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Little more auto history

Raises the question: "Now that Chrysler is owned by Fiat; would they convert their factories to produce war machines if the U.S. needed it?"

Most of the heavy equipment manufacturers produced military equipment during WWII. Allis Chalmers made the turbochargers for the B17 engines; later they adapted turbochargers to their engines.
 
interesting question, and no real answer, first, i would think the us government would make them convert or just take their factory over, which raises some big legality questions today, in wwl very few plants had forgine ownership but the real kicker is the question if we had to go to a wwll type production effort, would today's workforce have the self sacrifice and dedication to country that the wwll generations did, ummm... no and thats a shame, the "me" generation is all about themselves, not their country, i would be very surprised if they would be able to go thru the rationing, having nothing and giving everything possible to the war effort that that generation did, they have gone into history as the greatest generation that ever lived, and justifiably so
 
Another thing to remember is the attitude of the people then and now. Then, far more people in the US were intent on keeping this country strong and refused to let another country move in and attack our citizens and troops like the Japanese did. Now, I"m not so sure what would happen. Would the general populace just sit back and say "Well, it was bound to happen."
 
I might be suprised but I just don,t believ this YOUNGER generation would step up like our farthers did.. I would hope that I am wrong but just my thoughts. Really took a masive effort on a lot of folks to get things together to win WWII. Hope I never get to know how things would play out.
 
The GM and Ford auto plants in Germany were building war supplies for Germany during the war. The U.S. did not bomb those factories too bad. Or tried not to bomb them. They did get hit.
 
I think you would be surprised, I am sure you know who in this country built the most war supplies. It was the women, they trained them to weld and anything else that needed to be done. These women were Blonds, redheads, brunets, and everything in between. They were the backbone of the war effort in the US factories. They also played a very important role with the troops.
 
Take a read of the "War Powers ACt". It allows our governement to force factories into war time production, to take over andy businesses owned by a bilegerant nation and so on.


Also look back in history. No not to WWII but just a few shourt years ago. Right after 9/11 our military recruters just about had to lock the doors. Without a draft, for the first time sense the all volinteer concept was adopted, recruters had more people trying to join than they could take or train. Sure a couple of years later once no one could see any progress they had trouble recruting but in WWII they had to draft too. SO I see it as these kids of today are just a willing to step up just like thier forefathers.

Rick
 
It's not the manpower or dedication I am concerned about today. It is the manufacturing infastructure that is no longer in this country but IS in another that has me concerned...They have the tools AND the talent.
 
yes as well as ferried the completed aircraft, i dont believe they flew them into active combat zones, but they did ferry them to where our guys could get them and take them from there, at that time i dont think these planes were armed up but you got to wonder if any of these women ever encountered any enemy planes while on route,im sure that was on their minds, that would have been a bad deal as they probably only had a pilot and maybe a copilot on the plane for a ferry move
 
Interesting read, especially about the auto plants building things for the war effort. Although we still have "assembly" plants in the US, it's pretty well known that most everything used in that assembly process comes from another country this day and time. So I wonder, if we were at war on our own turf would we have to put in a requisition for parts from China to defend ourselves now? On a positive note, there wouldn't be much for the enemy to bomb since we don't make much of anything here anymore. While living in the Dallas area there were many times I thought about what a dangerous area we actually were in if war came our way. TI, General Dynamics, Bell Helicopter just to name a few places that would have been top priority targets. I suppose now days their targets would be the Wal-Marts. Bomb all of them and this country would be crippled!
 
Sad but true, history has shown that war has been the greatest thing to stimulate the economy and create jobs. Most everything made for the military is way over priced to boot.
 
We do have to realize that GM and Ford had lost control of those plants after the declaration of war by Germany.
 
I'd have to disagree on that. I think the modern CNC lines are much more flexible than the old hard tooled lines. The old transfer lines took a lot longer to set up than the new ones. What used to take a toolmaker hours to do now takes minutes with the PLC. A lot of oldtimers had a hard time accepting it, but the new technology produces better parts, faster.
 
I read a lot of the same information several years ago in an automotive magazine. Most of us know what went on at the Front, no matter which country we were in, but I don't think enough has been said about the efforts here at home. It is absolutely amazing what was accomplished in such a short time! And as someone mentioned, the women here at home did the majority of the work.
Thanks for the post. I read the info about the automobiles, etc. and then proceeded to get completely lost checking out some of the other links. That is one heckuva website!
 
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