The policy adopted, therefore, was to taper off the production of such materials. Upon the signing of the armistice ten American plants were engaged exclusively in the production of automatic arms. They employed 20,000 persons. They had reached a daily output of more than 1,100 machine guns and automatic rifles on contracts calling for the delivery of 650,000 such weapons, at a projected cost of $193,000,000, of which 465,000 guns were as yet undelivered. The final cancellations stopped the production of 382,000 guns, making the total war production 268,000 guns. In the various plants the Government had invested $11,000,000 in machinery.
By January 15, 1919, the rate of producing machine guns had been cut in two. By June 28, all production of machine guns had stopped. The Springfield and Rock Island arsenals, always the Army’s development and manufacturing centers for small arms, were selected to receive the reserve manufacturing equipment acquired by the Ordnance Department in the prosecution of the machine-gun project. One unit of machinery sufficient for the daily manufacture of 100 Browning heavy machine guns, and another unit for the daily manufacture of 200 Browning automatic rifles were stored at Rock Island Arsenal. This reserve machinery was worth about $4,275,000.
Similar measures were taken in the demobilization of the war rifle industry. Production was curtailed gradually, ceasing entirely in March, 1919. Three great private plants and two government factories (Springfield Armory and Rock Island Arsenal) built our war rifles. The War Department invested over $22,000,000 in machinery. With this machinery the rifle-making departments of the Springfield Armory and the Rock Island Arsenal were practically reëquipped to produce the Model of 1903 (Springfield) rifle. The Springfield Armory (the chief future manufacturing center for this arm) was equipped to make 1,000 of these rifles in an 8-hour day, and Rock Island, 600. Working at full speed, both centers can produce 3,500 Springfield rifles every twenty-four hours. In addition special small tools, jigs, and fixtures sufficient for the production of 1,000 Model of 1917 (Enfield) rifles daily were stored at the Springfield Armory, and a unit of manufacturing equipment for producing 500 automatic pistols daily was also stored at Springfield.
Four-fifths of the outstanding orders for 5,250,000,000 rounds of rifle and pistol cartridges were terminated after the armistice. The policy adopted was to permit the small-arms ammunition factories to operate until September 1, 1919, if they so elected; but their production in that time could not exceed a quantity equal to what they might have produced if they had operated twenty-four hours a day from the armistice to February 1, 1919. This policy enabled the factories to dispense with their war labor slowly. About 1,600,000,000 rounds of small-arms ammunition were stored as a future reserve. The War Department had purchased machinery with a total producing capacity of about 3,000,000 rounds of ammunition in an 8-hour day. All the single-purpose special machinery and all special tools, jigs, and fixtures were retained, and with them the Frankford Arsenal was built up as a great center for the manufacture of small-arms ammunition. Before 1917 the annual productive capacity of the arsenal was not more than 100,000,000 rounds of rifle and pistol ammunition. The Ordnance Department has increased this capacity to 750,000 rounds in an 8-hour day. Immense quantities of bandoleers, cartridge clips, cartridge cases, metal, and other ammunition components acquired in the liquidation have been stored for future use.
CHAPTER XIII
AIRCRAFT
Next to the manufacture of ordnance, the production of airplanes and balloons and their accessories was the largest war enterprise of American industry. A hundred thousand workmen toiled in the aircraft factories, the business of which was represented by over 5,000 war contracts with a face value of several hundred million dollars. For the airplanes themselves, the contracts involved the War Department in the sum of $196,000,000, but this branch of the industry was but a small part of the entire air program. Merely for motor trucks the Air Service entered upon commitments reaching a value of $45,000,000. The investment in flying fields, balloon schools, and other physical installations erected during the war in the United States was, on November 11, 1918, approximately $75,000,000. Nearly 20,000 men had been trained to fly, and the Air Service numbered all its officers and men at 175,000—an organization larger than the regular army establishment in 1916. On Armistice Day the Air Service had spent $43,000,000 in the production of spruce for our own airplane factories and those of the Allies. For this investment it had to show a great logging equipment, including sawmills, three railroad systems (with 130 miles of trackage), hotels, and the housing for thousands of woodsmen. It was heavily involved also in plans for the production of other raw materials used in the manufacture of airplanes—$30,000,000 invested or obligated in the development of a chain of chemical plants for producing “dope,” the varnish that stretches and waterproofs the fabric of airplane wings; and $8,000,000 tied up in the fabric itself or in raw cotton for weaving into fabric. The Service spent over $25,000,000 for gasoline and oil. The largest enterprise of all was the production of airplane engines, the contracts for which reached a total value of $450,000,000.
These figures are cited to show the enormous size of our air project, to show, also, how small a part of a balanced air program is the manufacture of the airplanes themselves, and, finally, to controvert and refute the widespread, the almost universal, impression to-day that the whole air program of America in the war was a failure, a scandal, and a blot on the fair name of our war industry.
The average American, if he has not examined the record of our war aircraft program, probably holds the opinion that a billion dollars or more appropriated for aircraft vanished into thin air during the war, and that all we had to show for the enormous expenditure was a few hundred airplanes of inferior design. To this day such statements are still being made by irresponsible journalists and other careless critics of the conduct of the war. Against such assertions we oppose the statement that the production of aëronautical materials during the war was as successful as any other great branch of war industry, that we got value received for our money—“war value,” that is—and that the losses incurred were the natural and inevitable losses to be expected by any nation unprepared for war. The general charge of shocking waste and failure reposes upon nothing more substantial than rumor and muddy impression. Behind the rejoinder we are able to marshal the facts, which are, with the demobilization of the industry virtually complete, now to be evaluated as a whole.
Photo from Packard Motor Car Co.