Henry Ford: Helped Lead American World War II Production Efforts

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Ford also turned out tanks, armored cars, jeeps and engines for robot bombs. In the midst of the heaviest production during the war years, Ford returned to his post as chief executive of the Ford Motor Company when Edsel, who had taken over for his father, died in 1943.

Months earlier, Ford’s plants in Great Britain and Canada had joined the production efforts of the United States and poured forth everything from mobile canteens to four-wheel-drive trucks and autos, grenades, bombs and engine-powered landing craft. The U.S. plants were the prime movers in the development of the famous Willys-originated jeep.

By the end of the war, Ford plants had built 277,896 of the versatile vehicles. In all, the Allies were supplied with more than a million fighting vehicles by Ford operations in the United States, Canada, Britain, India, South Africa and New Zealand.

At the height of World War II, Ford managed to transport vitally important, precision jig-boring machinery, obtainable only from neutral Switzerland, to Manchester, England–right through German-occupied France and Spain. The Swiss, uncompromising in their commercial neutrality, insisted upon their right to trade with all parties. Since Germany was dependent on Swiss machine tools, it was forced to allow the export of war products through its occupied territories to its own enemies. As a result, Ford’s British plant turned out more than 30,000 complex supercharged V-12 engines–more than Rolls Royce built at its own plant in Derby, England. The engines were installed in British Mosquito and Lancaster bombers.

At the outset of the war, Ford’s plant in Cologne, Germany, had been commandeered by the Nazis to turn out trucks for their war effort, and actually continued under Nazi control with the supervision of one of Ford’s trained Danish managers. The manufacturing continued until constant Allied air raids made it virtually impossible for the plant to operate. Before the war was officially over, SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) asked Ford for immediate help to start operating the newly liberated plant again. The only actual damage to the facility was done by German artillery when the German army fell back across the Rhine and Cologne was occupied by American forces. German employees had ignored instructions to destroy the plant to prevent it from falling into Allied hands. The plant’s first postwar truck, assembled from components on hand, rolled out on May 8, 1945, V-E Day.

Ford always loved visiting his factories, even when he was 81. His frequent motor outings with Harvey Firestone and his hero, Thomas Edison, were well-known around the world. In 1944, the American Legion awarded Ford its Distinguished Service Medal for his contribution to the rehabilitation of veterans of both the world wars.

Henry Ford died on April 7, 1947, at the age of 84. Most of his personal estate, valued at $205 million, was left to the Ford Foundation, one of the world’s largest public trusts. Today Ford still has his supporters and detractors, but the industrial genius’ significant contribution to the Allied effort in World War II is indisputable.

This article was written by Richard Grudens and originally appeared in the January 1997 issue of World War II.

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