W.P.B. Files
[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
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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
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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.
