in 18 months
  • p112 first appropriation 4,247 aircraft, second appropriation 14,385 aircraft, Roosevelt expecting 50,000
  • p113 autos hard-cast dies, aircraft flexible soft dies

  • p114 Billy Mitchell staffer Jimmy Doolittle

  • p114 Car body makers Briggs Manufacturing , Fisher Body , Murray Corporation

  • p115 suspended annual automobile model changes when less than 25% of Americans supported war involvement
  • p115 General Motors made 10% of everything during WWII
  • p116 National Aviation Board decisions made by labor, government, business

  • p117 Reuther labor plan failed, car companies and unions made parts, not airplanes

  • p118 plenty of tasks and growth for subcontractors, the war would create more than half a million new businesses

  • p119 Kaiser and the Six Companies

  • p120 Eliot Janeway "a victory small enough to be organized is too small to be decisive"

  • p126 Lend-Lease

  • p129 novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald heart attack 1940 age 44, "the party is over"

  • p130 Ch07 SHIPS, STRIKES, AND THE BIG BOOK

  • p130 Kaiser Shipyard Richmond. experts predicted six months to build solid ground, Kaiser's men took three weeks, 300,000 cubic yards of rock and gravel

  • p132 :-( "Oregon was settled by Missourians who didn't want to work" from Cooke, "Home Front"

    • Bullshit. Cooke's Home Front describes life at home during the US Civil War. Not many Oregonians fought on either side of the Civil War; indeed, they formed militias in Oregon after US regulars (from the east) returned east to fight.

    • https://depts.washington.edu/moving1/Oregon.shtml shows Oregon birthplace by decade; Missouri was 14% in 1850, 8% in 1860, 11% in 1870, 6% in 1880, 4.3% in 1900, 3.6% in 1910 (Illinois was 4.7%).

      • In 2022, Oregon was 45% Oregon-born, 14.9% California born, 5% Washington born, 3.5% Mexico born ... with Missouri in 19th place, 0.55%
      • Missouri was the start of the Oregon Trail; rail lines did not connect to Oregon to the east before 1883, or through California before 1887. Presumably many eastern US emigrants traveled to Oregon incrementally, spending a few years in Missouri, earning the money necessary for a wagon and supplies for an Oregon Trail wagon train.

  • p133 Henry Kaiser demanded much from son Edgar, made them an inseparable team

  • p133 "... you pile it on and they do more and more. Pretty soon you have men you can rely on absolutely"
  • p133 Portland operation: 7500 components from 600 suppliers, from ... switches ... to engines
  • p134 Edgar Kaiser built first Portland shipways in two months

  • p134 Clay Bedford and West coast shipbuilder Edwin W. Hannay

  • p134 Todd and the Six Companies shipyard in Portland Maine

  • p135 William Francis Gibbs Gibbs and Cox in New York, largest naval architecture firm in the US

  • p135 Kaiser's men never boarded a ship, much less built one
  • p136 Seagoing boxcar, 8000 tonnes cargo, not comfortable
  • p136 Richmond yard built 747 Liberty ships over 4 years

  • p137 Kaiser's partner Stephen Bechtel

  • p139 Labor unions "biggest obstacle to war production"

  • p142 Strikes cost months of progress, "Communist-dominated" CIO Congress of Industrial Organizations

  • p145 Ch08 COUNTDOWN

  • p146 Saginaw Steering Gear supposed to supply 280 machine guns by 1942 March, actually shipped 28728 guns

  • p146 year for tooling and setup, 6 months to full production
  • p147 Mitsubishi and Kawasaki aircraft factories used American machine tools

  • p148 Fred Geyer Cincinnati Milling Machine

  • p149 Geyer purchased boring machine for 16 inch naval guns, smuggled out of Third Reich through Switzerland and Italy
  • p151 1941 June 9 Roosevelt sent troops to end North American Aviation strike, workers marched with a flag back to work.

  • p152 1941 August 28 Roosevelt creates Supplies, Priorities. and Allocations Board SPAB director Donald M. Nelson

  • p155 1941 June - Oil embargo on Japan, July assets frozen, a casus belli

  • p155 1941 October, 2000 Japanese-Americans evacuated from west coast

  • p155 Frank Knox Navy secretary: "The United States is ready" at December 4 dinner

  • p069 Alistair Cooke 2006 The American Home Front

    • Forest Grove Library 940.5373 COO

FreedomForge (last edited 2026-10-20 07:51:32 by KeithLofstrom)