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N0KFQ > TODAY 12.06.16 16:53l 63 Lines 3050 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 96472_N0KFQ
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Subj: Today in History - Jun 12
Path: IW8PGT<IZ3LSV<F1OYP<IK2XDE<DB0RES<DB0OVN<DB0GOS<ON0AR<OZ5BBS<CX2SA<
N0KFQ
Sent: 160612/1431Z 96472@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.65
1940
Edsel Ford agrees to manufacture Rolls-Royce engines for war
effort
On this day in 1940, Edsel Ford telephones William Knudsen of the
U.S. Office of Production Management (OPM) to confirm Ford Motor
Company's acceptance of Knudsen's proposal to manufacture 9,000
Rolls-Royce-designed engines to be used in British and U.S.
airplanes.
By the spring of 1940, Nazi Germany had conquered Poland, Norway
and Denmark and pushed France to the brink of defeat. An
increasingly nervous General George C. Marshall, chief of staff
of the U.S. Army, warned President Franklin D. Roosevelt that the
United States needed to rearm in order to prepare for the
possibility of a German attack on American shores. That May,
Roosevelt called on Knudsen, a former Ford executive who became
president of General Motors in 1937, to serve as director general
of the OPM, the agency responsible for coordinating government
purchases and wartime production. Knudsen had barely settled in
Washington when he received an urgent appeal from the British
government: The Royal Air Force (RAF) was in desperate need of
new airplanes to defend Britain against an expected German
offensive.
Unlike other automakers, Ford had already built a successful
airplane, the Tri-Motor, in the 1920s. In two meetings in late
May and early June 1940, Knudsen and Edsel Ford agreed that Ford
would manufacture a new fleet of aircraft for the RAF on an
expedited basis. One significant obstacle remained, however:
Edsel's father Henry, who still retained complete control over
the company he founded, was known for his opposition to the
possible U.S. entry into World War II. Edsel and Charles
Sorensen, Ford's production chief, had apparently gotten the
go-ahead from Henry Ford by June 12, when Edsel telephoned
Knudsen to confirm that Ford would produce 9,000 Rolls-Royce
Merlin airplane engines (6,000 for the RAF and 3,000 for the U.S.
Army). However, as soon as the British press announced the deal,
Henry Ford personally and publicly canceled it, telling a
reporter: "We are not doing business with the British government
or any other government."
In fact, according to Douglas Brinkley's biography of Ford,
"Wheels for the World," Ford had in effect already accepted a
contract from the German government. The Ford subsidiary
Ford-Werke in Cologne was doing business with the Third Reich at
the time, which Ford's critics took as proof that he was
concealing a pro-German bias behind his claims to be a man of
peace. As U.S. entry into the war looked ever more certain, Ford
reversed his earlier position, and in May of 1941 the company
opened a large new government-sponsored facility at Willow Run,
Michigan, for the purposes of manufacturing B-24E Liberator
bombers for the Allied war effort. In addition to aircraft, Ford
Motor plants produced a great deal of other war materiel during
World War II, including a variety of engines, trucks, jeeps,
tanks and tank destroyers.
73 - K.O., N0KFQ
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