Wartime automobiles

I was just watching a show about industry in the USA during WW2. They said there were only 139 automobiles built during the war. Could this be true? I know production was limited,but 139?

That 139 would be civilian automobiles. Ford built a lot of "staff cars" and all of the manufacturers built military trucks and jeeps. IH made carbines.

Massey Harris built Tanks at the Racine WI plant.

During the war our family car was a 35 Ford, because tires were so "hard to get" my dad always would check to see if they had leaked air, before getting in to drive, even if the car had set only an hour or less. It was a visual check when day light and when dark he walked around and kicked each tire.
Uncle Barney was in the army at Fort Crook, later S.A.C. Headquarters, near Omaha. He was a General's driver, one hot summer day his car had three blow-outs. One of them was the spare in the trunk of the vehicle, this was likely a 42 Ford which had the same body style as the 46-48 Ford sedans.

Civilian production of cars and trucks stopped almost immediately after war was declared. The amazing thing was how fast production facilities were switched to war material. In a matter of a few weeks all kinds of manufacturing plants were making parts or machines for the war effort. I don't thing we could accomplish that today, no matter what the reason.

War was declared in Dec. 41, and it took til March for the manufacturers to stop producing cars and get switched over. Many of the new cars were taken back from dealers and put into storage. A Dr. or war production worker, or someone with some pull that really needed a new car could get one, after a pile of paper work. What was immediate was aluminum, chrome, brass, and copper. These were designated war-materials. Some of the last 1942 cars and even some of the 1946's had reverted to cast iron pistons. Hubcaps and bumpers were painted. Trim was painted tin instead of stainless. Chrome badges were suddenly plastic pieces. White rubber was not available and white walls were tin extensions of the hubcaps. Every portion of American life was affected some how. During the war years body men had a heyday of making it fit, when repairing wrecks. Junk yard parts, even whole bodies were refurbished, and put back to use.

I agree with the comment by Paul from MI. When you read about how fast everything was changed over to war production it is absolutely amazing.One example; In September of 1941, Chrysler began construction of a new factory five city blocks long and two wide. In April 1942, the first M-3 tank rolled out. And on and on, the same for all other auto and equipment companies. But, as Paul said, I have my doubts if a feat such as that could be accomplished today.

It really amazes me how well everybody pooled their resources, people and companies to switch directions, re-tool and produce other products related to the war and defense effort in such a little amount of time with a huge success. To put in perspective our current administration has had more time to build a simple website site for the sole purpose of an "affordable health care" exchange and its still not right.

Car manufacturers started producing everything from small weapons to large artillary, bombs, jeeps, trucks, tanks, small aircraft up to bombers. Even a company like goodyear made aircraft.

Guns like the M1 carbine a M1911 produced by companies International Harvester, IBM, Smith Corona, Singer, National Postal Meter, GM guidelamp, Rock-ola Jukebox, and many more not named.

I know that if you had skills as a machinist you could NOT be drafted, you had to be stateside making war material. For every machinist that was working, 22 more were needed. I saw that in an old war time footage video. You got 1 pair of shoes per year, gas, rubber, steel were all rationed.

100 years ago next month was the start of World war 1. Sad that the world has disintergrated to the point it is at now.
Iraq in a mess, The Isrealis against Hamas, North Korea, the Russian situation with the Ukraine. It doesnt look good.

That was the surprising thing in what I watched. It wasn't all that sudden. FDR and the head of General Motors,who quit GM and went to work for the government,started the buildup in the summer of 1940,18 months before Pearl Harbor. FDR saw how ill prepared we were when we entered WW1 and could read the writing on the wall and knew that it was just a matter of time until we ended up in the middle of WW2. The GM leader convinced FDR that capitalism,not government intervention in business was the way to accomplish it. They put everything up for bids instead of the government assigning products to different manufacturers as FDR wanted to do.

Ok, Pearl harbor bombed Dec 7, 1941. New car models AFIK always came out in the fall. So I guess the 1942 Fords I remember seeing could have been built in the fall of 1941.

KEH

Alfred Sloan was CEO of General Motors and I never heard of him working for the government.
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After 1939 war materials were being built and sent to England and Russia under the Lend Lease program.

Here is a picture of a picture showing G bay at the Ford Assembly plant in St. Paul, Minnesota. The picture was taken on December 7th 1942. The plant had two crane bays, this bay was 67 feet wide. Most of the bridge cranes in that bay were 5 ton. I used to have the picture on the computer but it looks like it vanished.

Human nature has not changed since the dawn of recorded time.
Mankind has perfected more efficient tools to kill each other .
There has always been wars and skirmishes . Floods, fire, famine and earthquakes . It just seems worse as we now have instant coverage from around the globe .

It was William Knudsen.
War time buildup

War production
War production

Imagine how tough it'll be to find machinist THESE days if we ever had another large scale war! Let alone machines for those machinists to use. Sure there's a lot of hi tech machining capability in the US - which is great, until those machines need spare parts from overseas which may not be available.

The ability to win a large war is directly related to manufacturing capacity. Sadly, I think we all know where this is headed.

Every navy ship needed machinists, some were drafted into the navy. In the late 1970's I worked with a then older gentleman who was a tool maker working at a GM plant making F-4 Wildcat fighter planes when he was drafted.

He complained that his enlistment in the Pacific was extended months longer after the war ended because they said he was needed to get ships ready for long term storage. "All ship hatches had to be tight and in top condition". Then they used those ships in atomic bomb tests and sank them.

That was also on the tail end of the depression. The economy was still not very strong. There were many opportunities to make big money supplying arms to the Allied countries, even though "the USA would never get involved in the fight". Turning the USA into "The Arsenal of Democracy" during 1940 and 1941 was for both patriotic and economic reasons.

I think the planning was completed and construction was well underway on Henry Ford's Willow Run B-24 bomber plant by the time of the Pearl Harbor attack.

I had a 1942 V-8 Ford pickup. IIRC Ford slammed the door on civilian vehicles in early Feb. '42.

I knew a man that worked for Studebaker at that time. Said car production stopped in March 1942. What cars that were left went to the military. Truck production went on but military only. Some paper work that I have from that time.

Onan 12-13-41 Must have government permit. With a rating of A-1-G or better. In order to buy a generator.

Onan 12-20-41.Generators over a certain KW rating. To be determened at a later date. Will be restricted to military only.

UTICA DROP FORGE & TOOL October 4 1941
All distributors must fill out form(PD-25C) stating how much of your production. Is for defense purposes. In order for us to obtain raw materials.

Manufacturing switched to war production really quick impression?? War started in Europe in 1939, in 1940 the US manufacturers and military, many in government figured they would be fighting in couple years like in WW1. Preparation for manufacture started in 1940, plans for conversion made and the allied equipment sales paid for some new tooling. The French and British orders for planes meant engine makers could get another set of casting molds for Allison engine and Pratt and Whitney- the restricted Allison engines were replaced with Pratt & Whitneys for the french fighter order of Curtis 75- as P36 with 6 French 7.5mm machine guns. Navy supply production and dock facilities checked and cleaned up, plans made for new facilities and lots off CCC work teams went from parks maintenance to building later military camps road, navy dock and wharehouse prep in 1940. ammo production of .303 rounds for British meant some equipment readied for other cartridges like 30-06. Garand developement and Jeep design tested and speeded up, lessons learned from Spain combined with first reports from British purchasing commission went to designers of planes and tanks, the B17 was put into production and the B24, B26 developement went from paper to prototype. In WW1 the 2 years of war production for the allies meant lots of manufacturing capacity available for US when war declared- the 1940/1941 time was used for similar prep with the military timeline considered as 1942/1943 as likely war declare start. Japanese attack was a year early for some planners- but most concerned were not completely surprised at the idea of war starting and plans for the European theater were already in motion. In spring of 1941 the Army and Navy staff meetings with the politicians had a consensus that late 1942, early 1943 was considered the likely time that US would find a excuse to declare war/attack Germany in support of the British, plans were assigned then for that time line with a slightly earlier ready to move time as desired encouraged- see the North African invasion plans history archives. Pacific theater was politically top priority for some people after the Japanese attack- but the european Theater plans were in process for army already, navy got the pacific theater defense with the notice that they would attack after the European plans and initial attacks concluded from palns already set- Pacific theater plans would be developed to same stage as European theater before attack- 6 months to a year of catch up. RN.

I had never heard of William Knudsen, He was never CEO of General Motors.

Career[edit]
Knudsen was working for the John R. Keim Company of Buffalo, New York when the Ford Motor Company bought it in 1911 for its steel-stamping experience and tooling.[1] Knudsen worked for Ford from 1911[2] to 1921,[3] a decade that saw the formative development of the modern assembly line and true mass production.[4] Working first for the Ford Motor Company and later for General Motors, Knudsen became an expert on mass production and a skilled manager. Knudsen was president of the Chevrolet Division of General Motors from 1924[5] to 1937, and was president of General Motors from 1937[5] to 1940.

In 1940, President Roosevelt asked Knudsen to come to Washington to help with war production. Knudsen was appointed as Chairman of the Office of Production Management and member of the National Defense Advisory Commission.

In January 1942, Knudsen was commissioned a Lieutenant General in the U.S. Army, the only civilian ever to join the Army at such a high initial rank.[6] and appointed as Director of Production, Office of the Under Secretary of War. In this capacity, he worked as a consultant and a troubleshooter for the War Department.

In both of these positions, Knudsen used his extensive experience in manufacturing and industry respect to facilitate the largest production job in history. In response to the demand for war material, production of machine tools tripled. Total aircraft produced for the US military in 1939 was less than 3,000 planes. By the end of the war, America produced over 300,000 planes. Production of both cargo and Navy ships also increased astronomically. Knudsen's influence not only smoothed government procurement procedures, but also led companies that had never produced military hardware to enter the market. America outproduced its enemies. As Knudsen said, "We won because we smothered the enemy in an avalanche of production, the like of which he had never seen, nor dreamed possible.

My dad had ordered an Oldsmobile in lateNov) 1941 and got the last car olds built in Feb 1942. Car went thru the war years and lasted as my first car until 1951 when I bought a new Ford. It was a 8 cylinder inline and flooded out the plugs when driving fast iin the rain thru puddles. Had rusted out rocker panels and a friend of the family rebuilt them and a few other spots with epoxy and fiberglas in 1947. Great old car that took a beating(especially from me) adn kept on ticking.

My dad had a "36 Plymouth, had to hold gear shift in 2nd or it would fly out of gear. Always had ag tires on it.(he was a full time farmer)!