ANOTHER SENIOR MOMENT
A Voice In the Wilderness
by Jim Sponseller
Most of the time, this column takes on a light-hearted
attitude. Today, it's a heavy-hearted one.
It's heavy-hearted because I'm both disappointed and worried
about the way that so many car buyers are ignoring the products of
America's automobile manufacturers. Yes, I know all the arguments pro
and con. The reasoning for buying from foreign manufacturers abound in
letters to the editors and columns by auto writers in our newspapers
and magazines.
Up front, I should admit that I worked for two U.S. auto
manufacturers. The first was Kaiser-Frazier, back in 1953. I had
worked there only six months when they locked the doors of the huge
plant in Ypsilanti because of the lack of sales. I later had a stint
with General Motors that lasted longer. I personally believe that most
of the models produced by American car makers are just as good as
those offered by foreign companies. Many are even better.
But besides the fact that I have been completely satisfied
with the cars produced by American-based companies, one of my main
reasons for never considering the purchase of a foreign vehicle is
quite different than anyone else you may know. Some may even call it
stupid and antiquated reasoning. Here it is.
Not until I went to work for the Fisher Body Division of GM
did I realize what an impact our auto companies had in the defense of
our country. I had heard of Detroit being called the "Arsenal of
Democracy" but really didn't appreciate the meaning of it until I
thumbed through the historical files of Fisher Body. One of my many
jobs was to keep them up to date. Fisher Body was the division that
produced the bodies for nearly every GM model since they started in
1908 until the division was merged into other units in 1984.
While the "Arsenal of Democracy" tag wasn't applied until
World War II, Fisher Body's involvement started during the First World
War. Soon after the U.S. entered the war in 1917, the Army granted a
contract to Fisher Body for the largest order ever written in this
country for airplanes. Although Fisher Body had never before made a
single airplane, it produced the first one 48 days after taking over a
government-owned building near downtown Detroit (later used to
assemble Cadillac car bodies.) It eventually reached 40 a day. By the
time the rather short war for the U.S. ended, the plant had assembled
2,005 planes.
Within months after Pearl Harbor, Detroit's auto industry shut
down its assembly lines and converted to the tools of war. Ford Motor
was soon turning out such items as aircraft and tank engines and gun
mounts. It was most famous for its vast Willow Run plant where 8,685
B-24 bombers were produced. Chrysler converted its assembly lines to
tanks, Army trucks, anti-aircraft guns and assemblies for B-25 medium
bombers. Detroit's Hudson plant made sub-assemblies for the B-29
bomber and marine engines. Packard produced engines for fighter planes
and PT boats. The hundreds of automotive supplier plants all became
involved.
I don't have a record of the items produced by the score of
other General Motors divisions, but I discovered that its Fisher Body
Division alone contributed a remarkable assortment of material to the
war effort. Twelve Fisher plants were assigned for use by other GM
divisions and other companies such as Boeing and Firestone. The
remaining 13 plants, mostly in Michigan, tallied up production numbers
such as these:
- Aircraft assemblies, such as wings and
tail sections, were produced for 5,214 Mitchell B-25 bombers.
- In Grand Blanc, 17,213 tanks rolled off
the assembly line, most of them the famous General Sherman.
- Over in the Grand Rapids plant, the
assembly line produced 2,359 anti-aircraft guns and later 550 huge
5-inch guns for the Navy's ships. They also shipped out over a half
million high-explosive 155mm shell casings, plus aircraft and tank
components.
- In plants of the Ternstedt Division of
Fisher Body, a total of 293,100 intricate gyro aircraft instruments
were manufactured. The division also produced 1.2 million parts used
in fighter plane cannons.
- Five Fisher east coast plants were merged
into the GM Eastern Aircraft Division and was the source of
three-quarters of the nearly 18,000 Wildcat and Avenger planes
produced for the Navy carriers.
- In Cleveland, a 400-acre plant was built
for assembly of wings, tail sections, ailerons, flaps, tail gun
turrets and other parts for the huge B-29 bombers as well as parts
for tanks and Naval guns.
- Also pouring out of these facilities,
along with plants in Flint, Lansing, Detroit and Pontiac, were such
items as 200,000 rocket fins, 86,000 droppable fuel tanks, 1,500
cowlings for Navy fighters and 9,352 huge crankcases for diesel
engines to power Navy ships and submarines.
Today, dozens of auto plants are closing. So are hundreds of
automotive supplier plants. One can only wonder how we could ever gear
up to fill wartime production should the need ever arise. Call up
Japan, Germany or China?
All of this wartime production stuff may sound boring and
trivial to most Americans now, but back in the 1940s it was a life and
death matter for our troops and for the defense of our country. Back
then, when I was among the millions of GI's serving overseas, I had no
idea of how vital the efforts were of our auto plants and the men and
women working there in achieving final victory. Today I do.
You can call me a sentimental old geezer still living in the
past, but I'll just keep on buying and loving the cars that best
support our country's economy today and played a huge role in keeping
it free over 60 years ago.
Oh! I almost forgot. During those war years, 14,761 Fisher
body employees left their jobs and homes to serve in the armed forces.
And 288 gave their lives.
Thanks to Bruce Kelly for this
article.
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