Re: Roosevelt commits to biggest arms buildup in U.S. history

From: Rick v100 (rickv100@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Jan 06 2006 - 06:35:46 PST


Everette,

The US production, especially aircraft, was already on
a quasi-war footing due to orders from the English and
the Allies starting in 1940. All Roosevelt did was
push the throttle from half to full open.

Rick

--- Everette <194cbteng@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>
> January 6
>
> 1942 Roosevelt commits to biggest arms buildup in
> U.S. history
>
> On this day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt
> announces to Congress that he
> is authorizing the largest armaments production in
> the history of the United
> States.
> Committed to war in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor,
> the U.S. had to reassess
> its military preparedness, especially in light of
> the fact that its Pacific
> fleet was decimated by the Japanese air raid. Among
> those pressing President
> Roosevelt to double U.S. armaments and industrial
> production were Lord
> William Beaverbrook, the British minister of
> aircraft production, and
> members of the British Ministry of Supplies, who
> were meeting with their
> American counterparts at the Mayflower Hotel in
> Washington. Beaverbrook, a
> newspaper publisher in civilian life, employed
> production techniques he
> learned in publishing to cut through red tape,
> improve efficiency, and boost
> British aircraft production to manufacturing 500
> fighters a month, and he
> felt the U.S. could similarly beef up armament
> production.
> Spurred on by Lord Beaverbrook and Prime Minister
> Churchill, Roosevelt
> agreed to the arms buildup. He announced to Congress
> that the first year of
> the supercharged production schedule would result in
> 45,000 aircraft, 45,000
> tanks, 20,000 antiaircraft guns, and 8 million tons
> in new ships.
> Congressmen were stunned at the proposal, but
> Roosevelt was undeterred:
> "These figures and similar figures for a multitude
> of other implements of
> war will give the Japanese and Nazis a little idea
> of just what they
> accomplished."
>
> Everette
>
>
> ===Mil-Veh is a member-supported mailing list===
> To unsubscribe, send e-mail to
> <mil-veh-off@mil-veh.org>
> To reach a human, contact <ackyle@gmail.com>
> Visit the searchable archives at
> http://www.mil-veh.org/archives/
>



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Tue Jul 18 2006 - 21:39:10 PDT