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United States aircraft production during World War II

Assembling B-25 Mitchell medium bombers at North American Aviation, Kansas City, October 1942.

America's manufacturers in World War II were engaged in the greatest military industrial effort in history. Aircraft companies went from building a handful of planes at a time to building them by the thousands on assembly lines. Aircraft manufacturing went from a distant 41st place among American industries to first place in less than five years.[1][2][3]

In 1939, total aircraft production for the US military was less than 3,000 planes. By the end of the war, America produced 300,000 planes. No war was more industrialized than World War II. It was a war won as much by machine shops as by machine guns.[4]

In January 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appealed to Congress for $300 million to be spent on procuring aircraft for the Army Air Corps. At the time the Corps had approximately 1,700 aircraft in total. Congress responded and authorized the procurement of 3,251 aircraft.

The American aircraft industry was given impetus at the early part of the war by the demand from the British and French for aircraft to supplement their own domestic production. The 1939 Neutrality Act permitted belligerents to acquire armaments from US manufacturers provided they paid in cash and used their own transportation - "cash and carry". The British Purchasing Commission had been set up prior to the war to arrange purchase of aircraft and the British and French dealt directly with manufacturers paying from their financial reserves. After France fell to Germany, many of the orders for aircraft were taken over by the British. By 1940, the British had ordered $1,200,000,000 worth of aircraft.[5] This led to some aircraft, such as the North American P-51 Mustang, being designed and produced to meet European requirements and then being adopted by the US. In their need for aircraft the Anglo-French commission also ordered designs from manufacturers that had failed to win US Army contracts - e.g. the Martin Model 167.

The American aircraft industry was able to adapt to the demands of war. In 1939 contracts assumed single-shift production, but as the number of trained workers increased, the factories moved to first two- and then a three-shift schedules. The government aided development of capacity and skills by placing "Educational orders" with manufacturers, and new government-built plants for the private firms to use.[6]

Aircraft companies built other manufacturer's designs; the B-17 Flying Fortress was built by Boeing (the designer), the Lockheed Corporation, and Douglas Aircraft. Automotive companies joined schemes to produce aircraft components and also complete aircraft. Ford set up the Willow Run production facility and built complete Consolidated B-24 Liberators as well as sections to be assembled at other plants.

Total production

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Learning curve of the production of B-29 airframes at the Boeing Wichita division during WWII.
Production[7]
Type of aircraft Total 1940¹ 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945²
Grand total 295,959 3,611 18,466 46,907 84,853 96,270 45,852
Combat aircraft 200,443 1,771 8,395 24,669 53,183 74,564 37,861
Very heavy bombers 3,740 — — 4 91 1,147 2,498
Heavy bombers 31,685 46 282 2,513 9,574 15,057 4,213
Medium bombers 21,461 52 762 4,040 7,256 6,732 2,619
Light bombers 39,986 453 2,617 5,954 11,848 12,376 6,738
Fighters 99,465 1,157 4,036 10,721 23,621 38,848 21,082
Reconnaissance 4,106 63 698 1,437 793 404 711
Support aircraft 95,516 1,840 10,071 22,238 31,670 21,706 7,991
Transports 23,900 164 525 1,887 6,913 9,925 4,486
Trainers 58,085 1,676 9,294 17,237 20,950 7,936 1,352
Communication 13,531 — 252 3,114 4,167 3,845 2,153

¹July–December ²January–August

Recipients of U.S. aircraft production

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Type of airplane Total US Army
Air Forces 		US Navy and
US Marine Corps 		Other
US Services 		British Empire
and Commonwealth 		Soviet Union Other nations
Grand total 295,959 158,880 73,711 3,714 38,811 14,717 6,126
Combat aircraft 200,443 99,487 56,695 8 27,152 13,929 3,172
Very heavy bombers 3,740 3,740 — — — — —
Heavy bombers 31,685 27,867 1,683 — 2,135 — —
Medium bombers 21,461 11,835 4,693 8 3,247 1,010 638
Light bombers 39,986 7,779 20,703 — 8,003 3,021 480
Fighters 99,465 47,050 27,163 — 13,417 9,868 1,967
Reconnaissance 4,106 1,216 2,453 — 350 30 57
Support aircraft 95,516 59,939 17,016 3,706 11,659 788 2,954
Transports 23,900 15,769 2,702 267 3,789 703 670
Trainers 58,085 34,469 13,859 3 7,640 85 2,029
Communication 13,531 9,155 455 3,436 230 — 255

Analysis

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William S. Knudsen, an automotive industry executive who was made Chairman of the Office of Production Management and member of the National Defense Advisory Commission by the Roosevelt administration to organize war production, said, "We won because we smothered the enemy in an avalanche of production, the like of which he had never seen, nor dreamed possible."[8]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Herman, Arthur (2012). Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II. New York, NY: Random House. pp. 202–3. ISBN 978-1-4000-6964-4.
  2. ^ Parker 2013, p. 7–10.
  3. ^ Borth, Christy (1945). Masters of Mass Production. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill Co. p. 237.
  4. ^ Parker 2013, p. 5, 7–10, 13, 59, 131–2.
  5. ^ Engel, Leonard (5 December 1940), "Half Of Everything: An American's Survey of Orders Placed in the United States", Flight: 472
  6. ^ Craven, W.F.; Cate, J.L. (eds.). "Chapter 4: The Air Corps Prepares for War, 1939-41". The Army Air Forces In World War II. Vol. I: Prewar Plans and Preparations. pp. 106–107 – via Hyperwar Foundation.
  7. ^ "Table 79". Army Air Forces Statistical Digest World War II (PDF). Office of Statistical Control, Headquarters, Army Air Forces. p. 127. Archived (PDF) from the original on 8 June 2019. At archive.org
  8. ^ Parker 2013, p. 5.

Sources

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