The Sleeping Giant Awoken: Detroit Turns to War

On December 7, 1941 the Japanese navy struck at Pearl Harbor, as President Roosevelt called it 'the day that would stand in infamy'. However, the top generals of the Japanese military feared that the preemptive strike against the United States would amount to 'waking a sleeping giant'. Their fears soon began to be confirmed as the American war industry started cranking out tanks, planes, ships, and guns so fast neither Japan nor Germany could deal with. This was made possible mainly due to the efforts of America's 'Arsenal of Democracy': Detroit.

The US Armed Forces needed war material and lots of it, so the government ordered all auto manufacturers to cease car production and convert their assembly lines for production of war material, mainly airplanes. The last civilian car to be built before this conversion was a gray Pontiac, off the line in February of 1942. During the years of 1943-45, only about 300 cars would be made, mostly from the smaller car companies like Auburn, Packard and Hudson.

Last Civilian Car February 1942

The Big Three at this time made either parts for vehicles or assembled them. Chrysler made fuselages for bombers, GM's British factories made Churchill tanks, and Ford Motor Company's efforts made them the king of war production in America. Before the war, manufacturers of the Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber could only manage about one bomber per day. At its peak, Ford's unique Willow Run assembly plant could churn out one B-24, with over a million pieces, every hour. The Willow Run plant was unique in that it had a unique turntable on the factory floor so that the incomplete bombers could turn 90 degrees and continue on down the line. Also, the end of the assembly line also connected to an airfield so that crews sleeping over at the plants could fly the bombers out shortly after completion.

B-24s at Willow Run

The American auto industry was able to accomplish amazing feats for the military, but it was also shrouded in controversy in some cases. Henry Ford, a pacifist, had close dealings with the Nazi government in negotiating the nationalization of ford plants in Germany. He was even awarded a medal by the Nazis at one point. Also, General Motors' Opel division factories were located in Germany, and these factories were actually taken over by the Germans and were used to make weapons. The strange part about it is that GM wrote the plants off as a tax write-off, but at the end of the war collected war damages because their factories were bombed in Germany.

Whatever controversy there was, it cannot be argued that Detroit was able to do incredible feats of engineering in their production, and were able to switch their assembly lines back to making cars for the 1946 model year. All in all, it can be said that Detroit was, and will continue to be America's Arsenal of Democracy.