When Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the United States found itself in the middle of a global war. The nation’s manufacturers were already supplying the European Allies in their struggle against Nazi Germany, and now America was directly involved. Industries large and small were called upon to produce all the machinery and materiel necessary to fight a two-ocean conflict.
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Milwaukee, already a stronghold of heavy industry, answered the call with alacrity. Practically overnight, local manufacturers retooled from civilian to military production, and few firms played a larger role than the A.O. Smith Co. Founded in 1904 in Milwaukee, A.O. Smith began with pressed steel automobile frames, eventually becoming the world’s largest supplier, and then developed welding technologies that were put to use in pipelines, oil wells, beer tanks and bomb casings, which were essentially sections of steel pipe crimped on both ends and fitted with nose cones and tail fins.
Smith had manufactured casings for the Allies in World War I, but orders for the new war dwarfed all earlier efforts. As production at the North Side factory complex ramped up, the company hired hundreds of African Americans who had migrated from the Jim Crow South in search of jobs. Black workers made up over one-fourth of the plant’s wartime payroll and a remarkable 80% of the bomb shop crew.
Between 1941 and 1945, those workers converted 3,500 miles of steel pipe into nearly 5 million bomb casings – 80% of the Allied supply. Filled with explosives at other defense plants, they ranged from 500-pounders to 22-ton blockbusters. The finished bombs rained down on Germany and Japan, causing untold destruction and crippling the Axis military machine. On Sept. 2, 1945, a war-weary nation and weary war workers welcomed the final Allied victory with a collective sigh of gratified relief.
Take a closer look at the picture:
- The crane used to move these future bombshells was probably made by Milwaukee’s own Harnischfeger Corp.
- A.O. Smith’s proprietary welds are plainly visible on these bomb casings piled inside the company’s massive plant on North 27th Street. These behemoths were in the mid-range of the casings Smith produced for the Allies.
- The casings were ready to have their tail assemblies attached.
