Fascinating story of race between 2 Kaiser shipyards, Richmond 2 (Clay Bedford) and Portland (Edgar Kaiser) to drive production faster using prefab deck house sections and assembly line techniques. Time cut from 220 days to 10 over a couple of years. armed-guard.com/teal.html
Conversation
Bedford takes back record with Robert E Peary built in < 5 days. Something of an engineered PR stunt of course, but these record setting races did drive genuine advances in construction techniques. China is in this mode today. Like those Wuhan hospitals.
1
6
Alright let’s pick this up again. Now into the story of Knudsen successor Don Nelson, ex Sears guy who learned how 135k products in the Sears catalog were made and ran the WIB.
1
3
Nelson faced down trust-busting threats from Roosevelt AG and FDR eventually suspended trust-busting for the war. Also fought Truman on hiring of dollar-a-year crowd. Basically anti-corporatism suspended.
By end of 1942 US was producing more arms than all 3 axis powers combined
1
3
Interesting. Massive levels of direct open cooperation among dozens of aircraft makers. Kinda like Silicon Valley with open source. Sorta open source mechanical and industrial engineering under wartime pressure.
2
9
Now reading about Andrew Jackson Higgins who designed 92% of the small boats used in ww2. Landing craft, PT boats etc. Hitler called him the new Noah.
1
4
Aluminum production went from 327m lbs to 2.2b lbs between 1939 to 1943.
Today the US makes about 1 million metric tons which curiously is about the same (2.2b lb) and imports about 6 million. 🤔
1
6
Henry Kaiser builds a big steel plant in California. Looks like this was when California started transforming into an industrial powerhouse. This plant inspired Ayn Rand’s Rearden Steel in Atlas Shrugged and was also where Terminator 2 climax was filmed
1
1
10
Back to Detroit. After a survey of impressive production statistics, the story of Ford’s Willow Run plant for making B24s, and Knudsen’s evil twin Charles Sorensen who pushed through a dating vision to make planes like cars. 250k parts instead of 15k.
2
3
Excellent story. Huge problems with production design and labor. And dual purpose of both parts supply and full assembly resolved to focus on latter. Innovation of field modification allowed production to get past constant stream of design mods and hit pace of 300/mo.
1
2
B24 Liberators were less popular with crews than B17s but more capable. VLR version won’t the Atlantic war by closing the gap in coverage for U-boat defense. Funny I never looked up this story despite being in Ann Arbor for years and a fan of WW2 aircraft lore.
Replying to
Generally impressive the extent to which this generation of engineering leaders had mastered enormously complex command economy production, just a couple of generations after boutique early mass production. Artisan production craft turned to manufacturing science in 50 years.
1
1
10
A big part was being asshole dictators. Sorensen was apparently called the Mussolini of Ford. Leaders of this era punched each other up. Still the culture in large-scale manufacturing but less so.
1
3
1943, Big Labor broken as public and even FDR lose patience with strikes disrupting war effort. This is the weakest part of the book. I’m guessing there was more than this cartoon villainy portrait to labor side of war story. Congress passes War Labor Disputes Act over FDR veto.
1
3
More production go brrr. Kinda gets lost in the record breaking that much of this output was used to bomb Germany to rubble and kill on an industrial scale. The engineering story is great but the slaughtering race is depressing to contemplate.
1
4
Parade of stories big and small, from GM’s plant in Iran to assemble trucks for Russia to small garage startup making machine tools and tank parts. The sheer number of things being made by unlikely companies in impressive. Frigidaire made machine guns for eg. Wtf.
1
5
This is mainly a mechanical, metallurgical and chemical engineering story but tons of electrical too. GE made ridiculous numbers of types of lighting, motors, etc. Also bazookas. The generality of industrial capacity in the 1940s is amazing.
1
8
Key principle: WIB could restrict consumer demand, regulate wages and prices, and stop the production of non-essentials but could not order companies to make specific things. Producers chose how to insert themselves into war effort. Based on skills, benefits.
1
7
Not a free market but not a command economy either. More like a 50-50 mix. Shape demand and restrict supply but leave matching free. Regulate the macro and boundary conditions but not the micro.
1
11
Starting in 1941 Business Week apparently ran an advice column responding to reader queries about war materiel production contracts and opportunities
1
6
This book published in 1942 was a guide to getting into war production. Your business goes to war.
2
8
Half a million new businesses, including Pacific Hut which saved steel by replacing steel Quonset huts with coated plywood huts. The war transformed the economy into modern form.
1
4
On the labor side, 20 million migrated to the new industrial base. A step function in industrialization I guess. Up from what was already the highest level in the world. No wonder 1930s and 1950s seem worlds apart. The 50s seem familiar in a way the 30s do not.
1
4
Wages rose by 70%. About 7 million left farming for military or industry, driving farm automation and fertilizer use. The war was pretty good for the American economy. The US bought itself a modernization via wars wrecking Europe and Asia.
1
1
11
Blacks fought for a big social level up: executive order 8802, patchy desegregation in industry (though nothin the military), race riots in Detroit. Book skips rather lightly over this bit. Sounds like a whole other book could be written about this alone.
3
8
8802 introduced minimal anti-discrimination protections fir race, color, religion, creed, but not sex. But women made the biggest gains despite headwinds. Kinda tedious how incumbents predictably resist any new entrants to anything.
1
2
“By July 1944, 36% of all workers in prime defense contractors were female”
Steel: 22.3%
GM: 30.7%
Kaiser yards start Richmond: 70%
1
6
“Rosie the riveter” archetype was really 3 women:
Vera Lowe of Lockheed, used in Lockheed PR after a photo appeared in Life magazine
Geraldine Huff for “we can do it” ad council poster by J. Howard Miller
May Doyle, Norman Rockwell’s model for Saturday Evening Post
1
1
12
Shipyard diary of a woman welder, 1944 bestseller. On google books
1
7
Back to Henry Kaiser. Now he’s building baby aircraft carriers and developing a very high public profile. Then ships cracking mysteriously topple his rising reputation. Brittle steel, not his fault.
1
3
Kaiser partners with Howard Hughes to build an airplane version of the liberty ship, the gigantic Spruce Goose. Spoiler: project went nowhere.
2
3
Now into B-29 story, probably the most complex project of the war, costing more than the Manhattan project. Bridge between early and modern planes, except for jet engines it had most familiar features of today.
2
3
Lots of production innovations: multi lining being the big one. Unlike one long assembly line like at the B-24 Willow Run plant. Interesting that this is still how it’s done if you visit the Boeing plant in Everett. 40k parts instead of 25k for B24. Built at 4 plants.
1
4
Serious crash kills test pilot and sets back B-29. Knudsen called in to rescue the program. Wings prone to catching fire.
1
2
Such a lovely plane. Gotta remember though — only plane yo actually drop nuclear bombs in war.
1
5
I will admit I got sucked into watching a bunch of bomber videos on YouTube today. Well back to the book.
1
4
Knudsen working through endless B-29 production troubles. Manhattan project starting up. Apparently the B-24 and B-17 couldn’t handle the nuke. So if the B-29 hadn’t made it in time, it would have been British Lancasters that did the job.
1
2
“This nation seems to be able to do more by accident than any other country can do on purpose” — Bechtel-Cone B29 modification employee.
Shades of British empire described as created in a fit of absent-mindedness.
Imma call it imperial serendipity. Or serendipitous imperialism.
1
1
4
The Marianas campaign in the Pacific war was fought just to create a staging base for B-29 missions. I didn’t know that. Must resist WW2 bunny trail. This read is for industrial production story.
1
8
B-29 missions going very poorly until they start using incendiary bombs based on magnesium “goop” developed as a byproduct of Kaiser’s magnesium plant. Hence firebombing of Tokyo. Worst attack of the war after the nuclear bombs. Damn. War is ugly.
1
2
Curtis LeMay, architect of the low-altitude firebombing strategy that brought Japan to its knees. Makes me really question whether Hiroshima was even necessary. Even this was rightly considered over the line. Ender Wiggin level total war.
4
5
Show replies
