There has been more discussion of the Liberty motor than any other motor made during the war. This was due to the publicity given to the motor by the publication of a romantic story of the motor, issued from Washington over the signature of Secretary of War Baker, to the effect that the motor was conceived in a few days, and built and perfected within a month. Of course every engineer knows that that could not be done, and it took at least six months before the Liberty engine was perfected, and this was long after the Creel Publicity Bureau in Washington issued its statement.
As we have pointed out elsewhere, if the Aircraft Production Board had taken the patterns of a standard motor like the Hispano-Suiza, which had been flown for nearly three years under all kinds of war conditions, and which was being built in this country, and if they had ordered gigs, dies, and tools, and when we entered the war had requested our engineers to follow Chinese patterns in the making of the same, the dies, gigs, etc., could have been made at once instead of months later, and many American-made aircraft could have been operating over the lines when the Americans began to fight at Château-Thierry, and not months later, as was the case. Undoubtedly this delay cost the lives of thousands of American soldiers, and set back the Allied victory by just so much. The failure to deliver aircraft on schedule was the reason why General Pershing had to demand haste in the production of machines. Regardless of the fact that the aeroplane motor is radically different from the automobile motor, because it must be much lighter, nevertheless automobile men were called in by the Aircraft Production Board to design the Liberty motor, and many of the engine-building companies that had been constructing aeronautical motors were not consulted.
After the Liberty engine was completed a lively debate was instituted as to which of the two companies that was represented at the designing of the engine deserved the most credit for the job. One of the automobile companies advertised the fact that they were responsible for the Liberty motor, and the other company immediately replied, trying to prove that because they had built successful motors before the war that they were the real designers of the motor.
To be sure, no one would have objected to the construction of a Liberty motor on the side, but to delay the construction of motors in quantity until September, 1917, put the United States back just six months in production, for a number of factories were already producing parts for Rolls-Royce engines, and the Wright-Martin Company had been building the Hispano-Suiza motor since January, 1916.
Be that as it may, the facts regarding the Liberty motor appear to be that General Squier, E. A. Deeds, Howard E. Coffin, S. D. Waldon, of the Aircraft Production Board, called in to consultation on May 29, 1918, E. J. Hall, chief engineer of the Hall-Scott Motor Company, builders of a number of 4, 6, 8, and 12 cylinder aeroplane engines, and Jesse G. Vincent, experimental engineer of the Packard Motor Car Company, who had just completed a design and an experimental aeroplane engine, which had never up to that time been in a plane.
Both these gentlemen were in Washington attempting to interest Signal Corps officials in the aeroplane engine each had designed.
Liberty-Engine Conference
A five-day conference between Mr. Hall and Mr. Vincent, called by Mr. Deeds and Mr. Waldon of the Aircraft Production Board to consider aeroplane-engine design and production, was held. The two engineers got together in designing a standardized, directly driven, five-bearing crank-shaft engine of 8 cylinders, and one of 12 cylinders, with a seven-bearing crank-shaft. After a session of twenty hours’ work in a room at the New Willard Hotel, in Washington, during which meals were served the two men, and both lived, worked, and slept in the apartments of Mr. Deeds, a new 8-cylinder 230 horse-power aeroplane engine was laid out, described, and drawings of transverse and longitudinal sections were made by Vincent and Hall themselves. This was the first Liberty motor designed.
On the morning of May 30, 1917, near the close of the designing session, Mr. Vincent dictated a joint report to the Aircraft Production Board. The salient points and a rough draft had been agreed upon the night before. It was dated May 31, 1917, and signed jointly by E. J. Hall and Jesse G. Vincent.
Washington, D. C., May 31, 1917.