by A. J. Baime
[>] “I am concerned by the figures”: Franklin Roosevelt, memorandum to Secretary of War, Secretary of the Navy, and Donald Nelson, August 12, 1942, “Aircraft Production,” container 125, Harry L. Hopkins Papers, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY.
[>] “All’s Not Well in Detroit”: “War Progress Report” (confidential), June 26, 1942, p. 6, “War Production Reports: War Progress,” container 254, Harry L. Hopkins Papers, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY.
[>] “The news from Detroit”: “Detroit Is Dynamite,” Life, August 17, 1942.
[>] “I was astonished to find”: Charles Sorensen, personal account, p. 865, acc 65, box 69, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “It was evident to me”: Ibid., p. 868.
[>] Any worker who had: Robert Todd, Dearborn, MI, interview with the author.
[>] “We’re with you, Frank”: “Memorandum of Information Regarding Visit of President and Mrs. Roosevelt to Willow Run Bomber Plant,” September 18, 1942, container 61, Franklin Roosevelt Papers, “Official File,” FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY.
[>] “How do you like”: Ibid.
[>] “Charlie, what is”: Sorensen, personal account, p. 866.
[>] “Franklin, look over”: Ibid., pp. 866, 904.
[>] “And so this is the city”: Kenneth S. Davis, FDR: The War President, 1940–1943 (New York: Random House, 2000), p. 614.
[>] “the most severe contraction”: 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. 65.
[>] “Hitler was the one that”: 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. 245.
[>] “not yet in production”: Davis, FDR: The War President, p. 613.
20. A Dying Man: Fall 1942 to Winter 1943
[>] “This hour I rode the sky”: Charles Lindbergh, The Wartime Journals of Charles A. Lindbergh (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970), p. 222.
[>] “a 1930s Mack truck”: Stephen E. Ambrose, The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew B-24s over Germany 1944–1945 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), p. 21.
[>] Up at 20,000 feet: Ambrose, The Wild Blue, pp. 21–22.
[>] “unnecessarily awkward”: Lindbergh, The Wartime Journals, p. 613.
[>] “more complicated than”: Ibid., p. 638.
[>] “Rivets missing”: Ibid., p. 644.
[>] Lindbergh was hearing: Harry Bennett, as told to Paul Marcus, Ford: We Never Called Him Henry (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1987), p. 277.
[>] “You’d better be prepared”: Ibid.
[>] “We have more than”: Lindbergh, The Wartime Journals, p. 737.
[>] “We knew it was a tough problem”: Ibid., p. 738.
[>] “But a lot of people”: Ibid., p. 738.
[>] “What are we going”: Bennett, Ford: We Never Called Him Henry, p. 277.
[>] “A New Ford Motor”: Treasury Department investigation files, “Foreign Funds Control,” box 135, record group 131, exhibit 13, National Archives, College Park, MD.
[>] his office would conduct: Charles Higham, Trading with the Enemy: The Nazi-American Money Plot, 1933–1949 (New York: Dell Publishing, 1984).
[>] “You are hereby instructed”: Treasury Department warrant, December 7, 1942, Treasury Department investigation files, “Foreign Funds Control,” box 135, record group 131, National Archives, College Park, MD.
[>] “extremely curious as to”: “Report of Investigation of Ford, Societe Anonyme Francaise, Machinery Suppliers, Inc., Matford S.A., Fordair S.A.,” p. 5, Treasury Department investigation files, “Foreign Funds Control,” box 135, record group 131, National Archives, College Park, MD.
[>] For an hour and a half: Ibid., p. 4.
[>] “I’m sorry, but I can”: Irving Bacon, oral history, p. 176, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “I do hope you are”: J. Edgar Hoover, letter to Edsel Ford, November 19, 1942, acc 6, box 171, Edsel B. Ford Papers, “Gen. Correspondence: 1942,” Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “Dear Edgar, I am”: Edsel Ford, letter to J. Edgar Hoover, [date unclear], acc 6, box 171, Edsel B. Ford Papers, “Gen. Correspondence: 1942,” Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “Looks bad”: Charles Sorensen, personal account, p. 892, acc 65, box 69, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “Stress and strain”: Henry Dominguez, Edsel: The Story of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Son (Detroit: Society of Automotive Engineers, 2002), p. 307.
[>] “If Edsel could have”: Sorensen, personal account, p. 790.
[>] “What he should have”: Dominguez, Edsel, p. 308.
[>] “If there is anything”: Charles E. Sorensen, with Samuel T. Williamson, My Forty Years with Ford (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2006), p. 318.
[>] “Grandfather is responsible”: Peter Collier and David Horowitz, The Fords: An American Epic (San Francisco: Encounter, 2002), p. 151.
[>] “I had no idea”: Richard Bak, Henry and Edsel: The Creation of the Ford Empire (New York: Wiley, 2003), p. 256.
[>] a letter from Mr. Condé Nast: Condé Nast, letter to Edsel Ford, June-July 1942, acc 6, box 171, Edsel B. Ford Office Papers, “Gen. Correspondence: 1942,” Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “The baby is a beauty”: Collier and Horowitz, The Fords, p. 150.
[>] “I think Edsel Ford was”: A. M. Wibel, oral history, p. 128, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “I spent all day”: Robert Lacey, Ford: The Men and the Machine (Boston: Little, Brown, 1986), p. 395.
21. Unconditional Surrender: Winter 1943
[>] “We will make Germany”: Jorg Friedrich, The Fire: The Bombing of Germany, 1940–1945 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), p. 61.
[>] At midnight on January 11: Captain George E. Durno, AAF Transport Command, “Flight to Africa: A Chronicle of the Casablanca Conference,” box 15, Franklin Roosevelt Papers, “Map Room File: Casablanca Trip,” FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY; see also Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1948), pp. 670–74.
[>] “The people are sold on”: Michael Sherry, The Rise of American Airpower: The Creation of Armageddon (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987), p. 185.
[>] “Our heavy bomber is our greatest weapon”: Ibid., p. 136.
[>] “Despite all the talk”: Harry Hopkins, memorandum to Isador Lubin, November 13, 1942, “Aircraft Production,” container 125, Harry L. Hopkins Papers, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY.
[>] “There has been some”: H. H. Arnold, memorandum to Harry Hopkins, April 9, 1943, “Aircraft Production Program for 1943,” container 125, Harry L. Hopkins Papers, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY.
[>] “One is almost stunned”: Edward R. Murrow, In Search of Light: The Broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow 1938–1961 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967), p. 56.
[>] “Now all we need is”: Andrew Roberts, Masters and Commanders: How Four Titans Won the War in the West, 1941–1945 (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), p. 316.
[>] “de-housing the workers”: 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. 306.
[>] “I think it can be said”: “President’s Press Conference Speech,” January 24, 1943, box 15, Franklin Roosevelt Papers, “Map Room File: Casablanca Trip,” FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY.
[>] “the taproot of German might”: James Dugan and Carroll Stewart, Ploesti: The Great Ground-Air Battle of 1 August 1943 (New York: Bantam, 1963), p. 3.
[>] “by far the most”: Ibid., p. 9.
[>] “The Billion Dollar Watchdog”: O’Neill, A Democracy at War, p. 396.
[>] “an errand runner”: United States Senate, “1941–1963: March 1, 1941: The Truman Committee,” available at: Senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/The_Truma
n_Committee.htm (accessed October 16, 2013).
[>] “100 percent behind”: AmericaLive, “Harry S. Truman Biography,” CNN iReport, December 19, 2010, available at: ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-530565 (accessed October 16, 2013).
[>] “the operation of the program”: Donald M. Nelson, Arsenal of Democracy: The Story of American War Production (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1946), p. 128.
[>] cover of Time magazine: Time, March 8, 1943.
[>] “We will get all the facts”: “Senate to Probe Lag of Output in Two Plane Plants,” Chicago Daily Tribune, February 16, 1943, p. 23.
[>] “to exert influence”: “Prescription for Willow Run,” The New Republic, April 5, 1943; see also Lowell Juilliard Carr and James Edson Stermer, Willow Run (New York: Arno Press, 1977), p. 211.
[>] 2,060 workers had left: “Prescription for Willow Run,” The New Republic, April 5, 1943.
[>] new machine gun turret: “The New Nose Turret,” acc 435, box 51, “Ford–Willow Run Bomber Plant,” vol. 3, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “I’d feel as if I had”: Charles E. Sorensen, with Samuel T. Williamson, My Forty Years with Ford (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2006), p. 299.
[>] “Now, look”: Mead Bricker, oral history, pp. 337–38, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “You affect this whole”: Ibid., p. 379.
[>] “Now you may not be”: Ibid., p. 338.
[>] “Well, I certainly can”: Ibid., p. 339.
[>] “Maybe we should have”: William F. Pioch, oral history, pp. 77–78, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “had not produced”: Allan Nevins and Frank Ernest Hill, Ford: Decline and Rebirth (New York: Scribner’s, 1963), p. 219.
22. Taking Flight: Spring 1943
[>] “Show me a hero”: F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Lost Fitzgerald Story to Be Published,” New York Times, February 10, 1988.
[>] 5,163 enemy airplanes: Paul Kennedy, Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned the Tide in the Second World War (New York: Random House, 2013), p. 321.
[>] The Colonel passed Edsel: “Ford Aircraft Engine Plant and Workers Get ‘E’ Flag,” Detroit News, March 13, 1943.
[>] 6,491 from Kentucky: “Manpower,” acc 435, box 52, “Willow Run Bomber Plant,” vol. 22, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] Edsel employed 4,390 blind: “Medicine: The Able Disabled,” Time, June 21, 1943.
[>] Time Study Department: “Time Study,” acc 435, box 52, “Willow Run Bomber Plant,” vol. 20, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “You will probably understand”: Marvin McIntyre, note to Franklin Roosevelt, February 27, 1943, file 3217, Franklin Roosevelt Papers, “Official File,” FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY.
[>] “Never before in history”: Jay Mann, “One Way Ticket: ‘Pandemonium’—WWII Glider Pilot Recalls Operations in Germany,” US Army, May 12, 2011, available at: http://www.army.mil/article/56415/ (accessed October 16, 2013).
[>] “Our war jobs are”: William Knudsen Papers, box 2, National Automotive History Collection, Detroit Public Library.
[>] “a city of homes”: Sidney Hillman, Office of Production Management, file 3217, Franklin Roosevelt Papers, “Official File,” FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY.
[>] “I wander upstairs through”: Lowell Juilliard Carr and James Edson Stermer, Willow Run (New York: Arno Press, 1977), p. 138.
[>] “Practically every night”: Ibid., p. 173.
[>] “Professional gamblers”: 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. 83.
[>] “Cattle Car”: Carr and Stermer, Willow Run, p. 83.
[>] more workers died or were injured: Arthur Herman, Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II (New York: Random House, 2012), p. x.
[>] “very old and very young”: Agnes Meyer, “Changes in Design Caused Initial Production Delay,” Washington Post, March 5, 1943, p. 1.
[>] “the automobile was still”: Ibid.
[>] Forty-one thousand feet up: Charles Lindbergh, Of Flight and Life (New York: Scribner’s, 1948), pp. 3–8.
[>] Returning from the border: Ibid., p. 8.
[>] “Now, it seemed a terrible”: Ibid., p. 9.
[>] The airfield would see over: “Flight Operations,” acc 435, box 52, “Willow Run Bomber Plant,” vol. 14, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] In Germany, Heinrich Himmler: William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960), pp. 984–86.
[>] “the enemy will very likely”: Winston Churchill, The Grand Alliance (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950), p. 808.
[>] altitude chamber built by: “Altitude Chamber,” acc 435, box 2, “Ford and the War Effort,” vol. 8, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “Forty-three thousand feet”: Charles Lindbergh, The Wartime Journals of Charles A. Lindbergh (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970), p. 765.
[>] “anxious to find out”: Ibid.
23. “The Arsenal of Democracy Is Making Good”: Winter to Summer 1943
[>] “The criminal, corrupt”: “Fireside Chat 25: On the Fall of Mussolini,” July 28, 1943, Miller Center of the University of Virginia, available at: millercenter.org/president/speeches/detail/3331 (accessed October 17, 2013).
[>] “glorious goals”: “Roosevelt Sees Allies Nearing Victory in ’43,” Washington Post, January 8, 1943, p. 1.
[>] “bomb [the Japanese]”: “Text of President’s Annual Message to Congress,” New York Times, January 8, 1943, p. 12.
[>] “Military strength was”: Jorg Friedrich, The Fire: The Bombing of Germany, 1940–1945 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), p. 54.
[>] “The war has finally”: Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), p. 482.
[>] When he delivered his report: Excerpted in Norman Beasley, Knudsen: A Biography (New York: Whittlesey House, 1947), pp. 357–61.
[>] makeshift laboratory for its: Wesley Sout, Secret (Detroit: Chrysler Corporation, 1947), pp. 1–66.
[>] According to a public poll: David Lanier Lewis, The Public Image of Henry Ford (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987), p. 363; see also Robert Lacey, Ford: The Men and the Machine (Boston: Little, Brown, 1986), p. 392.
[>] “It’s going to be about”: The American Presidency Project, “FDR: Excerpts from the Press Conference, July 27, 1943,” available at: www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=16436#axzz2i0Sgv3Dh (accessed October 17, 2013); see also Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), p. 448.
[>] “Yes, the Nazis and Fascists”: “Text of President’s Annual Message to Congress,” New York Times, January 8, 1943, p. 12.
[>] “Last night at five”: “JCG,” letter to A. J. Lepine, September 4, 1941, acc 6, box 254, “1941: Defense,” Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “If anybody made a complaint”: Mead Bricker, oral history, p. 57, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “I don’t have any idea”: Douglas Brinkley, Wheels for the World (New York: Penguin, 2003), p. 497.
[>] “On numerous occasions”: Lacey, Ford, p. 373.
[>] John Bugas first joined: FOIA FBI file of John S. Bugas, various biographical information.
[>] “Guns, tough situations”: Robin Beaver, “From FBI to Ford Motor: John Bugas’ Sense of Law and Order Served Him Well,” Made in Wyoming, available at: http://madeinwyoming.net/profiles/bugas.php (last accessed October 17, 2013).
[>] more than doubling his pay: FOIA FBI file of John S. Bugas, various biographical information.
[>] “In no city was there”: Victor G. Reuther, The Brothers Reuther and the Story of the UAW (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976), p.
270.
[>] “the biggest wartime boomtown”: Nelson Lichtenstein, The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit: Walter Reuther and the Fate of American Labor (New York: Basic Books, 1995), p. 176.
[>] forty “dangerous aliens”: “Professor at U. of D. in Custody,” Detroit News, December 11, 1941, p. 1.
[>] “This is all I can”: J. Edgar Hoover, memorandum, May 25, 1940, in Henry Morgenthau’s diaries, microfilm roll 72, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY.
[>] “a bizarre plot”: “Espionage: Story Book Reading,” Time, September 6, 1943.
[>] Liebold had close ties: FOIA FBI file of Ernest Liebold, memo by John Bugas, May 15, 1941.
[>] “blow the hell out of London”: FOIA FBI file of Ernest Liebold, memo by James J. Hayes, November 4, 1943.
[>] President Roosevelt “a Jew”: Ibid.
[>] “When Hitler comes here”: Ibid.
[>] access to the blueprints: Ibid.
[>] “sick and tired of having”: Harry Bennett, as told to Paul Marcus, Ford: We Never Called Him Henry (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1987), p. 258.
[>] “of sufficient volume”: J. Edgar Hoover, letter to Edsel Ford, December 29, 1941, acc 6, box 169, “Gen. Correspondence, 1942: FBI,” Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
24. Death in Dearborn: Spring to Summer 1943
[>] “I do miss him so”: Peter Collier and David Horowitz, The Fords: An American Epic (San Francisco: Encounter, 2002), p. 153.
[>] “There were people”: A. M. Wibel, oral history, p. 351, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “You know Edsel is sick”: Ibid.
[>] “Wibel was one of the Ford greats”: Charles Sorensen, personal account, p. 922, acc 65, box 69, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “From then on, events”: Charles E. Sorensen, with Samuel T. Williamson, My Forty Years with Ford (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2006), p. 320.