Today marks the 83rd anniversary of the Japanese sneak attack on the US Naval facilities at Pearl Harbor Hawaii and the Army Air Corps’ Hickam, Wheeler, and Bellows Fields. FDR declared it was a date that would live in infamy. It also marks a day that changed the world. It was the day that American manufacturing came to the fore and saved civilization.
Prior to the attack, the US was not actively involved in combat in WWII. To that point, the only US contributions were relatively small amounts of material. Before lend-lease was enacted in March of 1941, the US had been supplying the Brits with some arms, food, clothing and medical supplies on a cash-and-carry basis. After the legislation, the US started to supply the Soviets as well. Iosep Vissarionovich Stalin is quoted as saying “Without the machines we received through lend-lease, we would have lost the war“. The US wound up providing the Soviets 400,000 jeeps and trucks, 14,000 aircraft, 8,000 tractors and 13,000 tanks. The US also provided rail equipment, 92.7% of the wartime production of railroad equipment by the USSR was supplied by Lend-Lease including 1,911 locomotives and 11,225 railcars.
After the Japs bombed Pearl, the US production behemoth was released. Yamamoto Isoroku, the Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy understood what the production capabilities of the US could do. He had traveled the US extensively while a student at Harvard in the 1920’s. Before the attack he is quoted as saying “if we have war with the United States, we will have no hope of winning unless the United States fleet in Hawaiian waters can be destroyed.” After, he said “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” And he was right.
US defense spending in 1939 was a meagre – by today’s standard – $980 million, about as much as 3 F-22 fighters cost. And that was a substantial increase from the $69 million in 1938. By 1941 that number had increased to $1.8 billion, although that number included several relief programs and was not strictly spent on defense.
In 1942 however, that number climbed to $9.2 billion and would continue to grow throughout the war, maxing out at $91 billion in 1944. By the end of the war, US defense spending topped $450 billion. But what was that money spent on?
By the end of the war, US industries had churned out more than 27 million rifles and carbines, 2.6 million machine guns, 300,000 planes, 120,000 tanks, 193,000 artillery pieces, 55,000 anti-aircraft guns, more than 2 million trucks, more than 1 billion artillery shells, 41.4 billion rounds of small arms ammunition and 18 million tons – about 5500 ships – of merchant shipping.
In 1939, the US Navy had a total of 394 vessels in commission incuding 15 battle ships, 5 aircraft carriers, 36 cruisers, 58 submarines and 120-ish destroyers. The remainder were support vessels and the like. By the end of 1942, there were 1782 in commission with 282 surface combatants and 133 subs. In 1945 that number hits 6768 total in commission with 883 surface combatants and 232 subs. Keep in mind, those numbers are actual in-commission warships and do not include the losses. Total production for naval vessels in the US during the war was nearly 9000 ships and subs of all types. Those numbers do not include landing craft or merchant marine vessels. Nor do they include ships and other vessels produced for the Allied countries.
By the end of the war, the US produced about 2/3rds of all the war materiel used by the Allies.
Lend lease also provided food to the Allies, mostly the UK and USSR. Starting in 1941, the US sent more than a million tons of food to the UK by the end of 1942. The US supplied the UK with canned meat and fish, dried beans, evaporated milk, flour, starch, and concentrated orange juice. They also received raw materials like wool and leather. The Soviets got nearly 4.5 million tons of food aid – mostly canned and dried foods – nearly a quarter of the total lend lease tonnage they received.
The US production also helped at the end of the war. US industries kept Europe fed and clothed throughout the reconstruction. More than 26 million tons of supplies were sent to the newly liberated European countries. That includes the 1.7 million tons delivered during the Berlin Airlift.
The US was able to do all of this for several reasons. One of which was the availability of raw materials. Unlike the rest of the belligerents in WWII, the US had ready supplies of timber, iron, coal, oil, bauxite and most of the other raw materials needed for production.
It also had foresighted men. Men like Andrew Jackson Higgins who, seeing war on the horizon, bought the entire 1939 crop of mahogany from the Philippines on spec. Higgins’ company built the LCVP – landing craft, vehicle and personnel – commonly known as the Higgins boat. Higgins Industries built 23,358 of the indispensable craft by the end of the war.
I have to wonder if – God forbid – a major war broke out now if the country would be able to respond in the way it did in 1941. Is it even possible?
