B-24

When I heard how quickly the auto plants shifted to making ventilators, I was reminded of the Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto who said, do not wake the sleeping giant, referring to the US manufacturing capability. The famous Willow Run GM plant at the height of its production was making a B-24 bomber every hour. Trump talked about the supply chain for making ventilators but that was minor compared to a war plane. Automobiles of the era had 15,000 parts and weighed around 3,000 pounds. Sixty-seven feet long, the B-24 had 450,000 parts and 360,000 rivets in 550 sizes, and it weighed 18 tons. Yamamoto knew what he was talking about as it was the US manufacturing of war materials that turned the tide of war.