Excerpt from "Michigan Fights"

Written by Harvey Klemmer.

Published in National Geographic Magazine, December 1944.

"Detroit is producing more munitions than any other city in the world. The rest of the State piles record output on record output. Tanks. Trucks. Planes. Ships. Guns. Ammunition. And, most important of all, engines."

After the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941, U.S. war mobilization shifted into high gear. Industry's ability to retool assembly lines was the key to making a rapid changeover from mass production of civilian goods to mass production of war materials. Michigan's automobile industry had highly efficient assembly lines, which could be readily transformed into war industries. When the federal government banned production of civilian automobiles in early 1942 (to conserve metal and rubber for the manufacture of war materials), auto manufacturing plants were...