Henry Ford's Service Department

I'm looking for information, oral history, photos or reports on members of Henry Ford's Service Department run by Harry Bennett from the time period of 1935 until 1943. My grandfather was a body guard for Henry Ford in some capacity. I'm trying to find information. He left Detroit in 1943, and was followed by Ford's men and beaten severely, with the threat of death if he told anyone about what he knew. My grandfather never told anyone until he was in his 80s about working for Ford. We wonder what he knew. My grandfather died in 1995. I would like to know if others have stories of their ancestors working for Henry in this capacity.

The Detroit free Press Almanac is a very good must have book about Detroit. It does not have very nice things to say about Mr. Bennet. If he left during mid-WW2, did he know something about Ford and the Nazis? Most patriotic men in good conscience would not work with someone in cahoots with the enemy we had at that time.

There was a "coup" at Ford about that time. Old Henry was suffering from the mental and physical effects of age. The company was being horribly mismanaged from a financial standpoint [[not thievery, just massive disorganization). Bennet and his bully boys were protecting Old Henry from anyone trying to straighten it out. The government realized what was wrong and released Henry the Deuce [[grandson) from military service to go to Detroit and straighten it out. Henry the Deuce engineered a palace coup that outmaneuvered Bennet and his gang, sidelined Old Henry, and took over the company. The Deuce then brought in Robert McNamara and a gang of ORSA specialists to fix the company financially [[which they did). Bennet and his guys were gotten rid of. A good account is in "The Reckoning" by Halberstam which is a pretty good overview of the US and Japanese auto industries up to 1980 when the book was written.

While Ford was antisemitic and though he was a Nazi sympathizer early on, he was in the same position as other companies which had European subsidiaries. The German subsidiaries produced for the German armed forces and the main company in the US produced for the US armed forces.

My grandfather had his head split open by Ford's goons for passing out union literature, does that count?

Yes, it does count! I think that there are other stories out there about people who were his "Body Guards, Service Department" thugs. I am looking for those stories. Surely there are stories passed down from other people who did Henry's dirty work.

I do not believe that my grandfather was proud of what he did, and left in 1943 because of it.

My grandfather possessed a silver pistol that he said was given to him by Henry Ford. It had no serial numbers on it. My grandfather was an excellent shot, but in the era after he left Ford, he only shot a gun when putting down an animal on his farm in Northern Michigan, and one time when some relatives were skeet shooting, badly, on his farm. He didn't even aim, he shot his gun from the waist and didn't miss one! He did not hunt with the other relatives and he certainly didn't boast about his abilities. He became a total recluse on his farm. He rarely left the farm. He had no friends, he didn't attend church, school functions, or anything else that would draw attention to himself.

There's a great collection of stories in the Benson Ford online files and one I would recommend is The Reminiscences of Mr. P. E. Haglund. Download the whole file and go to the index to find more about Bennett. You can also go to the Benson Ford Research Center which is just before entering the village, to the left. Research the files that may include photos of Bennett and which time frame you want to research- VERY interesting stuff there. My grandfather worked for Henry Ford's Chief Engineer, Edward Gray, in the early days of Highland Park, from just after Gray was hired. More stories below-

Charlie Sorensen and Bennett were 'two peas in a pod' in the beginning. Funny story about Sorensen in the Ford Archives [[I'm pretty sure that's where I read it. Charlie being Bennett's mentor, was ruthless often too. One day walking through the plant, Charlie spotted a guy sitting on a barrell working. That made Charlie so mad that he just walked over and kicked the barrell out from under him. Well that guy got up and decked Charlie and of course Charlie yelled, "You're FIRED!" The guy replied, "The hell I am, I work for the phone company!" You can tell the author of the story took delight in Sorensen getting a taste of his own medicine!

Here's another resource on Bennett-

There was a lot of 'in fighting' at Ford for most of the time Henry ran it. Mr. Ford was not one to handle firing himself [[except for one guy that lied to Ford about selling used cars as new) so that gave lots of power to others. As mentioned, my grandfather worked directly for Edward Gray, not Ford Motor. Sometime in 1913, James Couzens, Ford's Secretary and Treasurer at time, fired Gray. Henry came into the power plant area looking for Gray and when he asked where he was, someone piped up and said, "Couzens fired him!" Ford said, "What the hell did he do that for, go out and get him back here!" Well, Gray was the one that designed the power plant engines and six more were being readied for a new building [[nine actually would be built) AND Gray was Ford Construction Engineer and this was when so much building and floor layout was being down. Sorensen credits Gray for the floor layouts and Kahn with the building design- they worked together. Gray finally did quit in August of 1914, going into his real estate business, Grayhaven. Couzens quit in 1915 and I often wonder, with Couzens going into City of Detroit and state politics [[Couzens being both father and son), if he didn't have a hand and making Gray's life miserable in trying to develop Grayhaven.
From the Benson Ford files-
Attachment 30812

Thank you very much for sharing the story. I also went through the Ford Archives at Benson Library. I was looking specifically for Harry Bennett. I noticed that most of the folders which were labeled Harry Bennett [[there were a lot of them) were empty. I asked the librarian about this. She said, "Edsel had his lawyers go through a lot of this stuff in the 50s and remove anything incriminating for Ford."

In E J Farkas's stories is one where there was word that Bennett wanted to kidnap the Ford grandkids! Someone told Ford II he show hide or stay low and he said, "Why, Bennett will find us anyway!" Read more here, search the index but this story is around page 359. It's easier to download the whole story and use the index to find more.
The way to get to the whole files is kind of goofy, at least to me, but this will get you started.

This entire 2-hour PBS documentary is well worth watching but I've linked directly to its first mention of Harry Bennett.

Henry Ford - The Most Influential American Innovator of the 20th Century

Jimaz, good find there, I didn't know that PBS documentary is now on YouTube as well. There are some early Ford histories that, well, aren't as well documented in the story but that part on Bennett is very well done and sticks to what I've read in the words of those that lived through that time.

Thanks Jimaz, I will check it out! There were approximately 6000 Service Department employees in Ford's employ at one point. That no one interviewed them or has memory of their uncle, grandfather, father being in the service department, keeps me wondering if there isn't someone out there with more information than the Harry Bennett story.

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Originally Posted by Nolff2

Thank you very much for sharing the story. I also went through the Ford Archives at Benson Library. I was looking specifically for Harry Bennett. I noticed that most of the folders which were labeled Harry Bennett [[there were a lot of them) were empty. I asked the librarian about this. She said, "Edsel had his lawyers go through a lot of this stuff in the 50s and remove anything incriminating for Ford."

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Hmmm....you might question that librarian how Edsel, dead for seven years by 1950, had his lawyers go through 'stuff'. This collection was not done until Edsel had been dead for eight years, in 1951 and wasn't finished until 1956. Although some were VERY loyal to Henry and they have a different view of events at Ford Motor [[like Irving Bacon's dislike of the union boys, calling them 'communists' and feeling bad for Harry when he was injured in one of the riots). And while I don't recall anyone specifically saying Henry Ford had an affair with Evangeline Cote [[who it seemed Henry basically 'married off' to Ray Dahlinger) many do note the 'special attention' he gave the family, especially to their son, who later claimed he was actually Henry's son, not Ray's.
So if you search the online library you may find much more of what you're looking for, starting at this point.

Ah, were you looking for photos at the Benson Ford Research Center? Yes, those could have been gone through. You'd have to research newspaper files and those aren't nearly as easy to search, at least for me. There were a few newspaper photographers that 'survived' the attacks and got away with their film. The Detroit Library's files are still just on microfilm, a real pain to work with.
What I was referencing above was the 'Oral Histories'.