{"id":31940,"date":"2019-12-07T15:00:40","date_gmt":"2019-12-07T20:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dodgegarage.com\/news-api\/?p=31940"},"modified":"2024-03-25T11:23:52","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:23:52","slug":"arsenal-of-democracy-hidden-treasures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/showcase\/2019\/12\/arsenal-of-democracy-hidden-treasures.html","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal of Democracy: Hidden Treasures"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cNever let the truth get in the way of a good\nstory.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2015 Mark Twain<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you read it on the internet, it must be\ntrue, right? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Parts 1 through 3 of this series, we\u2019ve learned that America\u2019s Industrial Age might have begun factoring in to global conflicts and the fight for freedom well before the term \u201cArsenal of Democracy\u201d became synonymous with World War II. Mostly, we\u2019ve gone in chronological order. We started with some background on John and Horace Dodge<\/a>, their role in Henry Ford\u2019s success in the early 20th century, and their decision to create their own motor car company in 1914. Moved on to why and how, in 1916, three Dodge touring cars wound up as the first-ever mechanized attack vehicles<\/a> put to use by the United States military. And lastly, what led to John and Horace building cannons for the Allied Forces in 1917<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, I\u2019d like to recall the tale that intrigued\nme enough to jump down the rabbit hole that led to this series. In what amounts\nto a contemporary form of the \u201ctelephone game\u201d, did one missed detail cause\nbooks and blogs to misrepresent an event that radically changed the course of\nthe American Defense industry? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s fast forward two decades to 1940. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story first caught my eye on a Mopar\u00ae<\/sub>\nhistory blog and went like this: \u201cIn a somewhat more pedestrian footnote to\nhistory, early in World War II, a Lynch Road Plant manager discovered a cache\nof 155mm recoil mechanisms for big guns used in World War I. Since that war had\nended, workers had kept the machinery protected from the weather, and regularly\ntested it; when the manager discovered it, the equipment was shipped to England\nfor coastal defense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whoa!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Guns stored at APG<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So this manager dude is meandering around the\nLynch Road factory and unexpectedly finds a stockpile of cannons? And they were\nall in working order because factory employees kept the mechanisms oiled and\nready in case they were called to duty. Which they then were! What?! This was\nsome mind-scrambling information. First of all, up until now, I had no idea\nDodge had any official involvement with the military pre-WWII. Secondly, they\nbuilt cannons??? Finally, I\u2019m always fascinated by the ghosts hidden in\nDetroit\u2019s treasure trove of old buildings, of the secrets held across the city\nthat\u2019s been the manufacturing mecca of the world before, during and since the\nIndustrial Age. Working at Chrysler in the trades, I\u2019d always hear stories from\nthe guys who spent time in older factories where, even to this day, they\u2019d\nunearth random artifacts from the early days. To read about howitzers hidden in\na corner of what became – among other things – Detroit Axle, was something I\nneeded to know more about! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I tugged on the string. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Recoil mechanism<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The man taking this fateful walk was Fred J.\nLamborn. He\u2019d risen from being the Dodge Brothers\u2019 most trusted machinist in\nthe early 1900s to VP of Dodge by WWII. In fact, Fred played a huge role when,\nover 20 years prior, he helped John and Horace take on the largest and most\ncomplicated mass production job in the United States to date: from 1918 to 1919,\nthey built the recoil mechanisms for over 2,400 155mm guns, right there in\nDetroit. In fact, as we talked about in Part 3, Lynch Road was originally\ndesigned and built to manufacture those mechanisms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why would he be surprised to find a\nstockpile of the cannons, whose production he oversaw, in the factory where he\nhelped build them? Because, well… it didn\u2019t happen. Not like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Rock Island Arsenal Quarters; United States Library Congress photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The story stopped making sense to me when I\ncame across evidence stating that after WWII ended, the U.S. government removed\nall the machines and the unshipped mechanisms from Lynch Road and sent them to\nthe Rock Island Arsenal before selling the plant to the Dodge Brothers for\ncivilian use. Dodge estimated that the government spent more money on crating\nand shipping the equipment than they ended up buying the property for (this\nwill be an important observation).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then, while I was going back over Chrysler\nhistorian Wesley Stout\u2019s \u201cTANKS are a Mighty Fine Thing\u201d, there was this\npassage:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn\nthat June, 1940, trip to Rock Island to see a (prototype) tank, Fred Lamborn\nhad noted there a large pile of the 155-mm recold mechanisms which he had\nhelped to make at Lynch Road in 1917-18. For 22 years these big gun parts had\nbeen stacked there like cord wood, laid down in heavy grease. Through all these\nyears a detail of men had \u201cexercised\u201d the mechanisms methodically, starting at\none end of the stack and working through it, then doing it again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Assortment of artillery returned to APG after WWI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I think it\u2019s easy to see where the mistake was\nmade: When Stout writes \u201chad been stacked there\u201d, it was directly after a\nreference to Lynch Road. A quick reading might have missed that \u201cthere\u201d\nactually meant Rock Island. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Charles K. Hyde\u2019s subsequent book \u201cThe\nDodge Brothers: The Men, the Motor Cars, and the Legacy\u201d, he refers to the same\nstory and stays in line with the Stout recollection. Again, a fast glance at\nHyde\u2019s wording and the location could<\/i> get jumbled. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Howitzer in carriage, WWII Memorial in Detroit, MI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also true that after Lamborn came across\nthe mechanisms at Rock Island, they were sent to England for coast defense. The\nsignificance of the real story is the huge impact it had on the United States\nWar Department going forward. Stout recounted how, after discussing the trip\nwith Mr. Lamborn, then Chrysler President K.T. Keller supposedly came up with\nthe idea for what became the Tank Arsenal in Detroit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This experience suggested an idea which Mr.\nKeller carried to Washington. “Why don’t you have a tank arsenal?” he\nproposed to General Wesson. “With the increasing role of tanks in war, you\nare going to need a place where you can design, build, test and repair tanks. A\ngood place for this piece of permanent apparatus would be in Detroit alongside\nsuch a pool of labor as we have at Chrysler. Have the arsenal set up and ready\nto run. When you want tanks, we move in and make tanks for you; when you no\nlonger want tanks, we move back and, pray God, make auto-mobiles.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Howitzer at WWII Memorial in Detroit, MI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Considering the costs incurred by moving the\nLynch Road assets 20 years prior, the fact that nobody in power seemed to know\nthe mechanisms were at Rock Island ready to go, and the realization that\nthousands of tanks would need to be designed and built in short order, the Army agreed with Mr. Keller. And a major\ncog of the modern industrial military complex was born!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next: John and Horace unwittingly build boats for war,\nDodge invents more than machines and a secret WWI machine hidden at an\nundisclosed location.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cNever let the truth get in the way of a good story.\u201d \u2015 Mark Twain If you read it on the internet, it must be true, right? In Parts 1 through 3 of this series, we\u2019ve learned that America\u2019s Industrial Age might have begun factoring in to global conflicts and the fight for freedom well before the term \u201cArsenal of Democracy\u201d became synonymous with World War II. Mostly, we\u2019ve gone in chronological order. We started with some background on John and Horace Dodge, their role in Henry Ford\u2019s success in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":32011,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[638],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-showcase"],"acf":[],"custom_fields":{"post_thumbnail_image":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/feature_arsenal.jpg","icon_selection":"article","external_link":"","featured_article":[],"upload_background_image":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31940"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31940"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32015,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31940\/revisions\/32015"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}