The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR Detroit and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War

About this book

A New York Times Bestseller A dramatic intimate narrative of how Ford Motor Company went from making automobiles to producing the airplanes that would mean the difference between winning and losing World War II. In 1941 as Hitlers threat loomed ever larger President Roosevelt realized he needed weaponry to fight the Nazismost important airplanesand he needed them fast. So he turned to Detroit and the auto industry for help. The Arsenal of Democracy tells the incredible story of how Detroit answered the call centering on Henry Ford and his tortured son Edsel who when asked if they could deliver 50 000 airplanes made an outrageous claim: Ford Motor Company would erect a plant that could yield a bomber an hour. Critics scoffed: Ford didnt make planes; they made simple affordable cars. But bucking his fathers resistance Edsel charged ahead. Ford would apply assembly-line production to the American militarys largest fastest most destructive bomber; they would build a plant vast in size and ambition on a plot of farmland and call it Willow Run; they would bring in tens of thousands of workers from across the country transforming Detroit almost overnight from Motor City to the great arsenal of democracy. And eventually they would help the Allies win the war. Drawing on exhaustive research from the Ford Archives the National Archives and the FDR Library A. J. Baime has crafted an enthralling character-driven narrative of American innovation that has never been fully told leaving readers with a vivid new portrait of Americaand Detroitduring the war.