Where was most of the US industrial capacity during World War 2?

Where did most of the mills, factories, refineries and assembly lines come from in the United States? What region of the United States shared more than a vast majority of their industry? For planes, trucks, tanks, artillery small arms, etc. etc...

Which crucial cities were most responsible for the war effort? How much percent did cities such as Detroit, Chicago, New York did industry come out of here? Does anybody know of documents that describe for the industry of the United States during the Second World War? I'm really interested in understanding the economics of World War 2 and would like to use the US economics and industrialization to compare to other countries(I know the US had outclassed everyone else so bad, but would like to see where the US succeeded, where the others had not gotten as far).

Does anyone know how many factories there were approx. on WW2? Any factories in general, I know the US industry was able to convert many factories to war production. For example, where a significant amount of factories or oil fields came from.

 

Not a easy question to answer.

Ship building by its nature tended to be on the coast's and centered around ports, though considerable production took place on major rivers for smaller shipping. The bulk of US heavy industry was located in what we now call the rust-belt states running from western New York all the way around the Great Lakes region to Wisconsin. Our 'Ruhr' region if you will. This was due to the ease of transportation of necessary materials along the Great Lakes and canals in the area.

Considerable production 'sprung up' out of nowhere because the land and man (or woman) power was available, or conditions were well suited for production. Many small manufacturers gave up peace time production to provide the small, mundane, but vital necessities of war. Everything from SPAM to buttons.

A book you may find of Interest is "A Democracy at War" (see book reviews) which goes into considerable depth on the US homefront, production and labor. It vividly points out that we were never the juggernaut we could have been for a variety reasons. It does tend to push something of a political agenda which is its major flaw and is often contradictory to push that agenda, but does explain much of the how and why we produced what we did.

 

There are records of where most of the ships were built and those are for the most part available on the net in tabular form. I think I've seen similar accounts of where the various types of planes and tanks were produced. There's a good chance you can find the same for trucks, jeeps, and even small arms but when you start getting down to components and subcomponents it's going to take a lot more work.

 

Go for it. I am interested.

 

i would say manufacturing was kinda spaced wide apart, affected by existing infrastructure, and new considerations like manpower availability and internal security. there was no single vulnerable industrial region.

the naval ammunition depot in hasting, nebraska was the biggest naval ammunitions plant, accounting for 40% of total US naval munitions made in 1942-1946. the biggest airplane manufacturers were boeing in bremerton, washington, and north american aviation in kansas city. the firearms manufacturers like browning, colt, remington-rand and winchester built from their respective plants. procter and gamble made ammunition at the gulf ordnance plant at prairie, missouri and in tennessee.

 

There were airplane factories in Western New York, I believe the Buffalo region. We built more air planes than all other nations combined during the war.

 

There were also a considerable number of planes built in Michigan and California. I didn't know that there were all that many planes made in Bremerton indeed Seattle comes more to mind in that regard. Boeing also had plants in other states.

 

Prior to entering the service late in the war, my father was part of a three man team welding Liberty Ship hull plates at the Houston shipyard, Houston Shipbuilding Corporation.

Liberty Ships were built at seventeen locations:

Total Laid = 2711
Completed = 2710

Alabama Drydock & Shipbuilding Co. Mobile, AL: 20

Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard Inc. Baltimore, MD: 385

California Shipbuilding Corp. Terminal Island, CA: 336 (30 Tankers)

Delta Shipbuilding Co. New Orleans, LA: 188 (32 Tankers) (24 Colliers)

J. A. Jones Construction Company Brunswick, GA: 85

J. A. Jones Construction Company Panama City, FL: 102 (8 Tank Transports) (28 Boxed Aircraft Carriers)

Kaiser-Vancouver Vancouver, WA: 10

Marinship Corp. Sausalito, CA: 15

*New England Shipbuilding Corporation *South Portland Shipbuilding Corporation South Portland, ME: 244 (8 Boxed Aircraft Carriers)

North Carolina Shipbuilding Company Wilmington, NC: 126

Oregon Shipbuilding Corp. Portland, OR: 322

Permanente Metals-Richmond #1 Richmond, CA: 138

Permanente Metals-Richmond # 2 Richmond, CA: 351

Southeastern Shipbuilding Corporation Savannah, GA: 88

St. Johns River Shipbuilding Jacksonville, FL: 82

Todd-Houston Shipbuilding Corporation Houston Shipbuilding Corporation Bend Island, Houston, TX
*For legal reasons there were two companies, both part of Todd-Bath Iron Shipbuilding Corp.: 208

#Rheem Manufacturing Company Walsh-Kaiser Shipbuilding Corporation Providence, RI
#Walsh-Kaiser took over management of the shipyard from Rheem: 208

Source: American Merchant Marine at War, www.usmm.org

 

Interesting. I thought some were built in Puget Sound but must have assumed that the ones built in Washington were built there.

 

It depends on what sort of manufacturing you are talking about. Aircraft listed heavily towards California and the west coast (Consolidated, North American, Douglas, Northrop, Vultee, Boeing, Lockheed). There was a major concentration on the east coast, however, with Bell in Buffalo New York, Republic and Grumman on Long Island, Brewster in New York and Newark, Glenn Martin near Baltimore, and Curtiss-Wright with operations in Buffalo and Dayton Ohio. That was the pre-war lineup, and once the big contracts came in many of these companies opened new plants elsewhere: Curtiss-Wright in St. Louis and Louisville, Brewster near Philadelphia, Boeing in Vancouver (Canada), and so on. The B24 was the most widely dispersed type where manufacture was concerned; besides the old Consolidated factory it was built in new Consolidated plants in San Diego and Fort Worth, as well as a new Douglas plant in Tulsa and a new North American plant in Grand Prairie Texas. The biggest B24 factory of all was of course the famous Willow Run plant in Michigan, set up by Ford. The expansion of the aircraft industry in California and Texas was of immense significance for the future history and economic prosperity of both states; in that sense, you could say the sunbelt was born during WWII.

 

The Sherman tank, of course, was the land equivalent of the B24 in terms of service demand, importance to the war effort, and multiplicity of manufacturing sites to assure high volume production. Three types of factories built Shermans: US government arsenals (1), makers of locomotives and heavy engineering equipment (2), and automotive companies (3). The category 2 makers were Baldwin Locomotive (Philadelphia), Lima Locomotive Works (Lima, Ohio), Pacific Car and Foundry (Bellevue, Washington) Pressed Steel Car (Joliet, Illinois), Pullman Standard (Butler, Pennsylvania), Federal Machine and Welder (Warren, Ohio), American Locomotive (Schenectady, New York), and Montreal Locomotive Works, which built some Grizzlies and the Rams and Sextons. Ford built Shermans and M10s in their Highland Park Michigan factory, and both Ford and Chrysler became US government partners in the Fisher Tank Arsenal (Grand Blanc, Michigan, near Flint) and Chrysler Tank Arsenal (Warren, Michigan, near Detroit) respectively. Overall, Sherman production was concentrated in the traditional centers of heavy engineering, railroad equipment, and auto manufacturing in the upper-east Midwest, with a secondary concentration in the older eastern heavy industry states of Pennsylvania and New York. Sub-contracting, of course, was very widely dispersed.

 

Lots of smaller boats were built in New Orleans at the Higgens factories.

 

Mostly in the Midwest, the various divisions of General Motors produced tanks (M4 Sherman), tank destroyers (M18), aircraft engines and propellers, trucks (including the DUKW amphibs), machine guns, artillery ammo and a large assortment of parts and forgings. Their Frigidaire division produced 363,000 .50 caliber M2 machine guns and 1,000,000 spare barrels for same. That's in addition to the 140,000 aircraft machine guns built by Oldsmobile. And that's just GM.

http://www.military.com/veteran-jobs/career-advice/military-transition/how-gm-divisions-tackled-war-effort.html

http://usautoindustryworldwartwo.com/General%20Motors/frigidaiire.htm

 

Very good Terry.

The Lima tank plant was a new build, originally funded by the British as part of the contract to build the Medium Tank M3 for them as the Grant. However, by the time the plant was ready the design of the Medium Tank M4 was complete and the US was in the war, so the War Department took it over to build the M4. So it was a tank arsenal from the outset and was government owned, contractor operated (GOCO).

The Pressed Steel Car Company tank plant was actually in the Chicago suburb of Hegiwisch, Illinois, while the Pullman Standard Car Company plant was in Hammond, Illinois. The Pacific Car and Foundry plant was in Renton, Washington. Ford's Highland Park facility was a defunct factory space and produced only 1,690 Medium Tank M4A3 between June 1942 and September 1943. It was much more import as an engine production facility. They were all contractor owned and contractor operated.

The Chrysler Tank Arsenal (properly the Detroit Tank Arsenal) was built for the Medium Tank M3 contract. It and the Fisher Tank Arsenal (AKA Fisher Grand Blanc) were also GOCO, but the contractor was General Motors, not Ford or Chrysler.

There was also a fourth GOCO Tank Arsenal, the Quad Cities Tank Arsenal operated by International Harvester and intended to produce the Medium Tank M7. Instead, it produced heavy tracked prime movers.

 

I work in a machine shop, I'm just wondering how machines can be changed on an instant to make weapons and other war materiel from the various cast iron and steel materials that we use?