McNair Paper Number 50, Chapter 9, Notes, August 1996

1. Jerome G. Peppers Jr., History of United States Military Logistics 1935-1985 (Huntsville: Logistics Education Foundation Publishing, 1988), 65. Not until 9 months after the invasion of Poland did the Chrysler Corporation, the country's first big tank manufacturer, receive its first set of tank blueprints and an order. In early 1943 there were 18 companies producing tanks, armored cars or other combat vehicles (including jeeps). Chrysler, before the war, made automobiles. During the war it made 35 different types of war equipment, including 59,000 antiaircraft guns, 3.5 million rounds of ammunition, 5,500 gyro compasses, 3,000 range finders, tanks, tank accessories, and also some devices for the Manhattan Project. Nelson 239-242. One finds different production figures in various sources, usually because the authors do not start or finish at the same date. The War Production Board figure for tank production in World War II is 86,333 between 1 July 1940 and 31 July 1945. War Production Board, 10-13. What is impressive about the United States figures is the acceleration rather than the gross total. Again, the United States had the population to produce, two vast oceans for protection, abundant raw materials and a strategy to use machines versus people in combat. Therefore the amount of production is less imposing than the speed with which the United States attained its maximum output.

2. Donald M. Nelson, Arsenal of Democracy (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1946), 237-238. The United States produced more than 40 percent of all the aircraft produced by all belligerents in World War II and supplied enough raw materials to its two key alliesCthe United Kingdom and the Soviet UnionCto permit them to be the number two and three producers of aircraft (Peppers, 63-65). During the war United States industry produced 150 separate types of aircraft and 417 different models. Between 1 January 1940 and 14 August 1945 the United States spent $45 billion manufacturing aircraft. At the peak of the war the Army Air Forces had in its inventory 89,000 airplanes. Joshua Stoff, Picture History of World War II American Aircraft Production (New York: Dover Productions, 1993), xi. The Navy inventory at the end of the war contained 36,721 aircraft. U.S. Department of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1950 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1950), 212. From 1 January 1940 to the end of the war the United States produced more than 300,000 aircraft, the United Kingdom 131,549 (many of them of United States' design), the USSR 158,218, Germany 119,871 and Japan 76,320. Many of the latter two countries' aircraft were defensive fighters, whereas the United States two most heavily produced aircraft were offensive heavy bombers. Bombers were costly, but their price fell during the war. A B-24 cost in 1945 dollars $213,700. On average a Liberator lasted 237 days and 700 flying hours, and consumed about eight engines. The life cycle costs including fuel to fly it to the combat theater was $330,000 (Rutenberg and Allen, 113-114). Alan Milward notes that not all of the technological innovation went into just improving weapons, much went into improving the production processes. Thus production of the famous Oerlikon gun went from 132 hours to 35, and production costs for aircraft fell dramatically [Alan Milward, War, Economy and Society: 1939-1945 (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1979), 186].

3. Harold G. Vatter, The United States Economy in World War II (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), 22.

4. Wartime Production Achievements and the Reconversion Outlook (Washington, DC: War Production Board, 1945), 3-5.

5. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1948 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1948), 174-176.

6. Milward, 73-74.

7. Mark Harrison, "Resource Mobilization for World War II: The U.S.A., U.K., U.S.S.R., and Germany, 1938-1945," Economic History Review XLI, no. 2 (1988): 173. Germany's success at the outset of the war depended primarily upon military (as opposed to economic) factors. But as the war continued, success depended on German ability to mobilize its resources speedily and fully. Germany's Blitzkrieg strategy was aimed at winning the war before an economic mobilization by Germany's adversaries could influence events. Hitler's lightning war in the Soviet Union failed, but, even then, Germany did not turn to the type of economic mobilization policies of its adversaries. Germany's economic effort remained divided long after the allies had pursued a more centralized course with much better results. Not only did Hitler turn to economic mobilization too late, but he did so without enthusiasm and within the framework of Nazi party tensions and rivalries. Both of Hitler's strategies failed (Harrison, 178-181).

8. War Production Board, 34-35. Most of the money went to build factories that would almost surely be surplus at the end of the war. Aircraft manufacturing facilities absorbed about one third of the money spent and shipyard construction another fifth. Another astonishing statistic: in 1937 the Detroit Ordnance Office, a part of the Army, had in toto two officers, one clerk and one steno. In 1944 this same office was to occupy several large office buildings and make purchases equal to "three times the taxable value of the whole city of Detroit" ( Nelson, 55). In some industries almost all of the construction money came from the government: 97 percent of the synthetic rubber industry construction for example, military explosives 85 percent, and chemical warfare 100 percent (War Production Board, 86).