General Motors Newsreel: War Production at GM

Announcer: …that plunged Canada’s automotive industry into a new endeavour. Executives promptly dedicated General Motors to defense of the Empire. Military vehicles were the first and most numerous but by no means the only war products. Automotive workers turned their skill to producing weapons which required all the precision and craftsmanship they had previously devoted to cars.

Thousands left their benches to join the Armed Forces. A service flag was unveiled to honour them. General Motors plants were by now 100% on war work. The last car for civilians came off early in 1942. Thereafter the full capacity was devoted to transports, armored cars, machine guns, anti-tank guns and tank hulls. The Workers give the V-sign as they say “Victory is our business!”

The war products were well made. General Andy McNaughton saw the vehicles under construction, told how they performed in the field, gave practical suggestions about such things as road clearance and protection of personnel. The need, he said, would increase for army transport because this time it was a war of horsepower as well as firepower. And so the stream of vehicles became greater and greater until, in June of 1943, the Canadian motor car industry had turned out 500,000 units. It was a high point in General Motors war history. Every one of the military vehicles was helping to win the war.

Their quality and reliability had already been acclaimed by the man who saw them score a triumph in North Africa: General Alexander.

The same good workmanship appears now on another page of the family album, which carries the portrait of the Mosquito bomber. Its fuselage took shape on the very spot at the General Motors plant where the craftsmen of another day had built the early wooden bodies for McLaughlins and Chevrolets. Some old-time specialists came out of retirement to help build the fastest bomber in the world, to help General Motors demonstrate once more its usefulness to the nation.

Nobody could appreciate better than these old-time craftsmen the value to the war effort the high standards and the technical skills which could produce such war planes as this. Planes which rose to take their place in the vanguard of victory, rose to reassure an anxious world of a great tomorrow.