out the country. For instance, such an arsenal is located at Warren, Ohio. There should be, in my opinion, some serious consideration given to the possibility of a service charge for the use of necessary facilities, inasmuch as there is no return to the county for that service. Mr. CURTIS. The community gets the benefit of the pay roll. Colonel FURLONG. Yes; but that may not be sufficient to meet the demands upon the community to furnish these facilities. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. Your paper and discussion have been a very valuable contribution to our record and we appreciate your coming here. Colonel FURLONG. I think I will have the opportunity tomorrow afternoon of showing you some of this territory. The CHAIRMAN. And we will take advantage of that opportunity, Colonel. Colonel FURLONG. I think you will find it very interesting. I would like to leave with the committee some outline maps which you may find helpful,' and should there be anything else that you desire in the way of accommodations here, we will be very glad to be of assistance to you. The CHAIRMAN. We thank you very much, Colonel. Our next witness is Major Gardner. TESTIMONY OF MAJ. ROSS L. GARDNER, AUTOMOTIVE LIAISON SECTION, CENTRAL PROCUREMENT DISTRICT, UNITED STATES ARMY AIR CORPS The CHAIRMAN. Major, we appreciate your coming here this afternoon to help this committee in its hearing. Major GARDNER. And I am very glad to be here, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Congressman Ŏsmers will ask you the questions. Mr. OSMERS. Major Gardner, we are very much interested in the way aircraft production is going to affect the economy of Michigan, particularly in the automobile industry, and in the transition from automobile production to aircraft production. The statement you have submitted will be incorporated into the record. (The statement referred to above is as follows:) STATEMENT BY MAJ. ROSS L. GARDNER, AUTOMOTIVE LIAISON SECTION, CENTRAL PROCUREMENT DISTRICT, UNITED STATES ARMY AIR CORPS The Automotive Liaison Section is a coordinating, rather than an administrative section, and deals with automotive concerns having aircraft engine or plane contracts. Its functions consist principally of assisting contractors to avoid or overcome delays in production on their particular contracts. It also studies the schedules, training of personnel, and, in general, keeps its fingers on the pulse in order to note any changes which might cause delay. Defense items covered by its activities are airplanes, engines, and their component parts. Due to changes taking place constantly in contracts, for the most part being revised upward, it would be practically impossible to estimate the peak labor force required. The same would apply to peak production date. Since the transition from automotive or nondefense employment takes place gradually, due to time required for training for such transition, and due to changes 1 See pp. 7219 and 7226. Other maps submitted by Colonel Furlong are held in committee files. as before stated in contracts, no estimate can be given as to what additional labor force may be required for peak production. Speaking from observations made in this area, there do not appear to be any serious problems either with regard to training, availability of labor supply or transferability of present automobile personnel to defense work. As stated previously, it would be extremely difficult to estimate by stated periods or monthly estimates the rate at which present defense contracts may be expected to absorb labor force being laid off because of a curtailment in automobile production. TESTIMONY OF MAJ. ROSS L. GARDNER-Resumed Mr. OSMERS. I wonder if you would be good enough to give some general views on the problems of transition from motorcar to airplane manufacture? TRANSITION FROM MOTORCAR TO AIRPLANE MANUFACTURE Major GARDNER. Aircraft work is a rather slow process at this time' due to the fact that the automotive plants are, of necessity, having to retool their whole plant facilities to a different kind of business. At the present time there is a rather great shortage of tool and die makers and fixture makers. It is taking longer to accomplish that retooling than it would under normal circumstances. Mr. OSMERS. Would you explain, Major, your duties with relation to that job? Major GARDNER. They cover practically everything involved in the production of aircraft. Mr. OSMERS. You are located in Michigan, are you? Major GARDNER. The headquarters of the central procurement district are located in Detroit. They have recently been moved up from Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, because this is the center of the automotive industry, and since so many large contracts have been given to the automotive industry, it was felt that it was much more advantageous to have the headquarters of the central procurement district located where those plants were centered. Mr. OSMERS. I wonder if you would tell us something of your experience. I understand from members of the committee staff that you have had a wide experience in aircraft production. Major GARDNER. That has been my sole business for 31 years. Mr. OSMERS. I wonder if you would be good enough to tell the committee a little about the normal peacetime operations of the aircraft industry and the normal peacetime operations of the automobile industry, and then we might see how they are going to fit together. Major GARDNER. Up to the time of this emergency, the normal facilities of the aircraft industry were sufficient to supply the needs of both the Government and the commercial operators. There was no need for the use of mass-production methods. MASS-PRODUCTION METHODS REQUIRED When the emergency arose, it was found that instead of building in terms of a few hundred planes, it was a matter of building in terms of many thousands of planes, in a very short space of time. This, of course, would require different methods of production from those normally used in the aircraft industry. Up to the time of the emergency all planes had been custom-built. They had not been built under the method that is a very integral part of the automotive industry. It takes longer to lay out a plane on the board before it goes into production. Many things take place before it actually does go into production. Many tests are made, which are not necessary in automotive construction. They lay down a design for an automobile and build the tools and stamp it out by the hundreds, and that is their method. That isn't true of the aircraft industry, so that it has taken quite a little time to bring about the changes needed for mass production of aircraft, using the initiative and the production methods that are employed in the automotive industry. Mr. OSMERS. Do you feel that the transition can be made from building automobiles to building airplanes? Major GARDNER. Oh, yes. Mr. OSMERS. Do you feel that we can apply automotive-manufacturing methods to the aircraft industry? Major GARDNER. To a certain extent. Mr. OSMERS. To a larger extent than has obtained in the past? Major GARDNER. Yes, sir. Mr. OSMERS. Is it true, as has been contended, that automobile tools are almost wholly unadaptable to the manufacture of airplanes? Major GARDNER. That is not true. Mr. OSMERS. It is fair to assume that heavy contracts for aircraft have already been placed with the automobile makers and more are on the way, or you would not be in Detroit. Major GARDNER. That is right. Mr. OSMERS. I wonder if you could give the committee some idea of the size and extent of these aircraft contracts that have been placed with the auto makers. Major GARDNER. We don't have anything to do with the letting of contracts. We are only concerned with them after they have been let. Mr. OSMERS. I mean those that have been let. Major GARDNER. As to that I could not say. I could not give you a figure on that. PROBLEMS OF TRANSITION TO MASS-PRODUCTION-MADE PLANES Mr. OSMERS. What are some of the latest developments in making this transition from the custom-made airplane into mass-productionmade airplanes? Major GARDNER. The integral parts of a plane have previously all been formed by hand. Now, it is a matter of teaching them how to form them by hand equipment. Instead of making a few hundred parts, we are going to make many thousand parts of the same kind, so machines have to be devised to make those parts, to turn them out in large quantities. Mr. OSMERS. We have a statement that was submitted by Mr. Robert W. Conder, of the Chrysler Corporation. He says: We expect to recruit substantially all employees necessary for our defense program from among our own employees of the automobile plants.1 1 See 7322. Is that presuming that they have the requisite skills in the Chrysler Corporation, for example, to make airplanes? Major GARDNER. No; it is necessary to train any automotive personnel for a specific job. The problem has been to teach men in aircraft production in large numbers one specific job, the same as they do in the production of automobiles. The automotive men have not been in the habit of using riveting in their production, while that is a large part of the program in aircraft. RIVETING AS A NEW SKILL Mr. OSMERS. Riveting is entirely new in the automotive field? Major GARDNER. Not only that, but it is a very exacting process because in using flush riveting, as it is known, you have to be very, very careful in getting a very smooth surface. Any indentation in the metal, or any obstruction caused by a mishandled rivet sets up a turbulence in the air and causes a cracking of the “skin.” Mr. OSMERS. Have you any estimate of the percentage of the auto workers who may be transferable, either directly or after training, to the production of aircraft? EIGHTY PERCENT OF AUTOMOTIVE PERSONNEL WOULD BE TRANSFERRED TO DEFENSE PROGRAM Major GARDNER. To my knowledge, here in my own contact with the training program, I would say roughly 80 percent of the automotive personnel could be diverted, not necessarily to aircraft, but to the defense program. Mr. OSMERS. What are some of the special problems involved in the training program for the Detroit worker before he enters into aircraft production? TRAINING PROBLEMS Major GARDNER. There are quite a number of problems here, due to the fact that there are several methods of training. There is what is known as T. W. I. training-training-within-industry-national Vocational training for defense program, and the contractor's own school, set up by the contractor himself, in which he undertakes to train his own personnel. The breaking down of the number of hours required has been quite a problem. In fact, it isn't satisfactorily answered yet. Some of the operations require as much as 480 hours of training. Even though the worker may have been employed in the automotive industry for the last 10 or 15 years, he has to learn how to do a specific job in a certain way. He can't do it the way he normally would do it from his own knowledge of mass-production methods in the automotive industry. HOURS OF TRAINING REQUIRED Mr. OSMERS. I suppose jobs requiring 480 hours of training are few and far between, are they not? Major GARDNER. Approximately 12 percent of those required for aircraft manufacture. Then that varies. It runs down to as low as 65 hours for other jobs. Mr. OSMERS. What are your own duties here, Major? Do you go to the plants and get right into the problems? Major GARDNER. Yes, sir. Mr. OSMERS. Is that your function? Major GARDNER. I take up every problem that has to do with the expediting of the production of aircraft. Mr. OSMERS. You are not an administrative agent? MODEL CHANGES RETARDING PRODUCTION Mr. OSMERS. Are you running into difficulty due to the fact that the mass-production manufacturer wants you to freeze your models while your designers and officials at Washington are constantly changing and improving? Major GARDNER. Yes. Mr. OSMERS. I suppose you just have to make the best of it. Major GARDNER. The findings as a result of activities on the war front at the present time are causing these changes to be made. New determinations are made as a result of their activities over there. Mr. OSMERS. Is it impairing production? Major GARDNER. It is retarding it. Mr. OSMERS. Seriously? Major GARDNER. Yes, seriously. There are, however, two or three types of planes that have been frozen as to their present status, and production is going ahead on them. The CHAIRMAN. Major, one of the witnesses this morning expressed a fear that this spreading of defense-contract plants outside of the Detroit area might cause those outside plants to go into the production of automobiles after this emergency period is over. Are you afraid of that? Major GARDNER. Would be liable to do what? The CHAIRMAN. In other words, with the spreading of defense contracts throughout the country-industries tooling up for that kind of production-might they be in position to manufacture automobiles, after the emergency, where none has been manufactured before? Major GARDNER. I don't think that is true. The CHAIRMAN. Our only suggestion was that if they press them too hard throughout the country, the Detroit area can take to the manufacture of airplanes. Major GARDNER. That would depend on the demand for airplanes. The CHAIRMAN. You have studied this problem for 31 years, Major? Major GARDNER. Yes. EXPECTED EXPANSION OF AIRPLANE USE AFTER EMERGENCY The CHAIRMAN. And do you look forward to a great expansion of airplane production after this emergency is over? Major GARDNER. For civil use, yes. The CHAIRMAN. Even to the carrying of freight? Major GARDNER. Yes; that is contemplated right now. As a matter of fact there are three undertakings along that line that will be under way very shortly. |