Colonel Deeds’ instructions had been brief but to the point. He cautioned the engineers, J. G. Vincent and E. J. Hall, that the engine they designed had to be light in weight in proportion to power, and adaptable to mass production. Then he added a final admonition: the engine must embody no device that had not already been tested and proved in existing engines. There was no time for experimentation.
Within forty-eight hours Vincent and Hall had come up with the rough design of the engine. Three days later they had incorporated in the design all of its major features, and shortly thereafter the nation’s auto manufacturers had started production of parts for five 8-cylinder engines and five 12-cylinder engines.
Deeds had been shooting for completion of the first trial engine by July 4. This goal, which seemed to many the strongest form of wishful thinking, was more than met in what will remain as one of the classic achievements in American production annals. Impossible as it had seemed, a complete 8-cylinder engine was delivered to the nation’s Capital on July 3, a day before the deadline and less than six weeks after the design was drawn. The first 12-cylinder engine passed its tests the following month.
In the short span of a year from the date when its designers first met, 1,100 Liberty engines had been produced and put into service. By the time the Armistice was signed, 24,475 engines had been turned out and daily production of the V-12 had climbed to the staggering figure of 150 every 24 hours. The magnitude of this engineering, manufacturing and management feat is pointed up by the fact that a host of small jigs, tools and fixtures were required to build every part of the complicated engine.
Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War, said of the project: “I regard the invention and rapid development of this engine as one of the really big accomplishments of the United States since its entry into the war.... The story of the production of this engine is a remarkable one. Probably the war has produced no greater achievement.”
Although the Liberty engine became a potent factor in World War I, its greatest achievements were to come in the years following, when for the first time aviation’s horizon was lifted above the level of county-fair stunt exhibitions and the foundation laid for commercial aviation.
It was the Liberty engine that first enabled man to conquer the ocean in an airplane. Four of the 440-horsepower engines powered the famous U. S. Navy NC-4, which in 1919 became the first plane to fly the Atlantic.
Aerial mastery of the Atlantic was first achieved in 1919 in the Liberty-powered NC-4, shown in this U. S. Navy photograph.
