by A. J. Baime
[>] Edsel arrived at Treasury: Henry Morgenthau diaries, microfilm roll 73, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY.
[>] “The enemy have a marked”: Jon Meacham, Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship (New York: Random House, 2004), p. 48.
[>] “Sure, we can do it”: Donald M. Nelson, Arsenal of Democracy: The Story of American War Production (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1946), p. 80.
[>] “We will make all the studies”: “Ford Now Developing New Airplane Engine,” Montreal Gazette, June 11, 1940, p. 22.
[>] “for patriotic reasons”: “Knudsen to Direct Defense Tooling,” New York Times, June 4, 1940, p. 12.
[>] “I was concerned about Edsel”: Sorensen, personal account, p. 731.
[>] “I am surprised”: Ibid., p. 736.
[>] “They want war!”: Ibid., p. 740.
[>] “We wouldn’t have made”: David Lanier Lewis, The Public Image of Henry Ford (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987), p. 272.
[>] “Bill, we can’t make those motors”: Norman Beasley, Knudsen: A Biography (New York: Whittlesey House, 1947), pp. 264–65.
[>] “You are mixed up with”: Sorensen, personal account, p. 740.
[>] “We won’t build the engine”: Lewis, The Public Image of Henry Ford, p. 272.
[>] “Edsel said that his father”: Transcript of conversation in Henry Morgenthau’s diaries, microfilm roll 75, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY.
[>] “for an hour and a half: Treasury Department investigation files, p. 4, “Foreign Funds Control,” box 135, record group 131, National Archives, College Park, MD.
[>] “Edsel definitely gave”: Transcript of conversation in Henry Morgenthau’s diaries, microfilm roll 75, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY.
[>] “a menace to democracy”: “At 78 Henry Ford Takes a New Lease of Life,” The Mail (Adelaide), July 4, 1942; see also “The Battle of Detroit,” Time, March 23, 1942.
[>] “The ‘Dementi’ of Mr. Henry Ford”: Ken Silverstein, “Ford and the Fuhrer,” The Nation, January 24, 2000, p. 13.
[>] “Mankind is Frankenstein”: Michael Sherry, The Rise of American Airpower: The Creation of Armageddon (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987), p. 46.
[>] “We could feel the shock”: Wilkins and Hill, American Business Abroad, p. 326.
[>] “There had been fighting”: Meacham, Franklin and Winston, p. 7.
[>] “We saw our soldiers fighting”: William Stephenson, A Man Called Intrepid: The Secret War (New York: Ballantine Books, 1976), pp. 79–80.
[>] “We shall need the greatest”: Winston Churchill, Their Finest Hour (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1949), pp. 499–500.
[>] “Mr. President, with great”: Meacham, Franklin and Winston, p. 71.
[>] “As a report on the state”: Magazine clipping, William Knudsen Papers, box 2, National Automotive History Collection, Detroit Public Library.
[>] “Fifty thousand airplanes”: Ibid.
[>] “We need more bombers”: Freedom’s Arsenal (Detroit: Automobile Manufacturers Association, 1950), pp. 2ff.
[>] “The first half of 1941”: Magazine clipping, William Knudsen Papers, box 2, National Automotive History Collection, Detroit Public Library.
[>] “Gentlemen, we must outbuild”: “Profiles: Production Man—II,” The New Yorker, March 15, 1941, p. 26.
10. The Liberator: Fall 1940 to Spring 1941
[>] “I think it well for”: Tom Vanderbilt, Survival City: Adventures Among the Ruins of Atomic America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002), p. 57.
[>] “K.T., this is Knudsen”: Norman Beasley, Knudsen: A Biography (New York: Whittlesey House, 1947), pp. 283–84.
[>] “I believe the greatest”: “Meet Attacks from Within, Sloan Advises,” Chicago Daily Tribune, October 16, 1940, p. 33.
[>] “We haven’t got enough”: Ed Cray, Chrome Colossus: General Motors and Its Times (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980), pp. 316–17.
[>] “The President could take over”: “Mrs. Roosevelt’s View: Ford Seizure Simple,” Christian Science Monitor, January 28, 1941, p. 9.
[>] “Those planes will never”: Charles E. Sorensen, with Samuel T. Williamson, My Forty Years with Ford (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2006), p. 279.
[>] “I was over the barrel”: Ibid., p. 278.
[>] “for the defense of the United States”: “Henry Ford Reveals Company Will Make Aviation Engines for US Government,” Flint Journal, August 17, 1940.
[>] “Our organization moved fast”: Sorensen, My Forty Years with Ford, p. 276.
[>] “They’ve had enough school”: Charles Sorensen, personal account, p. 750, acc 65, box 69, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “We are dealing with a 50,000”: “Ford Plant May Build Air Battleships,” Los Angeles Times, January 9, 1941, p. 1.
[>] “We chose the name Liberator”: Stephen E. Ambrose, The Wild Blue (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), p. 22.
[>] “How would you do it?”: Sorensen, My Forty Years with Ford, p. 281.
[>] “the greatest industrial adventure”: Ibid., p. 3.
[>] “To compare a Ford V-8”: Ibid., p. 281.
[>] “the biggest challenge”: Ibid., p. 282.
[>] “Get serious”: Douglas Brinkley, Wheels for the World (New York: Penguin, 2003), p. 459.
[>] “Why not make units for us”: Sorensen, My Forty Years with Ford, p. 283.
[>] “We are not interested”: Ibid., p. 284.
[>] “We hope to be in production”: “100 Army Bombers a Month Objective of New Ford Plant,” Boston Globe, March 5, 1941.
[>] “1 plane per hr”: Original sketch, acc 435, box 51, “Ford–Willow Run Bomber Plant,” vol. 1, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “You cannot expect blacksmiths”: Logan Miller, oral history, p. 46, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “a bad thing to give contracts”: Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, p. 227.
[>] “to let bygone issues go”: Ibid.
[>] “We descended”: Roscoe Smith, oral history, p. 57, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “Of course we were all”: Ibid., p. 58.
[>] “I remember we first talked”: Logan Miller, oral history, p. 46, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] Edsel personally paid for: Ibid., p. 56.
[>] “They were supposed to have”: Smith, oral history, p. 57, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] Eighty-five percent of the plane: “The Metallurgical Laboratories,” acc 435, box 51, “Ford–Willow Run Bomber Plant,” Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] Blueprint makers used: “Making of Blueprints,” acc 435, box 52, “Ford–Willow Run Bomber Plant,” vol. 18, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “Gee, that’s going to cost”: William Pioch, oral history, pp. 65–68, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “a substantial increase”: Herman S. Wolk, Cataclysm: General Hap Arnold and the Defeat of Japan (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2010), p. 36.
11. Willow Run: Spring to Fall 1941
[>] “The Industrial Revolution has”: David Edgerton, Britain’s War Machine: Weapons, Resources, and Experts in the Second World War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 11–12.
[>] “We’ll put up a mile”: Douglas Brinkley, Wheels for the World (New York: Penguin, 2003), p. 460.
[>] “There was nothing to stop”: Charles Sorensen, personal account, p. 774, acc 65, box 69, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “It took me 29 years”: Richard Lingeman, Don’t You Know There’s a War On? The American Home Front 1941–1945 (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2003), p. 74.
[>] “Ford’s Warbird Hatchery”: Brinkley, Wheels for the World, p. 460.
[>] “a revolution in aircraft: “Ford’s War Production Exceeds Dreams,” Christian Science Monitor, May 21, 1942, p. 13.
&nbs
p; [>] “It was the first concrete”: Brinkley, Wheels for the World, p. 460.
[>] “Apparently the Plant Site Board”: Edsel Ford, “Departmental Communication” memo to Charles Sorensen, June 4, 1941, acc 435, box 51, “Ford–Willow Run Bomber Plant,” Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “I have great admiration”: Charles Lindbergh, The Wartime Journals of Charles A. Lindbergh (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970), p. 363.
[>] “I wish I trusted him”: A. Scott Berg, Lindbergh (New York: Berkley Books, 1999), p. 394.
[>] “What has happened to”: Lindbergh, The Wartime Journals, p. 360.
[>] “He asked if a donation”: Ibid., p. 389.
[>] “Your stand against entry”: Allan Nevins and Frank Ernest Hill, Ford: Decline and Rebirth (New York: Scribner’s, 1963), p. 181.
[>] “Nobody gave us much”: H. H. Arnold, Global Mission (Military Classics, 1949), p. 169.
[>] “negotiated peace”: “Lindbergh Hits Hysteria and Invasion Fears,” Chicago Daily Tribune, January 24, 1941, p. 1.
[>] “Our own air forces are”: “Text of Col. Lindbergh’s Statement Opposing Aid Bill,” Los Angeles Times, February 7, 1941, p. 7.
[>] “would be the greatest”: “Lindbergh Hits Hysteria and Invasion Fears,” Chicago Daily Tribune, January 24, 1941, p. 1.
[>] “which side would it be”: Ibid.
[>] “The three most important”: Jon Meacham, Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship (New York: Random House, 2004), p. 127.
[>] “If I should die tomorrow”: Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), p. 48.
[>] “the No. 1 United States”: Berg, Lindbergh, p. 418.
[>] “No one has ever heard”: Ibid., p. 423.
[>] “Knight of the German”: Harold Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold Ickes, vol. 3 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1955), p. 581.
[>] “Mr. Lindbergh returned his”: Ibid., p. 424.
12. Awakening: Spring to Fall 1941
[>] “When we are talking”: Donald M. Nelson, Arsenal of Democracy: The Story of American War Production (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1946), p. 309.
[>] “America is like”: Arthur Herman, Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II (New York: Random House, 2012), p. 85.
[>] “It is the biggest thing”: “War Plant Would Make Big Stadium,” Washington Post, June 11, 1942, p. 33.
[>] 94 days to flatten the earth: “Building of Airport,” acc 435, box 51, “Ford–Willow Run Bomber Plant,” vol. 1, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “atmosphere of an antique”: Lowell Juilliard Carr and James Edson Stermer, Willow Run (New York: Arno Press, 1977), p. 19.
[>] “These are terrific stakes”: “Sorensen of the Rouge,” Fortune, April 1942, p. 79.
[>] “I was devoted to him”: Charles E. Sorensen, with Samuel T. Williamson, My Forty Years with Ford (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2006), p. 304.
[>] “I was afraid it was”: Charles Sorensen, personal account, p. 790, acc 65, box 69, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “There would be no”: Dr. John G. Mateer, letter to Edsel Ford, November 15, 1940, acc 6, box 247, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “I can’t spare the time”: “Edsel Ford Dies at 49; Headed Auto Empire 24 Years,” Evening Star (Washington, DC), May 26, 1943, p. 1.
[>] “Just think, one cylinder”: Laurence Sheldrick, oral history, p. 321, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “You have seen the modern”: “Sorensen of the Rouge,” Fortune, April 1942, p. 114A.
[>] “Give me the Rouge”: Ibid.
[>] “It will be completely”: “Ford Starts Building,” Detroit Times, September 17, 1940.
[>] “The other guys said”: David Lanier Lewis, The Public Image of Henry Ford (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987), p. 398.
[>] “The Wedding of the Century”: Ford R. Bryan, Clara: Mrs. Henry Ford (Dearborn, MI: Ford Books, 2001), p. 272.
[>] “join the Ford Motor”: Allan Nevins and Frank Ernest Hill, Ford: Decline and Rebirth (New York: Scribner’s, 1963), p. 184.
[>] “I’ll give those boys”: Sheldrick, oral history, p. 303, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “called me everything”: Ibid., p. 304.
[>] “Don’t pay a bit of attention”: Ibid.
[>] “I’ll never forget this”: Ibid.
[>] “This jeep just came”: Ibid., p. 305.
[>] “I had a feeling that”: Jon Meacham, Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship (New York: Random House, 2004), p. 219.
[>] “Now that [Henry II]”: Walter Hayes, Henry: A Life of Henry Ford II (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1990), p. 11.
13. Strike!: Spring to Winter 1941
[>] “Practically all the Ford”: John McCarten, “The Little Man in Henry Ford’s Basement,” The American Mercury, May 1940, p. 8.
[>] license plates from states: Ford chief legal counsel I. A. Capizzi, letter to Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, May 2, 1941, acc 6, box 160, “Gen. Correspondence, 1941,” Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] and badges saying: Keith Sward, The Legend of Henry Ford (New York: Atheneum, 1972), p. 410.
[>] “paid around the clock”: Walter White, A Man Called White (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995), p. 213.
[>] “Unlawful sit-down strikes”: Roger Burlingame, Henry Ford: The Greatest Success Story in the History of Industry (New York: Signet, 1956), p. 104.
[>] “Iron bolts and nuts”: August Meier and Elliott Rudwick, Black Detroit and the Rise of the UAW (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007), p. 88.
[>] “I went out to the Ford”: “Excerpt from Jimmie Stevenson’s News Broadcast,” acc 38, box 95, “Subject Files: 1942, Strikes and Labor,” Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “The unions seized our”: “Allis Strike Must End, Roosevelt Tells Nation,” Christian Science Monitor, April 4, 1941, p. 1.
[>] “The Ford company is attempting”: “River Rouge Strikers Wrecked Airplane Tools, Company States,” New York Times, April 5, 1941, p. 1.
[>] “Mr. Ford wanted to fight”: Harry Bennett, as told to Paul Marcus, Ford: We Never Called Him Henry (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1987), p. 235.
[>] “Oh, don’t worry about”: Mead Bricker, oral history, p. 56, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
[>] “the backbone of the Ford”: Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), p. 228.
[>] “With the help of the President”: Ibid.
[>] “assuring us that you”: Congressman Clinton P. Anderson, letter to Franklin Roosevelt, April 5, 1941, file 680, Franklin Roosevelt Papers, “President’s Personal File,” FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY.
[>] “extremely alarmed when”: Bennett, Ford: We Never Called Him Henry, p. 236.
[>] “I’m not going to sign”: Charles E. Sorensen, with Samuel T. Williamson, My Forty Years with Ford (Wayne State University Press, 2006), p. 269.
[>] “The patriotic thing”: Meier and Rudwick, Black Detroit and the Rise of the UAW, p. 94.
[>] “I walked in the picket”: White, A Man Called White, p. 214.
[>] “Well, you’ve got a plant”: Bennett, Ford: We Never Called Him Henry, p. 237.
[>] “We’ll bargain until”: Burlingame, Henry Ford, p. 104.
[>] “What in the world”: Sorensen, My Forty Years with Ford, p. 269.
[>] “Mrs. Ford was horrified”: Ibid., p. 271.
[>] “It was perhaps the greatest”: Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, p. 230.
[>] “Mr. Ford gave in”: Allan Nevins and Frank Ernest Hill, Ford: Decline and Rebirth (New York: Scribner’s, 1963), p. 164.
[>] “St
op this talk!”: Richard Bak, Henry and Edsel: The Creation of the Ford Empire (New York: Wiley, 2003), p. 255.
[>] “Never was any business”: Charles Sorensen, personal account, p. 912, acc 65, box 69, Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, MI.
14. Air Raid!: December 7, 1941
[>] “We are now in”: “A New American Creed,” Detroit News, December 10, 1941, p. 1; see also Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 317.
[>] “Air raid!”: William O’Neill, A Democracy at War: America’s Fight at Home and Abroad in World War II (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), p. 1.
[>] “jump at least 15 to 20 feet”: Michael Slackman, Target: Pearl Harbor (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990), p.114.
[>] “Their accuracy was uncanny”: O’Neill, A Democracy at War, p. 3.
[>] “Mr. President, it looks”: William Doyle, Inside the Oval Office: The White House Tapes from FDR to Clinton (New York: Kodansha International, 1999), p. 35.
[>] “His chin stuck out”: Ibid.
[>] “My God, there’s”: Jon Meacham, Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship (New York: Random House, 2004), p. 131.
[>] “How did it happen”: Doyle, Inside the Oval Office, p. 39.
[>] “Mr. President, what’s”: Meacham, Franklin and Winston, p. 131.
[>] “Sit down, Grace”: Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), p. 291.
[>] “Powerful and resourceful”: “A New American Creed,” Detroit News, December 10, 1941, p. 1.
15. The Grim Race: Winter 1941 to Summer 1942
[>] “Orators, columnists”: Charles E. Sorensen, with Samuel T. Williamson, My Forty Years with Ford (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2006), p. 273.
