All Out for Victory (ca. 1943)

[Music] e the all out for victory once more yes I was a minute man at Lexington but don't think that was my last appearance I've been around when needed on the farm on the Battlefield yes and in the factory I am the spirit of a free America I live today in Mrs crel Boston making beads for tires for Buffer's guns beside her is the picture of her son Corporal Kenneth Boston of the Marines who manned the second Buffer's gun to come off production line and shot down five [ __ ] planes the first day in the Battle of Midway but that's nothing says he a buddy of mine got 22 here he is when he visited his mother at the plant the last time he was home on Furlow do you doubt that Mrs Boston puts a little extra care as well as a little extra hurry up into every bead in the rubber industry for example Lessons Learned in former days are now paying off in rugged combat tires especially designed to take [Music] it in mud snow a swamp for heat of battle like this tire for tank [Music] destroyers I'm on also alive in a mold finisher who used to cut molds for the big truck tires now through him I'm finishing them for half tracks for us folks who are used to bonding rubber to metal and with all our equipment making tank tracks was a natural [Music] changeover not only for tank tracks but for bogey wheels too uh that's a bogey wheel it's used to keep the Track Running [Music] smoothly the same machines that used to make the industrial solid rubber tires on metal were soon forming the channels and putting on the treads for [Music] Bogies as in every Department these workers too have a personal interest in the material they're turning out Otis Hutcherson has four sons in the service himself one of them now commands a tank in Africa two others are in truck and Tire maintenance the fourth's in the signal core inspector utto Pucket has a boy in the Marines someplace in the South Pacific depending on these bogey wheels so you tell me whether dad isn't watching every one of them with the eye of an eagle an American Eagle we've come to know tanks from top to bottom we're making the tank turrets too a far stretch from rubber making you say well not so much when you remember that these machinists for years have been building the machines that build the tires metal workers we have among us as well as rubber workers and speaking of hasty shift overs one day these presses were making beverage barrels the next day they were making oxygen cylinders as pretty as you please stainless steel cylinders on the half shell strengthen with straps in both directions and the two halves weled together atomically how I wish friend Paul Rivier could see that these are the cylinders that carry oxygen for our flyers and make possible our high altitude bombers and Fighters I'm here too in the the world's largest production of machine gun clips more stamping Machinery formerly used for small metal Parts on automobiles changed overnight to making metallic belt links for 50 caliber machine gun cartridges turning them out at the rate of thousands a minute a simple little thing yes but did you know it took many years to learn to make them with a single stamping operation and they must be accurate to the thousandth of an inch for that reason they are each one inspected and reinspected and carefully packed you can count on these girls being careful many of them have husbands brothers or sweethearts somewhere at the front whose lives may depend on one of these clips they work like this just the links and the cartridges form a belt the boys get quite proficient in throwing them together sometimes In the Heat of battle and they go into the machine gun like this yes I get into working on some queer things I sure do believe it or not these are gasoline tanks for airplanes they are not like any gas tanks you ever saw you say well those funny shapes and sizes are made to conform to the type of plane they have to fit into in and around struts and braces and along the wings using every inch of space allowed them for instance this one is mounted along on with several others in a Consolidated bomber but their shape is not the only peculiar thing about them on UPG ground the Army inspector filled the tank with gas and then I'll warrant you never saw a gas tank treated like this before no he didn't miss the bullet went straight through it let's put the camera up close while we stand back and try it again all right let her go the bullets tear their way through all right but the Hol seal right up magic you say the kind that brings in a shut up plane like this one just back from Germany with more than 500 bullet holes in [Music] there but she brought home her crew while nine of the enemy went down in flames JB Seaman in charge of building these Bullet ceiling tanks has a personal interest too his son Norman Rising young scientist worked on the development of these very tanks he's using them now flying with the Army aircore Mrs faia Smith one of the builders shows him a letter from her husband in Naval Aviation in Hawaii if you could only see the swell job those big black gas tanks are doing and the lives they save you'd see that your part in this floor is just as important as mine another place I've been powerful busy is in The Barrage balloon Department it takes all sorts of us and all sorts of pieces to make barrage balloons from 50t doors to little tricky baffle strips but they all must be cut as precise and proper like as fine tailoring and along that line meet Edward glass for 36 years he ran his own tailoring shop but after Pearl Harbor he got so mad he couldn't stand it too old for the Army he brought his shears and his skill to akan and pitched into balloon making it takes 12 long gors and innumerable patch pieces to form the body of the balloon when the seams are joined together it's partially inflated here is one of the government inspectors about to crawl inside y a girls are even doing this now those special red glasses she's wearing are like those of our night Fighters they give you cat eyes so you can see in the [Music] dark the helper runs some of Thomas Edison's brightest light all over the outside while the inspector inside watches for even the tiniest pinhole and another gas bag nearing completion soon it will be ready to hang protectively over vital land objectives like this West Coast aircraft plant or precious cargo ships in Convoy as a guard against dive bombers naturally ropes play an important part and where there are ropes you must have knots fastening ropes to the outside of a balloon on a mile long pull isn't as easy as rolling off a log but again a professional appeared Henry longaker oldtime sailor and adventurer on the Seven Seas on a mind sweeper in the first world war he taught mind sweeping Crews for a while in this one and then he came to acan to supervise the notot tying for the balloons to fasten the tie rings to the sides of the balloons the ends of the webbings have to be individually frayed but what's this sure enough blind but they can do it as well as anybody and they volunteered releasing workers with us for other [Music] duties which reminds me all through the factory now you may Glimpse things like this an unobtrusive limp that means only one good leg or like this of course you really don't need more than one arm for this job and I'm inclined to think maybe a man might be a better worker without his Hearing in all this noise but the point is where as industry started out to make it possible for these physically handicapped people to help themselves now it ends up that these handicapped people are helping their country in the Plastics department where we used to turn out gadgets for radios and Automobiles now we're making plastic gun stocks stronger than wood yet so much lighter to carry and easier to handle among other things we're also making plastic liners for steel helmets back of the battle lines they make welcome sun hats and in the fox holes like is not their water buckets but in battle they take up a lot of shock in those steel helmets and help fend off many a bullet but if you want to see me really busy come around to where we're building both for's antiaircraft guns Great gatling's Ghost thousands upon thousands of small parts have to be made 1,500 to a gun here Machining a gun tool is Isaac Lewis 82 years old Ike had retired once but the next morning after Pearl Harbor he appeared at the gate house I'm back he announced the Japs and Nazis will quit before I do and we're betting on Ike then there's Mrs Myrtle wise making gears her son Don is at The aine Proving Ground proving boer's guns her husband is in the chemical division son Hubert is in the engineering department but leaving soon for the Army and her other son Leroy is in the aircraft division talk about an allout effort the small parts are assembled in subassembly Bays that Fringe the main assembly floor just look at those Acres of Bower's guns are growing not like seasonal crops but like the steady flow of Old Man River rising to a flood from one side come the top carriages with girl electricians installing the wiring cranes pick up a finished carriage and carry it to meet the stream of chassis rolling up from the other direction the guns are mounted and controls hooked up the gun rolls on into the spray booth to get into its war paint a curtain of falling water carries off the fumes while the makeup of olive drab is apply then the inspectors take over here is a modern Molly Pitcher working a gun by remote control Mary Miller's husband used to do this work when he was called To the Colors she dawned her slacks and took his place and now testing the alignment and sighting of what one Marine called the fightingest gun I ever [Music] saw you'll find me in the flotation gear Department too building pneumatic life vests belts rafts boats and ponts these will be life belts with a self-contained cartridge of carbon dioxide to inflate them automatically when emergency arises one of the few men in the department crimps the colors of the holder one of the inspectors is Mrs Vera Miller maybe you wonder why Mrs Miller is so allf fired particular about what she stamps okay well it was her okay that was found stamped on the Belt that kept her son afloat for 4 hours till rescued in the South Pacific when his ship the USS asoria was sent down under him it was like having my mother's arms around me he said here he is when he was fured home with his mother visiting the department where she works now do you wonder that Mrs Miller is proud and happy on her job and so dog gone particular A variation of the lifesaving equipment made in this department is the life vest or may wests I guess they call them but uh I don't think she was the inventor another important piece of inflatable equipment is the one-man life raft for flyers and parachutist commonly known as par [Music] rafts many layers of fabric are cut at one time with power Cutters the sections are stitched together inflated and the bottom cemented on and here's an interesting note on C color the bottom is ocean blue while the top part is bright yellow at first some of the rafts were all yellow so they could be seen easily from the sky but the Sharks could see them too so we changed the bottom to Blue and now when Mr shark looks up it all looks to him the same color as the ocean the raft is packed in a special carrying case containing paddles bailing cup sea anchor first aid kit repair kit drinking water and sea marker to pour onto the water to attract attention when a rescue plane is spotted and the whole kit must not weigh more than 14 lb the flyer wears it between himself and his parachute in fact he uh well he sits on it when one of our boys takes off on a mission over water in this war he knows that his chances of coming back are all in his favor in the the last World War when a man went into the ocean he usually went on down but today if he does have to bail out well here is what [Music] happens you note that his inflated life vest holds him up while he unpacks his par [Music] raft a Twist of the wrist and a cylinder of carbon dioxide inflates the raft but this is only the smallest boat instead of the close to 100% loss of men down at Sea in the last World War this time more than 90% of them are picked up seven and 10 man rubber boats landing and assault boats that can be paddled or driven by an outboard motor and tremendous rubber pons for emergency Bridges [Music] it was a medium-sized boat like this that saved Captain Eddie rickenbacher and six of his crew through 21 Dreadful days in the Pacific and has saved many another no less a hero here's one of them back with a message for those of us at home we know that Victory is won only through the sweat of workers and the blood of soldiers out there there isn't one unimportant Soldier back here there isn't a single unimportant worker his job may be only tending a conveyor belt but that belt carries a steady flow of machine gun clips and it was machine gun clips that help the Marines take guad Canal it may be only stamping simple strips of metal but those strips of metal go to provide the necessary reinforcement for oxygen cylinders without which the highlevel bombing of Berlin would never have been possible it may be only tightening down a nut day after day and yet that nut may be a part of a bolar's gun and bolar's guns are helping to keep the skies clear of enemies all over the world or perhaps it consists merely of fastening on a small clip merely a clip on the turret door of a tank yes a tank like one of those so effective in Africa I say it again there is no unimportant Soldier and there is no unimportant worker it takes both everlastingly on the job to win this war believe me I know I was there oh thus be it ever when free men shall stand between their loved homes and the wars desolation then conquer we must for our cause it is just and this be our motto in God is our trust