[HBR] Loctals & Octals

[Walt Hutchens]

Martin said:

> Why is it that WWII, in particular,
> ended with such a huge surplus of war matériel?

> I know that by mid-1945 the U.S. economy was really roaring with production
> of war goods, but still, why such an extraordinary surplus?

> Did policy-makers think the war was going to last a lot longer than it did?
> Perhaps the very few people who knew about the atom bomb didn't want to give
> any indication that they had anything "special" available that could shorten
> the war?

WW II ended by surprise. Soldiers in Europe, packing up to return to
the states for 30 days or more of leave and then bound for training
camps and troop transports for movement to the Pacific fell down and
wept when the surrender was announced. They were going to LIVE!

By the summer of 1945 planning was in full swing for the invasion of
Japan, expected to take place in December. It was expected that the
allies would suffer about a quarter million casualties during the
landings and that total allied deaths during the campaign would be in
the quarter million range. The great majority of these would have been
Americans -- the Brits had already paid at home and nobody else had
the numbers.

Translate that to consumption of war materiel of all sorts -- combat
life of a portable radio set in Europe <90 days -- and you can
see the need for a huge surplus as the date approached.

But total production actually peaked in 1944, I believe. I suppose for
ammunition, batteries, rations, and a few other high volume
consumables the peak came later but on average it was already
declining in '45.

Walt
KJ4KV