Repurposed for WWII

I was searching the history of an old OT item I picked up recently and came across this site, Heritage Research. As I realized what type of info this stie offered, I quickly went over to Michigan, being that I love early Fords and never contemplated just what these companies were pumping out during 1942-45.

Some interesting repurposed companies were, Electric Auto Lite, instead of automotive lighting, they produced gyroscopes. It's interesting to read what products were originally produced in the plant and what came out during war-time.

Ford's Rouge plant had a lot of interesting items coming out from areas of the plant that I wouldn't have expected. For example, Pratt and Whitney's R-2800.

I only looked into Michigan due to being at work but it'd be interesting to see what else came out of plants nation-wide.

 

My area built a lot of airplanes and boats.

 

Ford...some nearly normal Fords, some highly adapted Fords like Bren carriers, many industrial V8's for generators and welders, several lines of vehicles totally unrelated to normal Fordstuff like armored cars, half the B-24 bombers (google Willow Run...almost one B-24 per hour at peak), several lines of engines,
Willys design jeeps (Ford GPW) and jeep chassis in Ford designed amphibious body...
Pontiac...I think some anti-aircraft guns, tank destroyers...Ac Sparkplug M2 .50's...
Find a library with wartime Life magazines, too...MANY companies ran ads displaying their wartime products.

 

Ford made at least two versions of scout cars, but they were powered by Hercules flat sixes, similar to what was used in the Studebaker duece and half.

 

Those are the M8 armored car and its other version...one open-topped, one with a little turret. Canada gets you many more Ford oddities...the Lynx armored car was a little 4 wheel drive flathead Ford, and Canada also made a big rear engine armored car (built for Indian and South African armies, I think) with flathead, based on a turned-around 4 WD truck chassis.

 

Sadly, most of what I see on these lists are local operations that are no longer around.

I wonder if Electric Auto Light was later absorbed into Prestolite? I've heard about Prestolite's Bay City operations, but never EAL.

-Dave

 

Names like Rock Ola, Singer Sewing Machine, Inland, International Harvestor, Postal Meter, etc. come up frequently in the small arms world.

 

A really nice-shooting M1 Carbine followed my maternal grandfather home from Saginaw Steering Gear during the war...

-Dave

 

Neat stuff, fellas.

Bruce, I'm going to look into the old ads. I'm fascinated by this, at the moment. It's weird, while I realized companies switched things up during that time period - I never considered that they would produce vastly different items.

 

I saw a utube about Fridgidaire, They tell the story of converting the plant from domestic refridgerators to machine guns. All of the old equipment was put in storage and new machinery brought in. They were very proud of getting the plant converted, up and running, producing guns 9 months before Pearl Harbor.

 

sweet! the place where i work use to be bethlehem Steel shipyard in Staten island and they made destroyers.

 

Beth built Liberty ships here as did Kaiser, in a week. At SFO, Boeing flew new B-29s from Seattle to two hangers staffed by United Air Lines mechanics who made the running changes to up grade the planes to the latest version. It being thought better to leave the assembly line alone building the first model and then upgrade the airframe. After the was UAL mover from Wichita to SFO and the B29 hangers became part of the new Overhaul base.

 

I read on a bicycle forum about the six Brown and Sharpe screw machines at the Schwinn factory and how they switched them over to produce shell casings during the war.

Slightly off topic, if you have Netflix you should check out this documentary. It is a very interesting view into cold war meets american ingenuity and production skill/will. The name is "AZORIAN The Raising Of The K-129". It is real life "James Bond" stuff.

Here is the website for the film.

http://www.projectjennifer.at/

 

Makes you wonder how they knew the war was coming before Pearl Harbor.

 

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1942​

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As part of the war effort, A. O. Smith begins producing bomb casings, aircraft propellers and landing gear, torpedo air flasks, and other material. By 1945, it had built 4.5 million bombs, 16,750 sets of landing gear, and 46,700 propeller blades, as well as nose frames for the B-25 bomber, water heaters, jeep frames, and components for the atomic bomb project.​

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i want to make one of these now

 

Here's the link, it's in two parts, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9bJwJafn1Y And abou 4 minutes in on the first one they mention 16 months before Pearl is when the plans were made.

Cool old footage of WW2 and the factory making propellors and 50 cal.

 

maytag build gun turrets for our bombers cadillac made engines for sherman tanks. ford made willys jeeps, the only difference was the ford jeeps all of the bolts had ford emblems on them. all of us industries had a hand in ww11 production. no different than the german industy.

 

I`ve watched that 4 times so far , amazing stuff....

 

Electric Auto-Lite later became Autolite...there were quite a few acquisitions of other companies along the way...then itself bought by FoMoCo in 1961. Now being deteriorated slowly by Honeywell.

 

When I was a soldier in the late 1990s, we had .50cal M2HB machineguns made by Kelsey-Hayes.

 

WWII started on September 1,1939,Pearl Harbor was December 7, 1941.

 

Radio Flyer stopped wagon production and built Jerry Cans (gas cans for the uninitiated)

 

The Ford plant where I worked in St. Paul built six wheeled armored cars with a flathead six Hercules engine. If anyone had the capacity to cast or machine metal they were used for war production. I saw an Allison engine new on a pallet at a museum. I stood on the edge of the pallet to look down in the valley, the intake manifold was cast by Maytag, and had thier logo cast in. They all pulled together then, and won the war.

 

Not for the US it didn't. Pearl Harbor was suppose to be the big shocking wake up call that drew us in. Sounds like Frigidaire had a little advanced notice. Too bad our service members in the Pacific apparently didn't get the same memos.

 

We DID have allies back then. Allies who purchased war material. Someone had to make that material for someone to purchase it.

Cosmo

 

Here is a history update for you. http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/industrialmobilization/p/lend-lease-act.htm

 

the hellcat is better!

 

There was Lend - Lease to aid the Allies, before the US entered WW II. Also, there was the neutrality patrol, where The US Navy provided escort ships for convoys that were bound for Great Britain. Something that is barely mentioned anymore is the sinking of the USS Reuben James by a Nazi U-Boat on October 31, 1941 and the torpedoing of the USS Kearny on October 17, 1941.....Almost two months prior to Pearl Harbor.

If anyone is interested in the history of The US Navy in WW II, try to find the "Battle Report" series of books, by Commander Walter Karig, USNR, and Lieutenant Welbourn Kelley, USNR. These were printed starting in 1944, and were prepared from official US Navy records. Although, they have been out of print for MANY years, they are an EXCELLENT series of books on The US Navy.

 

...and one might argue that all of this is why raw industrial capacity matters.