From the Annals of WWII Detroit

[Lowell]

I have been on a long-running project of reading the New York Times day-by-day same-every-day for the WWII years [I'm currently in 1943]. It is interesting to read history as it unfolds, as one might have done back then. Naturally my eye is drawn to Detroit stories. Hence this thread.

Last month I came across this story, appropriate to today with the swirl of protests triggered by the George Floyd murder. It is a reminder of why his death has become more of a culmination of a long history of systemic racism and injustice.

Col. William T. Colman staggered out to his chauffeured staff car in a drunken stupor and saw Pfc. William H. McRae as his driver. Col. Colman became so incensed by the sight of McRae who was Black that he shot McRae twice.

And the punishment? A reduction in rank to Captain!

[Lowell]

Meanwhile, yesterday [1943] the first rumblings of what would explode into the 1943 riot were being reported with this disturbance at the Packard Plant.


An astonishing discovery of reading these years was the amazing number of massive strikes that occurred in the midst of the war. In May Akron was shut down as tens of thousands struck all major rubber plants. This was followed by equally large strikes in the coal fields. American dissent is nothing new.

[renf]

Thank you for posting, Lowell. FEPC accomplished a great deal in
Detroit during World War II but there was very much racial conflict about
jobs. No city has played a larger role in this nation's history of the racial
struggle for equal opportunities than Detroit.

[EastsideAl]

That wildcat Packard "hate strike" was the only time my father, then 18 years old, ever worked through a strike in his life.

[renf]

Thank you for posting, Lowell. We overlook the many labor disputes that took place during World War II. Some, of course, were the "hate strikes" linked to Roosevelt's FEPC order but many of the strikes were focused on the traditional issues. My father worked for B F. Goodrich in Akron during that 1943 strike.

[Packman41]

That wildcat Packard "hate strike" was the only time my father, then 18 years old, ever worked through a strike in his life.

The strike was started when Packard management promoted several black workers over the objection of the union, At that time the union was largely populated by immigrants accustomed to trade-craft, union apprentice rules of eastern Europe and saw this as a threat to the union.

My mother also worked through the "hate strike."

[Jimaz]

One thing I've always wondered about WWII was how the average U.S. civilian became aware of the atomic bomb. Of course it was a military secret before it was dropped. I've heard the Truman speech where he publicly announced its existence for what seems to be the first time but there must have been more. It was called a bomb so I imagine at first most people would have thought it was just a very, very large conventional bomb. The reports of radiation and scope of blast damage would have filtered through to the public eventually, indicating there was a lot more to the story.

It must have been like living in a real-life science fiction tale. Imagine listening in on the everyday conversations of the time in barbershops and coffee shops, etc.

[Ray1936]

I remember it being in the headline of the Freep the day after. There was some half-assed description of nuclear power which went in one ear and out the other. Of course, there were no photos of Fat Man, but they did post a photo of a very large British bomb and a caption something to the effect of it didn't amount to squat any more.

Anyway, Fat Man and Little Boy saved far more lives that they took. But leftists will never admit that.

[Jimaz]

... But leftists will never admit that.

Ok, now you're just goading.

You can't deny that the entire United States of America was ANTIFAscist at that point in history can you?

Please don't shoot your country, Ray.

I'm hoping Lowell will share some NYT stories about how the atom bomb was explained to the public.

[Ray1936]

Ok, now you're just goading.

You can't deny that the entire United States of America was ANTIFAscist at that point in history can you?

No, but extremism in either direction tends to be self-defeating, I think.

[Lowell]

I actually read 1945 first and found it so interesting that I embarked reading the entire war, starting Sep. 1, 1939. I had just read Ian Buruma's Year Zero, a history of 1945 which drew me in.

All along the way I had screen snapped articles for a digital scrapbook, particularly anything mentioning Detroit. But since you asked, here was the big news. What's interesting is that they simultaneously released a trove of hitherto top secret information about the bomb development--such as the until then virtually unknown Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, and Hanford.

FIRST ATOMIC BOMB DROPPED ON JAPAN
NEW AGE USHERED
Day of Atomic Energy Hailed by President, Revealing Weapon
HIROSHIMA IS TARGET '
Impenetrable' Cloud of Dust Hides City After Single Bomb Strikes
Japanese Solemnly Warned Most Closely Guarded Secret FIRST
A Sobering Awareness of Power Explosive Charge Is Small Investigation Started in 1939

Click the image to view it larger...

[Lowell]

Interestingly the $2 Billion project was not the biggest defense project. Can you guess what was? ... The B-29 that delivered it.

[pjbear05]

I remember it being in the headline of the Freep the day after. There was some half-assed description of nuclear power which went in one ear and out the other. Of course, there were no photos of Fat Man, but they did post a photo of a very large British bomb and a caption something to the effect of it didn't amount to squat any more.

Anyway, Fat Man and Little Boy saved far more lives that they took. But leftists will never admit that.

Leftists have no idea of Operations Olympic and Coronet, the planned invasions of the Japanese home islands, and their conservatively estimated 1 million casualties. Little Boy and Fat Man thankfully stopped that.

[Jimaz]

This month's National Geographic has a good article in which some of the last survivors of WWII are interviewed. It's The Last Voices of World War II. The hardcopy contains a fascinating graphic comparing lives lost in such tragedies across all of human history including even Aztec human sacrifices. My favorite quote was from Arthur Maddocks, a British code breaker.

But by the time the war was drawing to a close, Maddocks and his colleagues — assisted by Colossus, the world's first large-scale digital computer — were reading communications between Nazi leaders so far in advance that Germany's surrender in May 1945 was something of an anticlimax, Maddocks says. "We already knew it was over."

[wilderness]

Jimaz,
the movie 'The Imitation Game' offers some unique insights into the use of Colossus and code breakers.

[EastsideAl]

My father remembered seeing a headline about "A-Bomb dropped on Japan" and wondering what was so important about yet another bomb dropped on Japan.

The "leftist" formulation above seems a bit odd to me, since American leftists of every stripe, from Democratic New Dealers to actual Communists, were much more supportive of the US participating in the war against nazism, fascism, and militarism than rightists were. I also think that most "leftists" [[whatever that term means) of my age are well-aware of the various plans for the invasion of Japan. I don't think many younger people of any political persuasion are, because why would they be interested in the particulars of history that never happened from their great-grandparents' day?

[Meddle]

I'm never in favor of deliberately targeting civilian populations, regardless of the reasons.

[Ray1936]

I'm never in favor of deliberately targeting civilian populations, regardless of the reasons.

Pretty much agree, Meddle, although the books tell me that there were major military installation in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I'm sure there was MUCH meditation over targets. We are not a nation without heart. Well, at least, we didn't used to be.

[Jimaz]

Jimaz,
the movie 'The Imitation Game' offers some unique insights into the use of Colossus and code breakers.

Thanks wilderness. That is one of the few movies I own. Loved it.

[Meddle]

although the books tell me that there were major military installation in both

Maybe so, but the impetus was to shock and demoralize the population with a right hook, then a left uppercut and force the Emperor to face the possibility of the next one hitting Tokyo directly. Fortunately, Hirohito valued the lives of the Japanese population more than Truman did.

[Jimaz]

This appears to be an amateur recording of a radio report made soon after the Hiroshima bomb.

Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima - CBS Radio 8-7-45

[Lowell]

Similar to the Packard racist wildcat was the Mobile Drydock riots that I came across yesterday in which the company appears to have had some complicity.

In the spring of 1943, in response to President Roosevelt's Fair Employment Practices Committee issuing directives to elevate African Americans to skilled positions, as well as years of pressure from local black leaders and the NAACP, the Alabama Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company reluctantly agreed to promote twelve black workers to the role of welder -- a position previously reserved for white employees.

Shortly after the new welders finished their first shift, an estimated 4,000 white shipyard workers and community members armed with pipes, clubs, and other dangerous weapons attacked any black employee they could find. Two black men were thrown into the Mobile River by the mobs, while others jumped in to escape serious injury. The National Guard was called to restore order; although no one was killed, more than fifty people were seriously injured, and several weeks passed before African American workers could safely return to work.

Even after the attack, many white employees remained defiant and refused to return to work unless they received a guarantee that African Americans would no longer be hired. When the federal government intervened, the company created four segregated shipways where African Americans could hold any position with the exception of foreman. African Americans working on the rest of the shipyard were relegated to the low-paying, unskilled tasks they had historically performed.
https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/may/25

[renf]

Thank you for posting. This is somewhat similar to the strike by Philadelphia street car operators. In July, 1944; the agency running Philadelphia street cars followed FEPC regulations and promoted 8 African American men to operate the street cars. The white motormen went on
strike on August 1 to protest. Street car service stopped so the production of munitions in Philadelphia also stopped. On August 3, President Roosevelt used his war powers to have the federal government take over the Philadelphia street car system. A major general was appointed to run the system. He negotiated with the white workers but go no where. On
August 7, the Roosevelt Administration announced that any strikers who did not report for their next shift would be immediately subject to the draft and would lose the right to work in any defense industry for the duration of the war. That immediately ended the strike. This was similar to the strategy that Secretary of Navy Knox used when he ended the hate strike at the Hudson plant on Conner the year before.

[Sandhouse]

Here's some sources for people who want to know more about the end of WWII.

The history of the Manhattan Project is summarized in "Enola Gay" by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan Witts. This is very readable. It focuses on the Air Corps flyers, but also includes the development of the bomb, and the agonizing over whether and how to use it.

One of the more interesting threads on this web site is the one noting that some of the tooling for the uranium plant was manufactured [[by Chrysler? Detroit Radiator?) in a disused store on Woodward in downtown Detroit. Who knew?

My favorite WWII story is how Gen. MacArthur landed in Japan in the days after the bombing, and took charge of the country. It's all in "American Ceasar," by Marine and great writer William Manchester. MacArthur designed a liberal democracy for Japan single-handed. When he was recalled by Truman during the dispute over war with China in Korea, he was worshiped as a hero in Japan. He mandated labor unions as a countervailing force to corporate oligarchies and Communist agitators, and completely changed the Japanese national attitude.

MacArthur extinguished Japanese militarism, which earned him the gratitude of the people. To say that the emperor [[really the militarist government) valued its people's lives is ridiculous. That was the government that engineered suicide attacks, and wasted entire divisions and 3,000-man ship crews in useless suicide charges rather than surrender. This suicidal mindset had been displayed so often that by 1945 the atomic bomb looked humane by comparison, at least by people who had never seen it.

If you want to know how this national suicide cult was created, look for a book called either "Why Japan Was Strong" [[short edition) or "Yankee Hobo in the Orient" [[author's much longer edition), by John Patric. This was popular in 1945, so there are still a few copies around. Patric was a kind of 1937 proto-hippie, touring the entire Japanese empire [[Japan and occupied Korea and Manchuria) living out of a hobo bundle on almost no money, and risking his life unknowingly by pranking the Japanese secret police. It's very insightful and great fun to read.

Finally, to understand Detroit's place in WWII, read "Freedom's Forge - How American Business Produced Victory in World War II" by Arthur Herman. This is the story of William S. Knudsen, who left General Motors to manage the battle of production. The first people he had to fight were frantic bureaucrats in the Roosevelt administration, who wanted every factory instantly converted to war work. Knudsen explained, if you let us manage this in our own way, you can place an order for 50,000 planes at get them in short order. The recent frenzy by panicky politicians over producing respirators instantly is an echo of this. Production engineers must have laughed their ass off at Trump for thinking you can produce sedans one day and medical hardware the next.

A much thinner book is "The Arsenal of Democracy" by A.J. Baime. This is a re-hash of popular information, mostly about the Willow Run plant.

[Richard]

What is interesting in all of this is,the government controlled the news of the time and it was lead to believe that the entire country was united towards a common goal,clearly not so.

Not to go off topic.

Lowell remember our short discussion about the Dieppe Raid?

One of the Naval intelligence officers that was sent to recover intelligence and an enigma machine was Ian Fleming,creator of the James Bond series.

I find the personal stories just as intriguing.

When you think about it during and after WW2 the US was the only country in the world that had the manufacturing capacity and capability to pretty much supply the world with armaments.

It was not quality and very little technicality advanced in comparison to the likes of Germany but the sheer numbers produced,there was not a corner in the world left that was not using US equipment.