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mburnamfink's review
5.0
In World War II, the Allies buried the Axis under a torrent of technological products. This is the story of that production miracle, as seen through the biographies of two key leaders. Bill Knudsen was a Danish immigrant who at General Motors pioneered flexible mass production and annual models of automobiles. Henry Kaiser was an entrepreneur who made his fortune on the West Coast, first building roads and then leading mega-scale projects like the Hoover and Grand Coulee Dams.
In 1940, America was one of the most productive countries in the world, but industry had been hit hard by the Great Depression, and almost none of that capacity was geared towards military ends. The Army was without tanks, the Air Force was third tier at best, and while the Navy had capital ships, it was deficient in escorts and transports. In the last war, American soldiers had fought with French and British equipment. While Wilson had ordered a mass mobilization, production hang-ups and logistical snafus meant that very little of what was ordered ever saw a battlefield. If that happened again, there would be no way to defeat the Axis.
Knudsen was appointed Chairman of the Office of Production Management, and in the time between the invasion of Poland and Pearl Harbor, when American involvement in the war was distinctly unpopular, began the tricky work of converting commercial production over to military use. Knudsen used his immense standing in industry and his detailed knowledge of production to begin producing machine tools and setting up new factories. From fitful beginnings, Knudsen unleashed an avalanche of material: hundreds of thousands of tanks and aircraft, along with billions of shells and all the other necessary components of war.
Kaiser turned his mega-project style to building transports, churning out hundreds of Liberty cargo ships, along with oilers and escort carriers. Applying mass production to ships cut the build time down from 200 days to 25 at full swing. As part of a contest, one yard turned out a complete ship in 4 days! But Kaiser's publicity seeking style made him enemies, including Bill Knudsen. And when Liberty ships began cracking up, Kaiser's reputation took the blame, even though the fault was a combination of design and steel quality, rather than manufacturing defects.
Herman is a conservative intellectual, with longtime associations with the American Enterprise Institute and the Hudson Institute, and this book is a paean to big business. Celebrating industry is a fair frame, but Herman can't help himself from taking swipes at FDR, the New Deal, or organized labor whenever he can. My politics are basically entirely opposed to Herman's, but the story that he tells is engaging enough that I can give his obligatory right wing gruntings a pass. Wages of Destruction is worth reading, but Freedom's Forge is fun reading. It's just important to keep in mind that contrary to Herman's great man focused vision, the American people paid for the war, where the big contractors got a cost+8% contract and useful capital installations afterwards; workers milled, stamped, riveted, and welded the ships, planes, tanks, and guns; and ultimately an army of citizen-soldiers used these weapons to win the war.
In 1940, America was one of the most productive countries in the world, but industry had been hit hard by the Great Depression, and almost none of that capacity was geared towards military ends. The Army was without tanks, the Air Force was third tier at best, and while the Navy had capital ships, it was deficient in escorts and transports. In the last war, American soldiers had fought with French and British equipment. While Wilson had ordered a mass mobilization, production hang-ups and logistical snafus meant that very little of what was ordered ever saw a battlefield. If that happened again, there would be no way to defeat the Axis.
Knudsen was appointed Chairman of the Office of Production Management, and in the time between the invasion of Poland and Pearl Harbor, when American involvement in the war was distinctly unpopular, began the tricky work of converting commercial production over to military use. Knudsen used his immense standing in industry and his detailed knowledge of production to begin producing machine tools and setting up new factories. From fitful beginnings, Knudsen unleashed an avalanche of material: hundreds of thousands of tanks and aircraft, along with billions of shells and all the other necessary components of war.
Kaiser turned his mega-project style to building transports, churning out hundreds of Liberty cargo ships, along with oilers and escort carriers. Applying mass production to ships cut the build time down from 200 days to 25 at full swing. As part of a contest, one yard turned out a complete ship in 4 days! But Kaiser's publicity seeking style made him enemies, including Bill Knudsen. And when Liberty ships began cracking up, Kaiser's reputation took the blame, even though the fault was a combination of design and steel quality, rather than manufacturing defects.
Herman is a conservative intellectual, with longtime associations with the American Enterprise Institute and the Hudson Institute, and this book is a paean to big business. Celebrating industry is a fair frame, but Herman can't help himself from taking swipes at FDR, the New Deal, or organized labor whenever he can. My politics are basically entirely opposed to Herman's, but the story that he tells is engaging enough that I can give his obligatory right wing gruntings a pass. Wages of Destruction is worth reading, but Freedom's Forge is fun reading. It's just important to keep in mind that contrary to Herman's great man focused vision, the American people paid for the war, where the big contractors got a cost+8% contract and useful capital installations afterwards; workers milled, stamped, riveted, and welded the ships, planes, tanks, and guns; and ultimately an army of citizen-soldiers used these weapons to win the war.
inspiredbygrass's review against another edition
3.0
I read this after reading The Dollmaker by Harriette Arnow had made me curious about the "Arsenal of Democracy " . Her book is about the struggles and dislocation of a family from Kentucky who are part of the Great Migration . The book is set in Detroit and I wanted to know more .
As a primer for understanding the locations , the outputs and the senior executives involved I found it useful . In most other respects I found its narrative to be repetitive and an too obvious polemic for the free market.
If you like to read about Great Men doing Great Things against the odds , digest huge numbers of figures and if you agree that unions and New Dealers are dastardly villains then you'll enjoy it .
Theres no doubt that mass production , ingenious engineering and innovation and tremendous hard work drove production to extraordinary levels . I learned a lot about machine tools , about manufacturing and the relentless pressue to increase productivity . But I found the ceaselessly heroic narrative almost unreadable .
I would have preferred a more comprehensive analysis of the political and labour actors too and I found the vilification of them to be professionally lazy. For example details as to how the workers lived and coped with massive displacement , how did local politics work and how were the astounding outputs maintained . Any history of war production demands this .
Not until the last page do we learn that 20 x the number of workers died in this industry of war production than front line combatants . Clearly the scale is bigger too but I could have done with more detail on this cost .
As a primer for understanding the locations , the outputs and the senior executives involved I found it useful . In most other respects I found its narrative to be repetitive and an too obvious polemic for the free market.
If you like to read about Great Men doing Great Things against the odds , digest huge numbers of figures and if you agree that unions and New Dealers are dastardly villains then you'll enjoy it .
Theres no doubt that mass production , ingenious engineering and innovation and tremendous hard work drove production to extraordinary levels . I learned a lot about machine tools , about manufacturing and the relentless pressue to increase productivity . But I found the ceaselessly heroic narrative almost unreadable .
I would have preferred a more comprehensive analysis of the political and labour actors too and I found the vilification of them to be professionally lazy. For example details as to how the workers lived and coped with massive displacement , how did local politics work and how were the astounding outputs maintained . Any history of war production demands this .
Not until the last page do we learn that 20 x the number of workers died in this industry of war production than front line combatants . Clearly the scale is bigger too but I could have done with more detail on this cost .
shanehawk's review against another edition
4.0
Arthur Herman covered thousands of pages of research into less than 400 pages with so much detail your head will spin. This is a great read for anyone interested in how American businesses shifted from the consumer economy to wartime production during WWII. Truly astounding.
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