MOBILIZATION AND DEMOBILIZATION PROBLEMS TUESDAY, MAY 30, 1944 UNITED STATES SENATE, WAR CONTRACTS SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON MILITARY AFFAIRS, Washington, D. C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:10 a. m., in room 357, Senate Office Building, Senator James E. Murray (chairman), presiding. Present: Senators Murray, George, Guffey, and Ferguson, and Representative Gwynne. Also present: B. M. Gross, staff director; Kurt Porchardt, counsel to the subcommittee; and Scott Russell, post-war committee. Senator MURRAY. The hearing will come to order. Mr. Lockwood is the first witness. Mr. Lockwood, will you come forward, please? Before we open the hearing, I should like to say that today's hearing has been called to consider the problems involved in the termination of war contracts at the Brewster Aeronautical Corporation. This subject is of particular importance to the War Contracts Subcommittee, because we are now engaged in preparing legislation dealing with the broad problem of conversion from war to peace and of synchronizing war-production cut-backs with plans for the resumption and expansion of civilian production. Two bills dealing with this subject have been under study by our committee for many weeksnamely, S. 1730, introduced by Senator George and myself, and S. 1893, introduced by Senator Kilgore. As announced in the subcommittee's report of May 12, it is our intention to bring before the Senate in the near future a bill which is based upon the best features of both these measures and upon many suggestions that have been offered by the witnesses appearing at our hearings. Toward that end, we are working in close cooperation with the Senate's Special Committee on Post-war Economic Policy and Planning, headed by Senator George. Our witnesses at today's hearings will include Preston Lockwood, president of Brewster; Richard Frankensteen, vice president of the United Automobile Workers Union; Charles Wilson, Vice Chairman of the War Production Board; and representatives of the Navy and Army. STATEMENT OF PRESTON LOCKWOOD, PRESIDENT, BREWSTER AERONAUTICAL CORPORATION, LONG ISLAND CITY, NEW YORK Senator MURRAY. Will you give us your full name please? Mr. LOCKWOOD. My name is Preston Lockwood. Do you wish me to give my residence? Senator MURRAY. Everything pertaining to your official position with the corporation that you represent. Mr. LOCKWOOD. I am president of Brewster Aeronautical Corporation, whose main office is at Thirty-fifth and Northern Boulevard, Long Island City. I was elected president on May 17, 1944. I have with me as other representatives of the company, D. C. Peacock, vice president, and Leo Gottlieb, counsel. Senator MURRAY. Mr. Lockwood, have you any prepared statement that you wish to give at the opening of this hearing? Mr. LOCKWOOD. No, sir; I have not. I had rather short notice, and we have been very busy in Long Island City. Senator MURRAY. We have presented to you some questions which we wish to have you answer here this morning, and I shall ask you those questions now. The first question is, when was the first Navy contract awarded Brewster? Mr. LOCKWOOD. Before answering that question, may I ask if I shall have an opportunity to correct dates and figures later? Senator MURRAY. Yes; you may supplement your testimony of today by any additional statement you wish to make to cover any matters that you are not prepared at the moment to answer. Mr. LOCKWOOD. My dates and my figures may be approximate. They are from memory, some of them. There was a Navy experimental order as early as 1934. In 1938, an experimental contract was awarded by the Navy to Brewster, and subsequently in that year further contracts, both experimental and production, were awarded by the Navy to Brewster, particularly the Buffalo fighter, and I believe it is a correct statement to say that by the end of 1938, practically all work of Brewster Aeronautical Corporation was for the Navy. Senator MURRAY. What did your first contract provide? What was the purpose of that contract? Mr. LOCKWOOD. One was for a fighter plane of medium range called the Buffalo, and the next contract was for a dive bomber; that is, the next contract for a plane was a dive-bomber contract for the British, the Dutch, and the Navy. After we obtained the Buffalo contract and before we obtained the dive-bomber contracts, we had a large subcontract for Consolidated Aircraft Corporation for the making of outer wings for the PBY, now known as the Catalina. Senator MURRAY. Were these contracts followed by others from the Navy? Mr. LOCKWOOD. Having said that we received two dive-bomber contracts, the only contract of substance that followed was the Corsair contract, which is the subject of the present cancelation. There were additional orders under the original dive-bomber contracts. Senator MURRAY. When were the plans made for the building of the plant at Johnsville? Mr. LOCKWOOD. I can only say that I believe it was late in 1940, or early 1941, when that plan started. I think it was probably in 1941, because I know it was not finished until 1942. The bulk of the work seems to have been done in 1941. All of that was before my connection with the company. Senator MURRAY. Do you know the conditions under which that plant was planned? Mr. LOCKWOOD. No; I do not. Senator MURRAY. Do you know who proposed it? Mr. LOCKWOOD. The management of Brewster then was under the direction of Mr. James Work, whose title varied from that of president to chairman of the board during those years. Senator MURRAY. Do you know what that plant cost the Government? Mr. LOCKWOOD. The total D. P. C. loan on that plant now is about $8,500,000, and I should say that over $6,000,000 was fixed assets, that $6,000,000 being plant and the rest machinery and equipment. Senator MURRAY. Has that plant proved to be well suited for the war-production program your concern had on hand? Mr. LOCKWOOD. That is a question of judgment. In my judgment, yes. It is now an excellent plant. Senator MURRAY. I understand that the Long Island plant of the Brewster concern was a leased plant, leased from private owners. Mr. LOCKWOOD. That is not entirely correct. It is partly leased and partly owned. There are about a million square feet of space in Long Island City consisting of four units. The unit which Brewster owns, I think, has about 250,000 square feet. Senator MURRAY. Was that plant constructed and equipped for efficient production? Mr. LOCKWOOD. It depends upon what it was to produce. Senator MURRAY. Was it suitable for the production program that your concern had on hand? Mr. LOCKWOOD. Not as suitable as some other plants. The principal units were owned by Ford and by Pierce Arrow, and were originally constructed for the purpose of making automobile parts. Senator MURRAY. Couldn't it be readily converted to the building of planes? Mr. LOCKWOOD. It could be, and was, converted to the building of planes, but it did labor under the disadvantage of being in different units. · Senator MURRAY. Different units? Mr. LOCKWOOD. Consisting of different units; that is, being not all under one roof, and being vertical-that is, a number of floors. Senator MURRAY. What was the cost to the Government of the equipment in the Long Island plant? Mr. LOCKWOOD. About a million and a half dollars, I should say, undepreciated. Senator MURRAY. A million and a half? Mr. LOCKWOOD. Between a million and a half and $2,000,000, without taking into consideration subsequent depreciation. Senator MURRAY. Can you give us the number of employees that you had at each of these plants? Mr. LOCKWOOD. Before the current lay-off we had a total of 12,250 employees, approximately 3,500 of whom were in Johnsville. Senator MURRAY. What are the facts with reference to the efficiency or productivity at the Brewster plant? Mr. LOCKWOOD. Well, to take one fact, that of man-hours, the manuhours currently employed in the manufacture of each Corsair are about 9,500. In September and October, when they just got into real production on Corsairs, they were about 27,000 per plane direct productiev man-hours. Senator MURRAY. How did that compare with production in other plants? Was that not considered a good production record? Mr. LOCKWOOD. My information is that when you consider the number of Corsairs we had made-we had made about 600 Corsairs when the cancelation occurred. The man-hours which were required were probably less than the man-hours which certain other manufacturers required when they made their six hundredth Corsair. I don't know the man-hour figures currently for the other manufacturers. Senator MURRAY. How many shifts did they run at the plant? Senator MURRAY. Starting with the commencement of your opera tions. Mr. LOCKWOOD. Well, we ran two shifts, most of the time, until about a month ago, when we reduced shifts at Johnsville to one shift, and the night shift in Long Island City was considerably curtailed. Senator MURRAY. Why did you reduce the one shift at the Johnsville plant? Mr. LOCKWOOD. Because we found we could meet our schedules with one shift. Senator MURRAY. Prior to that you were not meeting your schedule, and you had a very unsatisfactory condition there, did you not, in your production? Mr. LOCKWOOD. At one time, but not immediately prior to the reduction of that shift. We were meeting our schedules before we cut to one shift. The unsatisfactory condition was when we were making the three types. Senator MURRAY. Three types of what? Mr. LOCKWOOD. Three types of planes. Senator MURRAY. And can you describe to us the situation there which created that unsatisfactory condition? Mr. LOCKWOOD. The inherent difficultly in making three types of planes at one time, certain mistakes in planning and arrangement which were subsequently corrected, and a condition in which labor and management were not cooperating very well. Senator MURRAY. To what extent does the present man-hour figure at your plant represent an improvement over the past performance? Mr. LOCKWOOD. Well, the man-hours are now only about one-third of what they were when we really began on the Corsairs. Senator MURRAY. What was your contract? Was it a cost-plusfixed-fee contract? Mr. LOCKWOOD. Yes, sir. Senator MURRAY. And under that contract did you have an oversupply of workers there? Mr. LOCKWOOD. Not for the production of the Corsair. Senator MURRAY. Didn't you have any problem of inability to secure efficient work, from the men because of the fact that they were overcrowded? Mr. LOCKWOOD. That was when we were making three types and didn't know how many men were required and made other mistakes, as I said, in the planning. |