by A. J. Baime
[>] “This is war”: “In Air Raid Drills: San Francisco Blackout, New Warnings in New York,” Lawrence Journal World, December 10, 1941, p. 4.
[>] “The war will come”: “The Enduring Legacy to a Generation,” Washington Times, June 1, 2004.
[>] “special vigilance”: “City on War Basis; Plants Under Guard,” Detroit News, December 8, 1941, p. 1.
[>] “The Under Secretary of War”: Cable to Dearborn, December 10, 1941, 8:46 AM, acc 6, box 254, “1941: Defense,” Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “We are going to raise”: Robert Lovett, letter to Edsel Ford, January 22, 1942, acc 6, box 264, “1942: War Dept.,” Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “We fully realize”: Edsel Ford, telegram to Jesse H. Jones, December 9, 1941, acc 6, box 185, “Telegrams, 1941,” Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “The war won’t wait”: David Lanier Lewis, The Public Image of Henry Ford (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987), p. 365.
[>] “We might as well”: “Battle of Detroit,” Time, March 23, 1942.
[>] “the strength and wisdom”: Henry Ford, cable to Franklin Roosevelt, January 30, 1942, 12:01 PM, file 680, Franklin Roosevelt Papers, “President’s Personal File: Henry Ford,” FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY.
[>] “the general plan”: Edsel Ford, “Departmental Communication” to Harry Bennett, December 3, 1942, acc 435, box 52, “Willow Run Bomber Plant,” Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “Please tell me is”: Photograph of this cable in the author’s possession; see also Research Findings About Ford-Werke Under the Nazi Regime, numerous authors (Dearborn, MI: Ford Motor Co., 2001), p. 87.
[>] “the first war in American”: Richard Lingeman, Don’t You Know There’s a War On? The American Home Front, 1941–1945 (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2003), p. 24.
[>] “I have been thinking about”: Donald M. Nelson, Arsenal of Democracy: The Story of American War Production (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1946), p. 186.
[>] “American power back into the islands”: Michael Sherry, The Rise of American Airpower: The Creation of Armageddon (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987), p. 106.
[>] “a believer in bombing”: Ibid., p. 97.
[>] “If hitherto we”: “Summary of Marshal Goering’s Speech to the Reich Munitions Workers,” New York Times, September 10, 1939, p. 46.
[>] “Hitler’s point of view”: Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (New York: Avon, 1970), p. 312.
[>] “The area working directly”: Ibid., p. 293.
[>] “Preliminary figures have”: Isador Lubin, memo to Harry Hopkins, February 2, 1942, container 125, Harry L. Hopkins Papers, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY.
[>] “In fulfilling my duty”: “Text of Roosevelt’s Message to Congress,” Boston Globe, January 7, 1942, p. 10.
[>] “The superiority of the United States”: Donald M. Nelson, Arsenal of Democracy: The Story of American War Production (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1946), p. 186.
[>] “Automotive conversion was”: Ibid., pp. 184, 212.
[>] “Edsel and Kanzler should”: Ford R. Bryan, Henry’s Lieutenants (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1993), p. 147.
[>] “Mr. Kanzler”: In various pieces of correspondence in Edsel’s files from this time, located at the Benson Ford Research Center, he addressed his best friend as “Mr. Kanzler.”
[>] “We must have at once”: “Auto Men Pledge ‘All Out’ for War,” New York Times, January 25, 1942, p. 3.
[>] 51 percent of the nation’s: Nelson, Arsenal of Democracy, p. 216.
[>] “Blanket charges of this description”: “Auto Men Answer Truman Charges,” January 17, 1942, p. 9.
[>] “When you convert one”: Nelson, Arsenal of Democracy, p. 218.
[>] Ford Motor Company would roll out: Lingeman, Don’t You Know There’s a War On?, p. 66.
[>] “You won’t recognize”: “Auto Work Seen Requiring ‘Lot of Women,’” Christian Science Monitor, January 30, 1942, p. 17.
[>] air raid defense and: “Air Raid Precautions,” acc 435, box 4, “Ford–Engine Aircraft Manufacturing: Record of War Effort,” vol. 5, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “One spark will eat”: “E-Pound Thermite Bomb,” memo, December 16, 1941, acc 435, box 4, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “Since the state of war”: Maurice Dollfus, letter to Edsel Ford, January 28, 1942, Treasury Department investigation files, “Foreign Funds Control,” box 135, record group 131, Office of Alien Property, exhibit 15, National Archives, College Park, MD.
[>] “It is a fact”: Ibid., p. 35.
[>] “brilliant”: Ibid., p. 23.
[>] “At this state I would”: Ibid., p. 34.
[>] “I am quite sure that”: Treasury Department investigation files, p. 39, “Foreign Funds Control,” box 135, record group 131, Office of Alien Property, National Archives, College Park, MD.
[>] Edsel communicated back: Edsel Ford, letter to Dollfus paraphrased in Treasury Department investigation files, p. 56, “Foreign Funds Control,” box 135, record group 131, Office of Alien Property, National Archives, College Park, MD.
[>] “I have shown your”: Edsel Ford, letter to Maurice Dollfus, July 17, 1942, Treasury Department investigation files, p. 57, “Foreign Funds Control,” box 135, record group 131, Office of Alien Property, National Archives, College Park, MD.
[>] “is treated as becoming”: Ford Auditing Department, memo to Edsel Ford, November 25, 1942, acc 6, box 167, Edsel B. Ford Office Papers, “General Correspondence, 1942,” Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “It was generally understood”: Roscoe Smith, oral history, p. 77, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “There is no difference”: F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (New York: Collier Books, 1980) p. 124.
[>] “This was the worst kind”: Charles Sorensen, personal account, pp. 817–18, acc 65, box 69, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
16. “Detroit’s Worries Are Right Now”: Spring to Summer 1942
[>] “Throughout the land”: “If Hitler Could See These,” New York Times, July 12, 1942, p. SM3.
[>] “better than I expected”: Charles Sorensen, personal account, pp. 820–21, acc 65, box 69, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “self-contained ‘Arsenals of Democracy’”: “GM and Ford Plants Double Output for War,” Hartford Courant, May 22, 1942, p. 13.
[>] “What may not be generally known”: “Rapid Conversion of Detroit Auto Plants Is an Amazing, Heartening Story,” Washington Post, April 12, 1942, p. B3.
[>] “A terrible burden has fallen”: “Detroit,” Fortune, November 1941, p. 65.
[>] “The scale of Detroit’s”: “Detroit Is America’s Greatest Arsenal,” November 9, 1941, p. 29.
[>] “Even the American”: “The Battle of Detroit,” Time, March 23, 1942.
[>] “Henry Ford is still”: “Detroit Is Dynamite,” Life, August 17, 1942.
[>] “Once old Henry Ford gets”: “Mass Magic in Detroit,” New York Times, March 1, 1942, p. SM4.
[>] “more than three times”: “This Is a Mass Production War,” Christian Science Monitor, July 11, 1942, p. WM8.
[>] “the greatest single”: “Rapid Conversion of Detroit Auto Plants Is an Amazing, Heartening Story.”
[>] “All 16 major league”: “War Plant Would Make Big Stadium,” Washington Post, June 11, 1942, p. 33.
[>] “the production miracle”: “Biggest War Plant,” Wall Street Journal, May 26, 1942, p. 1.
[>] “It is a promise of revenge”: Robert Lacey, Ford: The Men and the Machine (Boston: Little, Brown, 1986), p. 395.
[>] “In one American factory”: Sir Arthur Harris, Bomber Offensive (New York: Presidio Press, 1990), pp. 117–18.
[>] “I guess the pressure got”: Edsel Ford, letter to Marvin McIntyre, file 680, Franklin Roosevelt
Papers, President’s Personal File, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY.
[>] “He wanted them near”: Sorensen, personal account, pp. 790–91.
[>] “This man’s navy is”: Peter Collier and David Horowitz, The Fords: An American Epic (San Francisco: Encounter, 2002), p. 149.
[>] government signs: Charles Lindbergh, The Wartime Journals of Charles A. Lindbergh (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970), p. 685.
[>] “the most enormous room”: Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), p. 363.
[>] Sylvania fluorescent bulbs: “Electrical Goods Lead in Diversity,” New York Times, January 3, 1943, p. A76; see also “Bright Lights,” Wall Street Journal, February 15, 1943, p. 1.
[>] the Plant Hospital was: “Plant Hospital,” acc 435, box 52, “Willow Run Bomber Plant,” vol. 17, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] four 30,000-pound cranes: “Craneways by the Mile,” acc 435, box 52, “Willow Run Bomber Plant,” vol. 21, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] In the metal shop: “Forming Bomber Parts,” acc 435, box 51, “Ford–Willow Run Bomber Plant,” vol. 5, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] conveyors on the ceiling: “Conveyors,” acc 6, box 52, “Willow Run Bomber Plant,” vol. 21, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “an unreasonable burden”: Truman Committee hearing, minutes, July 22, 1942, available at: archive.org/stream/investigationofn1112unit/investigationofn1112unit_djvu.txt (accessed October 25, 2013).
[>] “Arrived here about eight”: Diary of Mrs. John Castle, excerpted in Lowell Juilliard Carr and James Edson Stermer, Willow Run (New York: Arno Press, 1977), pp. 97–107.
[>] “If there were any better”: Diary of Mrs. Sam Gordon, excerpted in Carr and Stermer, Willow Run, p. 116.
[>] “a city of homes well planned”: Sidney Hillman, Office of Production Management, file 3217, Franklin Roosevelt Papers, “Official File,” FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY.
[>] “Detroit isn’t worrying”: Jerome Beatty, “A City Gets a New Job,” American Magazine, acc 6, box 168, Edsel B. Ford Office Papers, “General Correspondence, 1942, CR-CU,” Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “I have been asked by”: Frederic A. Delano, letter to Edsel Ford, undated, acc 6, box 264, “1942: Misc.,” Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “picked a site for this”: Henry Ford, telegram to Franklin Roosevelt, May 19, 1942, file 3217, Franklin Roosevelt Papers, “Official File,” FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY.
[>] Harry Bennett sent his men: Harry Bennett, as told to Paul Marcus, Ford: We Never Called Him Henry (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1987), p. 263.
17. Will It Run?: Spring to Fall 1942
[>] “I have seen the science”: Charles Lindbergh, Of Flight and Life (New York: Scribner’s, 1948), p. 51.
[>] “I want to contribute”: Charles Lindbergh, The Wartime Journals of Charles A. Lindbergh (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970), pp. 566–67.
[>] “He is a ruthless and conscious”: A. Scott Berg, Lindbergh (New York: Berkley Books, 1999), p. 436.
[>] “The plant has progressed”: Lindbergh, The Wartime Journals, p. 608.
[>] “acres upon acres of machinery”: Ibid., p. 613.
[>] “The Ford schedule calls”: Ibid., p. 609.
[>] “The rest of the industry”: Ibid., p. 610.
[>] “There is no question”: Charles Lindbergh, “The Future of the Large Bomber,” unpublished memo, April 10, 1942, Lindbergh Papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, Yale University Library, New Haven, CT.
[>] “the man who first put”: Ford Times, November 12, 1943.
[>] “I am so anti-Hun and anti-Jap”: S. W. Raymond of Adrian, MI, letter to Henry Ford, March 26, 1942, acc 38, box 94, “Subject File: 1942, Lindbergh,” Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “as scarce as hen’s teeth”: Lindbergh, The Wartime Journals, p. 650.
[>] “These relationships”: Ibid., p. 662.
[>] “Sorensen has the reputation”: Ibid., pp. 638–39.
[>] Edsel had cancer of the stomach: Ibid., p. 697.
[>] “I came here in hope”: Charles Lindbergh, “confidential” letter to Charles Sorensen, June 3, 1942, acc 65, box 69, “Charles Sorensen,” Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “We couldn’t retaliate”: “Burma Must Be Retaken from Japs: Stilwell,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, May 25, 1942, p. 4.
[>] “They don’t give me”: Robert Rankin, oral history, p. 12, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “A priority is something”: Richard Lingeman, Don’t You Know There’s a War On? The American Home Front 1941–1945 (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2003), p. 112.
[>] “Bennett is certainly”: Lindbergh, The Wartime Journals, p. 490.
[>] “I’d just as soon shoot down”: William O’Neill, A Democracy at War: America’s Fight at Home and Abroad in World War II (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), p. 210.
[>] “You were trying to do a job”: Roscoe Smith, oral history, p. 68, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “Willow Run, the Largest”: Employment leaflet for Willow Run, acc 435, box 51, “Ford–Willow Run Bomber Plant,” vol. 6, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “They didn’t know whether”: Anthony Harff, oral history, p. 272, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “I’d rather see Hitler”: “Troops Restore Calm in Detroit; Death Toll 28,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 23, 1943, p. 2.
[>] The first woman employed: “Training of Women,” acc 435, box 51, “Ford–Willow Run Bomber Plant,” vol. 2, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] Rose Monroe became: Douglas Brinkley, Wheels for the World (New York: Penguin, 2003), p. 482.
[>] “All the day long”: Doris Weatherford, American Women During World War II: An Encyclopedia (New York: Routledge, 2010), p. 399.
[>] unskilled male laborers: Employment leaflet for Willow Run.
[>] GENTLEMEN, WATCH YOUR: Robert Todd of Dearborn, MI, who worked at Willow Run during the war, interview with the author.
[>] a nun entered a shack: Lowell Juilliard Carr and James Edson Stermer, Willow Run (New York: Arno Press, 1977), p. 76.
[>] Photographs of kids living: “Detroit’s Willow Run Area Is a Housing Nightmare,” Washington Post, March 3, 1943, p. 6.
[>] Senator Harry Truman: All of these numbers are from the minutes of the Truman Committee hearing, July 22, 1942, available at: archive.org/stream/investigationofn1112unit/investigationofn1112unit_djvu.txt (accessed October 25, 2013).
18. Bomber Ship 01: May 1942
[>] “Over all, we feel”: Lowell Juilliard Carr and James Edson Stermer, Willow Run (New York: Arno Press, 1977), p. 161.
[>] Stermer was pointed: Ibid., pp. 133–82. Stermer’s diary is excerpted in this book he wrote on Willow Run.
[>] “It is impossible in words”: Ibid., p. 161.
[>] “to orientate trainees”: Ibid., pp. 162–63.
[>] “It costs about $250”: Ibid.
[>] 360,000 rivets: “Two Billion Rivets,” acc 435, box 51, “Ford–Willow Run Bomber Plant,” vol. 6, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “Riveting is a social”: Carr and Stermer, Willow Run, p. 164.
[>] “One thing that impressed me”: Ibid., p. 172.
[>] “the worst mess in the whole”: William O’Neill, A Democracy at War: America’s Fight at Home and Abroad in World War II (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), p. 218.
[>] “The powers that control”: Alan Clive, Michigan in World War II (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1979), p. 120; see also Douglas Brinkley, Wheels for the World (New York: Penguin, 2003), p. 473.
[>] “The B-24 has guts”: Stephen E. Ambrose, The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew
B-24s over Germany 1944–1945 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), p. 78.
[>] Eighteen rubber fuel cells: “Fuel Cells,” acc 435, box 51, “Ford–Willow Run Plant II,” Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] the bomb bay was constructed: Ambrose, The Wild Blue, p. 80.
[>] “The plant itself needs”: “Assembly of Ford Bomber 01 Proves New Production Methods,” acc 6, box 264, “1942: Misc.”; and “Speech by Edsel Ford,” acc 6, box 262, Edsel B. Ford Office Papers, “1942: Speeches by Mr. Edsel B. Ford,” both at Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “It was HUGE”: Ambrose, The Wild Blue, p. 82.
19. Roosevelt Visits Willow Run: September 1942
[>] “My feelings against”: William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960), p. 895 footnote.
[>] Shortly before midnight: Much of this chapter is pieced together from three primary sources: “Memorandum of Information Regarding Visit of President and Mrs. Roosevelt to Willow Run Bomber Plant,” September 18, 1942, and “The President’s Party,” both in container 61, Franklin Roosevelt Papers, “Official File,” FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY; and “The President Visits Willow Run,” acc 435, box 51, “Ford–Willow Run Bomber Plant,” vol. 2, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “the winter of disaster”: Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1948), p. 490.
[>] “The awful realization”: Donald M. Nelson, Arsenal of Democracy: The Story of American War Production (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1946), p. 3.
[>] “The news is going to get”: Jon Meacham, Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship (New York: Random House, 2004), p. 169.
[>] “I have been deeply”: Winston Churchill, The Grand Alliance (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950), p. 506.
[>] “We must aim at nothing”: Ibid., p. 804.
[>] “The airplane production”: Isador Lubin, memorandum to Franklin Roosevelt, August 8, 1942, “Aircraft Production,” container 125, Harry L. Hopkins Papers, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY.