On October 17 the production of the Liberty motor started, over six months after we entered the war.
The delivery of the first Liberty 12 was made on Thanksgiving Day, 1917.
One of the unrecorded incidents of this period concerned the “scrapping” of $400,000 worth of semi-finished parts of an automotive aircraft engine, which was assumed O. K., and parts had been ordered for 250 motors. It was actually in production at the time Hall and Vincent were ignoring practically all its features and “laying out” the designs for the Liberty 8 and Liberty 12. It had never been tested in a plane, and its design and all its parts were rejected.
Owing to the slowness of production due to the new gigs, dies, tools, etc., necessary to build the engines, much criticism was directed at the lack of shipments of Liberty engines for army air service in the winter months of 1917.
Charged with the necessity of protecting the American army transport, the Navy Department had first call on all air-service equipment. As a result it received the first Liberty 12’s turned out. These were installed in navy aeroplanes, where they did good work.
The preliminary Liberty 8 was delivered to the Bureau of Standards, Washington, D. C., July 3, 1917, by the group of industrial concerns named. A 54-hour test was made of a Liberty 12 on August 25 by the Bureau of Standards. The Liberty 12 was detailed for quantity production, and the actual work was begun, and the work done by these companies in producing Liberty-engine parts is above praise. It was then that the mighty energies of their splendid organizations demonstrated the ability of American industrial life to fight the battle behind the lines.
War Department Statement
Departing from its policy of secretiveness concerning all things of a military character, the United States War Department on May 15, 1918, issued an authorized statement dealing with the technical features and characteristics of the Liberty 12, then in quantity production. This statement was published in the Congressional Record of an early subsequent date.
Secretary of War Baker in his report published elsewhere in this book gives the following account of Liberty motors built:
Production of Service Engines