Impossible Job

AIR

When Franklin Roosevelt set the U.S. aircraft-production goal at 60,000 planes for 1942 and suggested that U.S. industry might turn out 185,000 planes by the end of 1943, Berlin bawled that it was bluff; some U.S. experts snorted that it was impossible. Last week the Aircraft Production Board gave out figures which showed how close the aviation industry had come to hitting the President's stratospheric goal.

Since Pearl Harbor the U.S. has produced 171,257 planes. War Secretary Stimson revealed that the Army now has 75,000 planes, of which 34,000 are combat craft. The Navy recently announced that it has 37,700 aircraft of all kinds, giving the armed services a total strength of 112,700 planes. Franklin Roosevelt added some figures of his own: since the beginning of Lend-Lease (March 11, 1941) the U.S. has built 175,000 planes, shipped 33,000 to its allies.

Outbuilding the Enemy. The figures looked even more impressive measured against enemy production. In 1936 Germany was turning out five planes to every one produced by a henhouse-size U.S. aviation industry. In 1940 Germany turned out 20,000-plus planes. But between that year and March, 1944, U.S. production had increased 3,400%.

Since Germany's peak year (1942), when she turned out 27,000 planes, 40% of her fighter production has been knocked out--APB calculated--and her total monthly aircraft output reduced to 1,800. Japan's estimated monthly rate: 1,000-1,400. Last month's production in the U.S.: 8,700 planes.

What the overall strength of the U.S. Air Forces will ultimately be is still the services' closely-held secret. But it was clearly already close to top. Still left were the jobs of providing replacements and building new models (like the Army's big B-29 Boeing Super Fortress).

But the job of building the world's most powerful air force had been done: the days of vast plant expansion were over, the days of curtailment ("cutback" to the aircraft industry) close at hand. The aircraft industry buzzed with rumors of factories to be converted or closed down altogether.

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