HUMAN ELEMENT BACKS U.S. INDUSTRY'S CHANGE TO WAR

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 67, 27 April 1943, Page 6

HUMAN ELEMENT BACKS U.S. INDUSTRY'S CHANGE TO WAR

Figures relating to America's amazing Avar production were mentioned in President Roosevelt's message to Congress. Something of. the story behind the figures may be gathered i'rom this article., This is an effort to tell a story which nobody can tell in full, writes Richard L. Strout in the Christian Science. Monitor. It is the story of Detroit in war-time. It is the tale, too., of the American Automobile industry Avhieh switched from peace to war so quickly that it amazed itself and is now turning out an unbelievable percentage ol the. war. materials being made in the United States. It is the story that could not be duplicated in any other nation' and has never beer, equalled before even in the Unitejd States. But in a sense it. is more than all this. It is the story of the women who are coming in increasing numbers into Avar plants and of the surprised manufacturers of peaceful automobiles aa'Uo suddenly find, them- • selves building weapons, of Avar; .it ' is the story of executives such as R. 11. Alilers, Pontiac gun plant chiel engineer, and Herman L. Weckler general manager of the Chrysler Corporation; in charge of the unbe'liievablc tank plant built, in a cornfield Finally, it is the story of humble men —Joe Mcnoch, chief Chryslci tank test driver, who can park a 3Qton tank as, gently as " a car' in v garage or smash a ir>-inch oak tree into matchwood with a stroke; Roy Widrig, who passes his Avorking hours under ground watching Ocrlikon gun bullets, being fired intc 310 feet of sand; or Joe. Swatclis— the "upside doAvn man" aalio has the most, surprising job of all. Roster Tells Story J These names Alilcrs, Weckler 'Mcnoch, Widrig, Swatdlis tell tl\< roster of Detroit than anything els( and of, the American objective. One year ago a party of Wash; s Ington 'newspapermen came out lierc to Avatch Detroit switch fi'oir autos to arms. Be lore the assault 01 Pearl Harbour the motor induslrj had protested strenuously that i ! could ncA'cr be convcrted completely to Avar industry, and that only I 30 per cent or less ol its mighty machines could be turned to Avai uses. '' KUwing proA'ed its case conc.usively to its own satisfaction, it ther proceeded. Avhen Avar finally came to convert itself by ,au industrial r "miracle*' to Avar production, am r no w the Chrysler Corporation boast; • that "more than 8H per cent"', of it; _ regular motor tolls haAe been con- „ verted to Avar Avork. Not a ciA'ilian auto is being made here to-day and Detroit is proud of the fact.

Only a short 10 months ago Albert H. Patterson works manager of the vast Plymouth plant, guided, the visiting Washington correspondents around liis great factory as the last of the Plymouth cars came off at one end of the assembly line and men with crowbars started to tear up the line at the other. . "Come back in a year and see us," said. Mr Patterson, with a Scottish . burr, as. we 'left. "That will tell the .story." We have come back in less than a year and that is the story I am trying to tell. A year ago America wfts not sure what the automotive industry could do and the industry was not sure itself even though it knew the. country's I'ate might hang on.it. To-day production is such that the'question docs not have to be asked any more and some of the big lactones seem even to be. working themselves out of initial jobs. An important new trend is appearing, an immediate emphasis on aircraft marine motors | and certain offensive weapons as against trucks, shells, anti-aircral't guns and even tanks, .which were the. most desired implements earlier. At Washington it is stated that there is a 20 per cent greater est'n mated arms capacity than there are materials. In broad terms this seems to be true of Detroit, where in less than a year the who'le thing seems to have moved definitely into a upstage along with the United Nations growing emphasis on offensive as against defensive strategy in the global Avar. Highlights; of the first, day's tour is the agreement of executives, that labour is making more money now than it did when making cars; that women are fast coming into the plants; that in 10 months, major des gn shifts have already occurred, such as the substitution of the improved General Sherman tank (M"4) for the. old General Grant (M-3) without a halt in the' assembly line", that the b'g plants thus far

arc having difficulty in subletting contracts; that the Government, is shifting armament emphasis, resulting, for example, in the at the Fisher Body plant at Pontias of 25 per cent of the men previously making anti-aircraft guns. But these major trends, hardly tell the story of Detroit's enormous zest in its new job, echoed again and again in the comments of plant managers and lesser workers. And they certainly do not tell the story ] of Joe Menocli and Joe Swatelis. Take the case of Don Larkin, for example, executive at the Fisher Body plant, which turns out long, lean, lichengreen 4.0-miri. Bofors anti-aircraft guns. "We all get a big bang out of this job," is the way he puts it. Then there Avas the comment of Mr Alders at the 20mm. Oerlikon end of tile Pontiac .gun plant. "Take my Avord for it, they are really flying cut of here," he said. "X wouldn't miss it for the vrorld.'" Richard. Oberholtzer, process engineer in the same plant, proudly told us lioav the gun squirts bullets! against dive-bombers like a man playing a hose. The Oerlikon gun, Mr Aiders said, took 190 man hours to manufacture a year ago; now it has been cut to 55. "Time seems to 13ass pretty quickly down here,' commented veteran Roy Widrig. 27 years making motor cars, as he handed OA'er another 00 shell case of Oerlikon cartridges to Lieut. Robert K. Victor of the navy to be. fired into the underground sand pit.' But the two men Avitii the mosti fascinating jobs were Messrs Menoch and Swatelis, respectively. Hundreds of stories have been Avritten of test pilots, but I never saAv 6ine> of the tank test driver, who- takes the 30-ton General Shermans, off one or another of the immense Chrysler assembly lines and puts the big gray through its paces, crashing like an elephant over the testing track or Avheeling and reversing in its oavii tracks as agile as a cat. Scotsman at Work Joe j\lenocli Avas born of an Irish mother and Scottish father and his accent has features ct both. He aa as educated on the banks oi the Clyde. I told him of what I had seen there two months ago, AVith miles of aa'orisers' homes levelled by German bombs, and he gaA'e a vindicti\e rub to his hands before his next test. He told me one shove' of a Gen r . eral Sherman Avill push over any tree up to 15-inch diameter, while for 25-inch trees "about three passes at it and she'll go." Finally, Joe Swatelis. the "upside down" man. His job in this A\ai is to climb inside a movable circular compartment hardly bigger than a library terrestrial globe and remain there like a ctricky in an egg 2% Jiours, turning it a'nout in all directions, and repeating the performance thrice each day. About half of his time he is upside down, for the globe comprises the so-called "blister turret hung beneath and in the centre of a Fly-' ing' Fortress and capable of moA-ing in tAvo directions either 31)0 degrees horizontally, which is a complete turn, or upside down horizontally . tFrom this revolving apple of a coin-, partment built of hardened aluminium and plastic protrude two poavcrful machine guns.