The Arsenal of Democracy: fdr, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War by A. J. Baime (review)

In Arsenal of Democracy, A. J. Baime makes a select part of the story—of mass producing the desperately needed b-24 “Liberator” heavy bombers—come alive. But his subtitle is misleading; in actuality, Henry and Edsel Ford, Charlie Sorenson, Harry Bennett, and Ford Motor Company (fmc) all are more central to Baime’s story than fdr.

The story is framed between Franklin Roosevelt’s “arsenal of democracy” speech on December 29, 1940, and the return of the B-24s to Willow Run after victory in Europe. Most were built and scrapped there. Largely ignoring the Great Pacific War, Baime tells us how Edsel Ford, Charlie Sorenson, and fmc finally were able to produce B-24s like automobiles (which aviation moguls said could not be done). He makes a strong case that a pacifistic and increasingly irrational Henry Ford was an obstacle not an instigator of Ford’s war production. Henry’s cruel disdain for Edsel, and not admitting his son’s ill-health, is a noteworthy additional burden. Beset by Henry Morganthau’s treasury department sleuths investigating fmc ties to Ford of France and Germany-was fmc cooperating willfully with the Nazis?- and by the Truman committee, and the fbi (what were Henry Ford’s and test pilot-consultant Charles Lindbergh’s loyalties?), Edsel persevered to turn Henry’s farm camp for disadvantaged boys into the largest aircraft factory in the world—Willow Run. To please father, the plant was configured to stay within Washtenaw county which had voted Republican in 1940. As Henry’s favorite aviator, Lindbergh was hired as a test pilot. Since they were both prominent isolationists who received Nazi awards they were of interest to government investigators.

Like other war factories built in rural areas, Willow Run had no housing and workers could not commute to work from Detroit. Perhaps because of the importance of the b-24, the government agreed to release materials to build housing—“Bomber City.” Needing ten thousand workers, fmc turned to recruiting and training southern whites and blacks—a hypergolic racial mix. They hired a very large number of women, again against social norms. Baime notes the presence of workers who were blind, handless, legless, and deaf—all doing needed work, and of dwarves, hired to work in fuselage sections too small for most people.

In his dotage, Henry Ford’s narrowmindedness and vicious anti-Semitism combined with the criminal evil of Harry Bennett, head of fmc’s security (the “Service”) department to allow Bennett to treat labor and management alike with a heavy hand, and union sympathizers with a heavy club. In response, a strike was called in 1941 and Bennett used blacks as strike breakers, intensifying racial tensions at Willow Run. Despite the 1943 riots in Detroit and societal bigotry, Edsel and fmc continued the extensive hiring, training, and promotion of black workers (and women) in an effort to create the needed labor force.

In 1940, producing huge numbers of a highly complex machine (over 1.2 million parts) like Consolidated Aircraft Corporation’s b-24, was impossible. Consolidated did not mass produce bombers any more than the German aircraft industry did. Instead, both extensively used craft workers and many individually made or fitted parts while auto production used identical parts and lots of narrowly trained workers. fdr’s advisers thought his goal of (mass producing) fifty thousand bombers was impossible. Thus, Edsel’s determination to build bombers like Model Ts was improbable. Combining the genius of Charlie Sorenson and his people with the help of Charles Lindbergh, Edsel managed to achieve his goal of automobile-like mass production of the heavy bomber, although a bit later than he’d intended.

Edsel’s death in 1943 precipitated a crisis of leadership at Ford. His son, Henry II, left the Navy to run the company. The grandfather, clearly incompetent, insisted on being president and Bennett...