W.P.B. Files

The Executive Director of the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board (Nelson) to the President’s Special Assistant (Hopkins)

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Dear Mr. Hopkins: Attached is a statement which was asked for by the President and which was approved this morning by S. P. A. B.

Sincerely yours,

Donald M. Nelson
[Attachment]

Statement by the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board1

When a nation is at war its aim must be to achieve complete and decisive victory in the shortest possible time. The United States is at war. We must, and we shall, marshal our full energy and resource for swift and inexorable victory.

No nation has a monopoly of courage on the part of its fighting troops. Our combat forces have not and will not be found wanting in bravery. But the outstanding lesson of this war to date is that equipment provides the margin of victory in the air, in the field, on [Page 340] the sea. This war will be won with planes, bombs, tanks, guns, ammunition, ships.

The United States, among the nations of the world, has incomparably the greatest resources for building these items of war equipment. We, above all others, have the resources in raw materials, in industrial equipment, in trained man power and managerial skill to produce munitions of modern war upon really massive scale. December seventh, and the events which have followed, have given us both the urgent necessity and the will to extend our effort in this direction to the utmost.

Our goal is to provide for 40 billion dollars worth of war output, planes, ships, tanks, guns, bases, and the like, along with the facilities necessary to produce them, before the end of the current year. Noncontractual items such as pay and subsistence, and food for our Allies, will require substantially higher gross expenditures, but this would be the measure of our industrial effort. We propose, in this calendar year of 1942, to devote 50% of our entire national resource to the war effort.

A program of this magnitude, one so far beyond the dimension of our 1941 performance, will require the full and sustained cooperation of every citizen of this great Nation. It will entail drastic and farreaching dislocations of our domestic and industrial habits and procedures, particularly in the initial gearing of a peacetime economy to the all-out effort of war. We are confident that the people of the United States will make every necessary sacrifice willingly and with eager enthusiasm at being offered the chance of sharing with the marines of Wake Island, and the troops and population of the Philippines, a direct part in fashioning the means to Victory.

We know, of course, that wars are not won with dollars. Expenditures have meaning only as they measure tangible production of fighting equipment. We have not prepared our budget in money terms, and then filled in requirements to match. We have spelled out the specific munitions items needed, and which we believe we can produce in this year, and have drawn our expenditure budget accordingly.

The 1942 goals of production have been set boldly, with full confidence that, together with the production of our Allies, they will be beyond anything the Axis powers can match. There is always a question of how much it may aid our enemies to state our programs in definite terms, but upon sober reflection I have decided to put these 1942 production goals on record:

We plan to build—this year—fifty thousand completely equipped airplanes; we plan to build and equip—this year—forty thousand tanks; we plan to build one hundred and twelve major combat ships [Page 341] and six hundred minor naval craft; we plan to build at least seven million tons of merchant shipping, we plan to supply the complete equipment and armament for a ground-army force of a size comparable to that which was raised in the World War, and at the same time furnish large quantities of similar equipment for the fighting forces of our Allies.

In stepping up our present monthly production rates to meet the 1942 quotas, we shall reach, by the end of the year, rates that will assure enormously larger annual production for the future. Thus, our annual rate of plane production by the end of 1942 will approximate 80 thousand per year, and our annual tank production rate will be about 60 thousand.

All of these goals have been set as definite responsibilities for those who are in charge of production and procurement. They have been directed to take the steps necessary to assure that these goals shall be met.

We state them confidently, with full conviction that they are within the potential of our National resource and our National will. We state them confidently, in the conviction that they will tip the scales of the world struggle, and assure the ultimate defeat of the forces arrayed against the values to which we, as a people, are dedicated.

  1. The statement was apparently prepared for use by the President in discussing production goals with the British and in preparing his Annual Message to the Congress. For Beaverbrook’s comments on portions of this program, see post, pp. 344 ff. For the text of the President’s message of January 6, 1942, see Department of State Bulletin, vol. vi, January 10, 1942, pp. 39–43, particularly p. 41.