The Arsenal of Democracy: The American Automobile Industry in World War II

Seven: Guns, Shells, Bullets, and Other War Goods

t he automobile industry’s production of aircraft engines, aircraft components, complete airplanes, tanks and other armored vehicles, and trucks of all types was the industry’s major contribution to the war effort. Automobile manufacturers did not make long-range artillery for the army or navy but did produce a substantial quantity of anti-aircraft guns and machine guns. The industry also manufactured a bewildering variety of war goods ranging from submarine nets to searchlights to gyroscopes to radar units to U-235 gaseous diffusers for the Manhattan Project. The production of many of these weapons and equipment, which had no resemblance to automotive products, demonstrated the automobile industry’s resilience and ingenuity in solving production challenges. Guns, Shells, and Bullets In his State of the Union address of 6 January 1942, President Roosevelt identified four critical items that the United States needed to focus on in preparing for war: aircraft, tanks, merchant ships, and anti-aircraft guns. He announced targets of 20,000 anti-aircraft guns for 1942 and 35,000 for 1943. Actual production in 1942 was 14,509 units, but industry surpassed the 1943 target and by war’s end had produced 49,775 anti-aircraft guns for the army alone. The section will treat only two seven Guns, Shells, Bullets, and Other War Goods 162 chApter seven anti-aircraft guns: the Bofors 40-mm gun, a Swedish-designed gun manufactured by the Chrysler Corporation, and the Oerlikon 20-mm gun, a Swiss-designed weapon made by the Hudson Motor Car Company, the Pontiac Motor Division of General Motors, and others.1 In 1940 the Colt Manufacturing Company was the only producer of anti-aircraft guns for the U.S. Army, a 37-mm model, and turned out only 170 during the year. Colt had increased production to 40 guns a month by early 1941 and the Ordnance Department was committed to this weapon until the Chief of Coast Artillery strongly recommended the 40-mm Bofors gun instead. This Swedish-designed gun had proven its value in the Spanish Civil War and at Dunkirk. In the fall of 1940, the U.S. Navy and theArmy Ordnance Department independently obtained Bofors guns for testing. The navy opted for a twin-mounted, water-cooled version of the Bofors, and the army preferred a single-mount, air-cooled design. The Chrysler Corporation built both. Chrysler’s engineers first examined the Bofors gun on 4 January 1941, and the navy gave the automaker a contract to redesign the gun for mass production . Chrysler had to convert the original specifications from meters to inches and from European to American metallurgical standards. By making the gun parts interchangeable , Chrysler’s engineers reduced the assembly time from about 450 hours under the European hand-filing and fitting methods to less than fourteen hours with the modern assembly system. On 5 February 1942, the first mass-production Bofors gun came off the assembly line.2 The Bofors anti-aircraft gun was one of Chrysler’s major contributions to the war effort. By the end of the war, the company had produced 30,095 single guns and 14,442 pairs, or the equivalent of 58,978 single guns, all assembled at the Plymouth Lynch Road plant in Detroit. The Army Ordnance Department bought a total of 34,116 single-mount Bofors guns from all suppliers and Chrysler accounted for nearly 90 percent of the total. Chrysler also made more than 120,000 Bofors gun barrels, including replacements. The Firestone Tire & Rubber Company built the gun mount and carriage for the Bofors and faced similar challenges to those Chrysler encountered in converting the specifications from meters to inches. Twelve Chrysler plants were involved in the Bofors project, along with more than 2,000 subcontractors.3 The other significant anti-aircraft gun manufactured by the automobile industry was the Oerlikon 20-mm automatic cannon, the primary anti-aircraft gun used by the U.S. Navy. A Swiss company, Werkzeug Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon, held the patent for the cannon, originally designed by Reinhold Becker in 1914 and used in a limited way by Germany toward the end of World War I. After Oerlikon modified the design, the cannon could fire 450 rounds per minute and had a range of 2,000 meters against airplanes. In mid-January 1941, Hudson announced it had signed guns, shells, bullets, AnD other wAr gooDs 163 a contract with the navy to manufacture...