Freedom's Forge

During the Great Depression of the 1930’s the conflicts that would combine to create WW2 were brewing. Japan Invaded China, Italy invaded Ethiopia, Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union invaded FinlandSpain was torn apart in a Civil War between the Fascists and the Communists. During this time the U.S. was recovering from the utter destruction of the economy and struggled to prepare itself for the coming war. Under FDR’s administration certain experts in industrial production such as Bill Knudsen, a master of the assembly line who honed his metal working craft as a bicycle manufacturer as a teen in Denmark, and then as a supervisor on the Ford and Chevrolet manufacturing line, was appointed to oversee this program. For the next 6 years he worked tirelessly across the U.S. from the assembly lines of Detroit, to shipyards built from scratch in Richmond, and the manufacture of planes, tanks, guns, and everything else a modern army would need to win. This book focuses on that struggle, and positions the businessmen and manufacturers as the source of U.S. victory in WW2, and the government and unions as a constant source of strife that nearly destroyed the nations ability to build the military that won the war.