“This is NOT a drill! This is NOT a drill!”
The voice over the radio at the American naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 squawked America’s entry into World War Two. As the bombs from the Japanese sneak attack rained down on the unsuspecting ships and sailors below – killing 2,403 of them – a sleeping homefront on the mainland could not comprehend that everything they knew about the world was about to change.
While it was no secret that the war in Europe was raging and England was hanging by a thread, most Americans still felt that the country could somehow stay out of the conflict. In fact, a movement led by Charles Lindbergh and Henry Ford had helped to convince millions that we had no business in the war. That all changed dramatically on “The Day of Infamy.”
On December 8, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) asked Congress to declare that “A state of war has existed” between the United States and Japan. Three days later, Hitler and Germany officially opened hostilities with the U.S. America was in it all the way now; but most citizens only had a vague understanding of what they were up against.
Tanks rolling down the assembly line at the Fisher Tank Arsenal in Grand Blanc
Patriotism was high. Millions signed up for service, others were drafted. The country had finally united in a way it never had before, and likely never will again. Despite this overwhelming “in it to win it” spirit, the USA was woefully unprepared for war.
Prelude: The Obstinate Isolationists
Before Pearl Harbor, the overwhelming sentiment in America was to stay out of any foreign war entanglements. Still embittered by the horror of WWI and seeing a new rise of conflagrations in Europe and Asia, a Democratic Congress with Roosevelt’s active support had passed two Neutrality Acts in 1935 and 1936. Together, they severely impaired America’s ability to provide meaningful aid to her allies at war. The vibe in England was similar; Neville Chamberlain met with Hitler in Germany to offer concessions and appeasement in hopes of avoiding escalation with the result being the1938 Munich Agreement. Roosevelt telegraphed the message, “Good Man” to Neville Chamberlain in support of his “peace at any price” diplomatic approach – one ultimately conceding the Sudetenland to Hitler on the premise that he would cease further aggressions.
It did not.
Instead, the Nazis ramped up their war machine, taking Poland one year later. Roosevelt began exploring options by creating a War Resources Board of manufacturing chiefs to determine what the U.S. might need to do if required to fight. Within six weeks, he disbanded it when his Democratic constituents complained. Stubborn, and with its head driven deeply into the sand, America refused to prepare.
Wooden Guns & Good Humor Trucks
So it was that on December 7, 1941 the United States was ill-prepared to fight any war with anyone, let alone the Third Reich – the most powerful military machine in human history at that point. In truth, the American military was a joke. The nation had only a few arsenals for making weapons, and 85 percent of the machinery was ancient, some of it dating to the Civil War.
When Brigadier General George Patton took command of the Second Armored Brigade at Fort Benning in 1939, he had 325 tanks.
At the same time the German Army, the Wehrmacht, had over 3,000 tanks. With no spare parts for his tanks and in utter desperation, Patton ordered them at his own expense from the Sears catalog. Men trained with fake, wooden guns. Artillery was pulled by horses and mules using carts with wooden wheels. Time Magazine said that the U.S. Army looked like “little boys playing with BB guns.”
If that wasn’t bad enough, the entire American military probably possessed fewer machine guns than Al Capone’s Chicago mob had at its peak. There were 200 37mm anti-tank guns and 2,775 planes, only 300 of which were combat aircraft. The other 2,400 or so were trainers. There was no stockpile of ammunition.
In August 1939, with Hitler’s invasion of Poland less than a month away, the Army held major war games to determine where it stood. Most of the men – 67 percent – were not regular Army but rather, National Guardsmen. They got lost, bumbled into one another, wandered off, gravitating to the bizarre line of Good Humor ice cream trucks arrayed on the field of battle that the Army had hired because they didn’t have enough armored vehicles to use. When FDR was told about Hitler’s Blitzkrieg through Poland, with this Army clown show as the backdrop, the only words he could push from his lips were, “God help us all.”
“You Must Take Action”
Finally, on May 14,1940 Army Chief of Staff George Marshall alarmed Roosevelt during a special briefing when he said, “If five German divisions landed on the East Coast, they could go anywhere in America they wished, completely unopposed.”
Harlow Curtice at Buick in front of a Pratt & Whitney bomber engine
Marshall stressed urgency: it was time for FDR to act, and if he didn’t do it right away, Marshall said, “I don’t know what is going to happen to the country.”
FDR, however, was hemmed in politically by his public pronouncements and lack of decisiveness. Even after the passionate warning from Marshall, on October 30, 1940 he proclaimed, “I shall say it again. Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign war.”
However, his actions slowly began to betray his public stance. After the Marshall meeting, he had started working behind the scenes to provide support to England, then under siege. Hitler’s Blitzkrieg systematically overpowered Poland, Denmark and France.
In late 1940, the U.S. regular Army had 280,000 men. The Wehrmacht had six million. The German Air Force, the Luftwaffe, had another 500,000 men. Imperial Japan had 2.1 million men under arms. Spain, Poland and the Netherlands had larger armies than America. The uphill climb to arm America for war would be extreme.
There were so many in Flint who led the war effort; most critically among them were the everyday assembly line workers, engineers, skilled tradesmen, foremen, managers and others who did the heavy lifting for the Arsenal of Democracy.
FDR’s Man of Steel
By 1940, General Motors was the 800-lb. gorilla of American manufacturing, so it was logical that FDR would tap its President, William S. Knudsen, to be in charge of the manufacture of all war products.
GM CEO Alfred Sloan strongly opposed Knudsen taking the job offered by FDR, as much as he opposed America’s entry into the war. Knudsen was unmoved. A native of Denmark, he believed that he owed a debt of gratitude for all that America had offered him.
Knudsen had worked for Ford from 1911 to 1921, and after a falling out with Henry Ford, moved to GM. He had spent a lot of time in Flint, as the vice president of manufacturing at Chevrolet, general manager of Chevrolet, vice president of GM and then, president of GM. In Flint, he earned the reputation of a hard core, “nuts and bolts” guy – results-focused with a strong attention to detail. He was famous for moving so continuously when working the plants in Flint, that he never even bothered to remove his porkpie hat.
It would take every bit of that focus, energy and leadership to reengineer the nation’s bereft war production system.
A statue of Rosie the Riveter stands at Flint Bishop International Airport. Sculpted by Joe Rundell, it was the first female figure in the Automobile Heritage Collection and was installed to honor the women who worked in factories during WWII, including those in the
Flint area.
Flint Steps Up
Into this desperate set of circumstances enters Flint, a well-spring of untapped manufacturing might.
One of the very first men Knudsen approached was Flint resident Harlow Curtice (who would later become GM president).
Curtice was then running the sprawling Buick plant on Hamilton Ave. in Flint. Knudsen knew Curtice was a GM superstar leader, having rescued the Buick brand during the Depression, modernizing the entire Buick product and Flint factory.
Knudsen suggested to Curtice that Buick could build airplanes, specifically the powerful Pratt & Whitney engine.
Curtice was immediately on board. Despite Sloan’s initial objections, the GM Board approved the plan and Curtice was sent off to Washington D.C., along with other pivotal Flint men to develop a plan.
While AC Spark Plug made a wide variety of goods for the military during WWII, it made millions of aircraft spark plugs, as both aircraft production and air combat missions increased.
Retrospective
The involvement of Flint and Genesee County and the long reach of GM obviously extended far beyond the city or even state borders. In fact, the business and cultural legacy that Billy Durant set into motion had morphed into something that reached all points of Western Civilization, and beyond.
Along with General Motors, Chrysler and Nash Motors also had significant roles, all with their founders’ origin stories rooted firmly in working for Durant in Flint. William Knudsen was the most important player, but there were so many more who led the effort. Most critically among them were the everyday assembly line workers, engineers, skilled tradesmen, foremen, managers and others who did the heavy lifting for the Arsenal of Democracy.
This included scores of women nationwide who propelled into the manufacturing workforce by the millions. Known collectively in popular culture as “Rosie The Riveters”, they were indispensable; without their immeasurable contributions, none of this would have worked. Desperately poor southerners, both Black and white, migrated to Flint and Genesee County to work side-by-side in the Arsenal, staying to buy homes and raise families after the war, creating the rich cultural legacy that exists today. Without this migration of southerners, the Arsenal would have been severely crippled.
Ultimately, American automakers produced 50 percent of all aircraft engines, 35 percent of all aircraft propellers, 87 percent of all aerial bombs, 47 percent of all machine guns, 80 percent of all tanks and tank parts, and 50 percent of all diesel engines for ships, submarines and other naval craft. Naturally, they produced 100 percent of all U.S. Army trucks, cars, half-tracks and other vehicles. They armed our allies, including nearly a quarter of a million trucks to the Soviet Red Army, gun carriers to England, and more. In the fulcrum of this was GM and the other companies that emanated from the Flint and Durant foundation.
When Josef Stalin met with Churchill and Roosevelt in Tehran in 1943, he raised his vodka glass in toast to “American production, without which this war would have been lost.” It was an undeniably magnanimous and honest admission from the undisputed leader of world communism to the leader of world capitalism. Stated even more precisely than Stalin is the story told of the management legend Peter Drucker, who spent significant time analyzing WWII, concluding that even with all the different individuals and industries working together, had it not been for General Motors, it is unlikely we would have won the war. That’s a very big statement.
One could take that sentiment further and say without Billy Durant there would have never been a GM. That is inarguably true; but it’s equally true that without Flint, there wouldn’t have been a Billy Durant, because it was Flint that brought Buick to town and convinced their favorite son, Durant, to take it over. It was Flint, “The Greatest Little City in America” according to Durant, that supported him when he was building his empire. That city then exponentially generated the foundational elements of what was the greatest coordinated effort to stop evil and advance freedom in the known history of mankind. That’s one heckuva legacy – and in Flint and Genesee County, it’s one we should all remember and celebrate.
On July 11, the Genesee County Historical Society will host an event to celebrate Flint and Genesee County’s integral role in helping America and the Allies win the Second World War. For ticket info, visit GeneseeHistory.org
