Stateside Construction & Production

Images source: WPB

Ominous military events in Asia and Europe finally persuaded Congress to expand the Army, Army Air Corps and Navy. In contrast to its former tightfisted policies, appropriations came faster than the Army could absorb them, over $8 billion in 1940 and $26 billion in 1941, dwarfing the half-billion dollars that had been allotted for expansion early in 1939. By the time of Pearl Harbor, Congress had spent more for military procurement than it had for the Army and the Navy during all of World War I. The $6 billion munitions program of June 1940 authorized procurement by October 1941 of all items needed to equip and maintain an army of 1.2 million, including the Air Corps, and creation of production facilities to support an army of over 4 million. Directed by the Army and Navy Munitions Board, this program set up a priorities system, apportioned industrial capacity between the services, cleared foreign contracts for munitions production in the United States, and compiled military needs for strategic raw materials. Procurement districts, arsenals, depots, and other establishments were activated and expanded. This program was almost as much as the nation had spent on the Army between 1922 and 1940 and a major turning point in the Army's rehabilitation. The Army and Navy requirements were merged in 1941 into what became the Victory Program to emphasize military offense rather than defense.^Mobilization Production balance of various military items would be continuously adjusted to meet strategy and battlefield experience throughout the war. Because of the vast oceans separating the United States from war theaters, at all times the number of cargo, tanker and troop transport ships would in part define military strategy. Reducing this limitation by shipyard expansion and production was the responsibility of the Maritime Commission and the War Shipping Adminstration. This task it admirably fulfilled.

The lack of manufacturing capacity constituted a big barrier to mobilization. The Great Depression had created much idle, but largely obsolete, plant capacity. With demand low, there had been no incentives to expand and modernize. Also, companies had no desire to spend money on factories and specialized military equipment that would have no commercial value after the war ended. Therefore, the government had to encourage manufacturing expansion to provide its military with arms either by building the plants themselves or by providing financial incentives for companies to build them. The US Government constructed and owned those plants that would have little commercial value after the war and would then sell them following the war. This the way most airplanes and ships were built. By constrast, it used loans and tax concessions to encourage companies to build plants that would have commercial value after the war, such as steel and aluminum plants.^{McGrane 2} At the close of 1942, all metal fabrication plants averaged 72 hours per week, from 61 hours in transportation to 85 hours in the automobile plants to nearly 100 hours in the aircraft plants. There is no data to show the extent to which prewar plants were converted to war production. Some indication of this is provided by the Federal Reserve Board Index of Industrial Production, which rose by 56 points between December 1941 and December 1942 while total industrial production rose by only 26 points. At least one-half of the total increase in industrial war output appararently resulted from the conversion of plants engaged in civilian to military use. ^{McGrane 160} Consequently, in spite of much organizational confusion, war construction reached $13.4 billion in 1942. A total of $40 billion was spent from mid-1940 to mid-1945, $10 on new plants, $15 billion for the plant equipment, and $25 billion for direct military construction, such as camps, depots, barracks, air bases, etc. Construction of highways, commercial buildings and public utilities had to be deferred until after the war. New residential building construction was limited to $200 per home and $1,000 per farm building. Construction materials were limited, so galvanized metal, copper, sheet metal were replaced by plastics, asphalt and other more plentiful materials. The government spent $3.8 billion was spent on airplane factories, $2.5 billion on shipyards, and $1.3 billion on government steel plants. An effort was made to locate plants in areas of high unemployment, but this was secondary to developing war production quickly. Manpower availability, housing, nearness to materials and integration with existing plants necessitated placing plants in regions already heavily industrialized. East-North Central and the Middle Atlantic states garnered the most production. Thus, the geographical pattern pretty much followed the pre-war pattern, which meant that the large pool of unemployed in other sections had to move to the plants, which created severe housing shortages at the plant and shipyard sites. ^{WPB 31-35}

The attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 accelerated war production and the movement of workers to war production plants. The original estimate of 100,000 publicly financed and 200,000 privately financed temporary dwellings, a total of 300,000 units, was increased to a total of 600,000 units and finally to a total of 1,285,000 units, half publicly financed and half privately financed. The expansion of Navy yards at Norfolk VA, Charleston SC, Vallejo CA, Bremerton WA and Croton CT was particularly acute. Also critical were airplane plants in San Diego CA, Los Angeles CA, Fort Worth TX, and Dallas TX. In some places, men and boys shared the same bed by working in different factory shifts. Before the houses could be built, 13,000 trailers and trailer parks (each park held about 200 trailers) had to be provided for immediate housing needs in 60 critical areas. Rent price controls had to be established to prevent housing landlords from gouging renters. Associated utilities, school, health and recreational facilities also had to be constructed.^{McGrane 160-165,198-200}

Construction and production of specific military items are described in the following pages.