I wonder how we were able to transition in WWII from a commercial industrial base to a military industrial base so quickly? It was almost as though we had the engineers, machinists and technicians that could retool and refit production lines to transition and accomodate both needs. Could the Big Three today transition from building SUVs to building tanks and Jeeps at a moments notice?
Rhetorical question...
well we aren't making M4 Shermans and B24 Liberators any more. the end goods are far more complicated now, and its not like you can adapt many civilian things into war fighting gear. In WW2 that was still possible for nations directly in the fight. That doesn't exist today. even the mighty manufacturing giant of Russia is producing fewer tanks in a year than we were in a week.
and to the bolded, no we did not meet both needs. I forget the exact number but we produced less than 500 civilian cars after the first quarter of 1942 until after the fighting stopped in 1945, vs the several million we were making over a similar time in the depression. US citizens were under pretty harsh rationing, and saving up scrap metal for recycling was a HUGE part of us meeting quotas.
even with a near 25% unemployment rate among men before, we still had to mobilize women into the workforce in HUGE numbers to get the production we needed.
it required hundreds of millions of dollars of investment (with inflation that is probably trillions now) from the government to make it happen. the government tripled our GDP in a few years, willing to bet they had to make up plenty of money to make that happen too. Its not like Edsel Ford just started making planes at a personal cost to himself or through some capitalistic measure. The government basically issued a proclamation of: make war time equipment, or be nationalized. and even still it took a long time to start making stuff. Willow Run took a year to make its first full B24, the same plant that was making them 1 per hour at the end of the war.
Its not like it was some light switch and everything stayed normal while we produced some additional tanks. no, our entire economy was turned over to wartime production. and if it wasn't for pretty much the rest of the world being bombed and depopulated our industry would have seen another huge crash after the war time production dried up. we were incredibly lucky to be the only one left standing that could transition back.
really the late 40s, 50s, and early 60s were a perfect storm that allowed/forced us to be the manufacturing giants we were. it wasn't some natural spot we JUST took over. we were the only ones, so other nations HAD to buy from us. as they cleaned up, added population, and got themselves right, our manufacturing demands were going to decrease no matter what. there is no way to think we would have been able to hold on to that manufacturing monopoly we had that you see as this achievable end goal today. the higher wages, bad politicians, greedy CEOs, green bs, LGBT stuff; you could throw all of that out, and manufacturing would not return to what we saw in the 50s and 60s. that was a unique one-off in time.
time.com
