The American folk hero's name is John Henry. A big black man who worked on the construction of a railway tunnel in Virginia. Once a black "Stakhanovite" decided to compete in labor productivity with a steam hammer, outstripped the machine, but in the end died of exhaustion. The legend of John Henry will be the best illustration for the further events of this story.
Factory on site of the farm
On March 28, 1941, workers began digging trenches and uprooting trees in Willow Run, 30 miles from Detroit. On October 1, 1941, the first four-engined bomber B-24 Liberator rolled out of the gates of the Willow Run assembly shop.
Built in record time, Willow Run has become the world's largest aviation facility with 330,000 sq. meters of workshops, 42,000 workplaces, the main assembly line 1.5 kilometers long, its own airfield and all the necessary infrastructure, including residential areas and shopping malls for the company's employees. The design of the gigantic complex was entrusted to Albert Kahn, a world-renowned industrial architect, whose masterpieces by that time included Tankograd, GAZ and the Kharkov steam locomotive plant. And this time Kahn did not disappoint - the Willow Run superplant was built taking into account all the requirements of the customer - Ford Motor Co.
In the midst of production, the main assembly line turned sharply 90 degrees: a special mill turned the almost assembled bomber in the right direction, and the workers continued to work again. The strange L-shaped shape of the workshop had a simple explanation: the plant was designed so as not to enter the territory of the neighboring county, where the land tax was higher. Capitalist Ford counted every cent.
Even before the start of the war, Ford received a lucrative contract for the production of strategic bombers - and now he was "coming off" in full, engaged in the assembly of a cheaper version of the "Flying Fortresses" using technologies of the automotive industry. Ignoring the caustic jokes "Will it run?" ("Will it work?") And regular complaints from the army about the combat qualities of the B-24, which, all other things being equal, was inferior to the "Flying Fortress" in a number of important parameters (first of all - security), Ford continued to drive the steel avalanche of military equipment.
The entire technological process was calculated to the nearest minute. Used traditional jokes in the style of Henry Ford, cleverly ridiculed by Ch. Chaplin in the film "New Times": the Chinese was deliberately placed next to the Italian, the German - with the French. At the workplace, it was forbidden to talk, sing, eat, whistle and generally be distracted by any extraneous things.
Every 63 minutes, a brand new B-24 rolled out of the gate of the assembly shop. At the peak of production, Willow Run switched to 24-hour operation and assembled over 600 bombers a month.
In one of the company's hangars, there were 1,300 army bunks, on which pilots and navigators dozed in anticipation of their future aircraft. Having received the car and documents, a short flight was made with checking the main systems - a circle over the airfield, opening / closing the bomb bay doors, machine gun turrets left and right, checking the radio station. Good! And the plane was hiding in the clouds, heading to its duty station.
There were not enough working hands, and Ford had to break one of his main rules - to hire women. From the very first days, a problem arose: the ladies went on strike, refusing to live in the same hostel next to the men. Ford's face twisted into a grimace of rage, but there was nothing to do - it was necessary to build several additional residential buildings. In general, the problem of housing was extremely acute: from all over the country, employees of "Willow Run" rented all the houses and rooms within a radius of ten miles. By June 1943, a new village had grown up near the plant - 15 apartment buildings for 1,900 families + 2,500 trailers and temporary plywood buildings. The number of houses increased continuously - by the end of the war, 15 thousand people lived in the village. However, housing alone was not enough - one day the employees staged another strike, demanding to build a shopping center in the village: they no longer intend to travel to the neighboring city. And this time the demand was satisfied.
The events at the Willow Run plant have become legendary as they epitomized American wartime life.
Road to the North. Bulldozers instead of bullets
In the winter of 1933, the traveler and conqueror of the north, Clyde Williams, took this route on a dog sled. However, the project of a highway to Alaska initially did not meet with support from the leadership of the United States and Canada. The complexity is too high and the costs of creating such a structure are too high, given the futility of its operation in the sparsely populated territories of the Far North.
Everything changed overnight on December 7, 1941: the threat of the landing of Japanese troops in the Aleutian Islands and the conduct of hostilities in Alaska demanded that these territories be immediately connected with the main part of the United States. The command of ALSIB (Alaska-Siberia) - a network of military airfields in Alaska and the Yukon, through which the flow of lend-lease cargoes went to the Soviet Union - pinned great hopes on the future road. I had to hurry …
The most northerly of Canadian roads reached Dawson Creek. A local road in Alaska ended 150 km south of Fairbanks (known as the Delta Junction). Between them lay 2700 km of cold taiga.
At dawn on March 8, 1942, the US Army Corps of Engineers began to break through the frosty haze and the spruce crackling from the cold. Hundreds of units of road construction equipment and trucks with building materials and fuel moved forward.
Work began at once on four sections of the future route: at the site southeast of the Delta junction. In the area of Fort Nelson - where an advanced group of builders, materials and equipment was delivered through the frozen swamps. And also in both directions from the key point Whitehorse - where the route of the future route passed 300 km from the Pacific coast. It was convenient to deliver cargo by sea and then transport it on the local narrow-gauge railway (Skagway-Whitehorse port).
2700 km of roadbed, 5 mountain passes, 133 bridges. Wild sparsely populated area, cold and permafrost. Despite the obvious difficulties, the construction of the "Alaska Highway" took less than eight months - the last section was opened on October 28, 1942.
However, as of October 1942, the "highway" did little to match its high-profile name. A hellish primer, suffering from talus and a layer of permafrost that threatened to turn limp and collapse under the wheels of cars at any second - for this reason, part of the track fell into disrepair in the spring of next year.
During 1943, the "Alaska Highway" was put in order - a section of the road 160 km long, running on frozen ground, was replaced by a log road, pontoon bridges were replaced with log and steel structures, crumbling hillsides were reinforced, the quality of the road surface improved - only after that the route became relatively safe and accessible to ordinary vehicles.
Alaska Highway these days
Six months after the end of the war, the Alaska Highway became the property of the Government of Canada. The road received a new kilometer markings and gradually, over the course of 20 years, acquired an asphalt concrete surface. To date, many sections have been straightened and laid along previously considered impassable places - as a result, the length of the modern route has been reduced to 2,232 km. Alaska Highway, as before, continues to fulfill its transport function and amaze travelers with the harsh beauty of these northern places.
The Kaiser's Promise
- Mister Kaiser, what do you need here, - they said to the well-known tycoon in the White House administration, - your company has won all profitable tenders for the construction of bulk carriers and tank landing ships. What else do you want?
But the Kaiser stubbornly insisted on meeting with the president's advisers.
- I can build 50 aircraft carriers in one year!
- Mister Kaiser, such things are not joking. What did the Maritime Commission say to you?
- They doubt - I have seven shipyards loaded with Liberty transports. According to the established schedule, I have to hand over three finished ships daily. But our capacities are not exhausted - we can build excellent aircraft carriers on the basis of dry cargo ships: with a flight deck, a hangar and all the necessary equipment. They will be small and not as fast as real warships, but cheap and fast to build - just right for escort missions. We will saturate the fleet with them as soon as possible. The project has already been prepared and approved by our specialists.
- Are you confident in your abilities?
"I'm sure … how much is the fleet willing to pay for my ships?"
"Casablanca" was often used as an air transport
They agreed on the amount, shook hands - and work began to boil. The project received the designation "Casablanca" - a series of 50 escort aircraft carriers in an extremely short time. The first aircraft carrier USS Casablanca (CVE-55) entered service on 8 July 1943. The last - USS Munda (CVE-104) - July 8, 1944. Henry Kaiser kept his promise.
Despite the escort specialization, "Casablanca" was used mainly for other operations: kids in the amount of 5-10 units stood on the roadstead of the doomed island - and then for weeks "hollowed out" Japanese positions with the support of artillery ships. They pounded so that not a single whole tree remained on the shore, and the landed marines found only a dozen deaf and maddened soldiers from the thousandth Japanese garrison. Own losses of "Casablanoc" during the year of the war amounted to 5 ships.
As for Henry Kaiser, everything that happened at his factories is truly surprising. The main task was to build Liberty-class transports - the Kaiser built ships faster than the Germans could sink them. Three a day, 2770 ships in the entire war. Rational layout, modular design and the use of welding made it possible to reduce the technological cycle to 45 days. By the end of the war, this figure was improved to 24 days. The fastest assembled "Robert Peary" - 130-meter dry cargo ship stood up for loading 4 days 15 hours after laying its keel at the shipyard.
The choice of names for thousands of ships was not particularly thought about - everyone who donated the agreed amount of money received the right to name the ship after himself.
Another large series of transports - type "Victory" (improved "Liberty", built in the amount of 531 units)
Soviet sailors with a smile recalled the process of obtaining Lend-Lease ships:
- Hello, captain. Here are the keys: the small ones for the boxes, the big ones for the doors. Good luck.
This was the end of the acceptance process. The ship with the cargo went to sea.
In general, everything related to shipbuilding was extremely successful for the Yankees - ships meant no less to the United States than tanks to the USSR. Colossal capacities were allocated for their construction - the Americans were the only ones who mastered the serial construction of cruisers and battleships during the war years. The number of aircraft carriers built reached 151 (of which 20 are heavy). Destroyers - those were baked like hot cakes: over 800 units! And in terms of the combination of combat characteristics, "Essex", "Iowa" and "Fletcher" were the best in the world.
Fletcher-class destroyers before launching (built in a series of 175 units)
Epilogue
How did a country with a population of 130 million people produce such an incredible amount of technology during the war years? There are 5 million cars and trucks alone, more than in all countries of the world combined. The trick has a simple explanation: the United States was the first to industrialize and by the beginning of the 20th century was the most industrially developed state. They had all the resource bases of North and South America at their disposal - the American industry did not know a shortage of fuel, rubber or alloying additives. The number of workers did not decrease due to total mobilization (in total, 11 million Americans were drafted into military service during the war years - 3.5 times less than in the Soviet Union), tens of millions of people did not disappear in the territory occupied by the enemy and did not know the horrors distant war.
The industrial areas of the United States were not ravaged. All the necessary resources, the best engineering staff and a highly qualified workforce were available. Technological processes and methods of labor organization have been worked out in practice to the smallest detail. Ultimately, all this made it possible to build factories in an open field and lay roads through the polar taiga in a few months. During the war, the soldiers of the American Labor Front performed many worthy feats, thereby bringing the common Victory closer.
Transport type "Liberty", today
Construction of the Iowa-class lead battleship
Iowa side salvo
"Strict Pipe Inspector". The slightest flaw in the aircraft's hydraulic system threatened to disaster. The utmost attention was paid to quality control of these parts.
B-24 "Liberator" and B-17 "Flying Fortress" (in the background)
