Business: Commando Raid

• Share

A Navy plane flew into Detroit's City Airport from Washington one noon last week. Out hopped a Navy officer, a bulging brief case under his arm. He stepped into a car, sped to the Navy's $60,000,000 arsenal, operated by the Hudson Motor Car Co. There he pulled sheaves of mimeographed notices from his brief case, ordered them distributed to arsenal officials and workers. The notice: "The Navy Department has determined that it is to the best interests of the Government to change the operating management of the Naval Ordnance Plant."

In this curt manner, amazed Hudson officials learned that they had been ousted (one top man got the information from a janitor). After Oct. 28, when the present Navy-Hudson contract expires, Hudson will no longer operate the 14-building arsenal which it built for the Navy in 1941, has operated since. The new manager: Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co.

Pass the Staff. The 10,000 arsenal workers, including highly skilled technicians skimmed from Hudson's other plants, will be handed over to Westinghouse. Their new boss: Brooklyn-born Frank D. Newbury. A Cornell graduate (1901), he joined Westinghouse 42 years ago, is now a vice president running the Emergency Products Division.

Subsequently, the Navy issued a bland statement that the change was made to eliminate red tape, to consolidate the arsenal with two others operated by Westinghouse at Canton, Ohio and Louisville. But Navy men let leak through the scuttle butt: Hudson had failed to produce up to expectations in the arsenal.

Bewildered Hudson men could only point to their record: An Army-Navy "E" in January; Navy praise in February for boosting production tenfold; cabled praise from General Eisenhower in May; another bouquet from the Navy only a month ago.

Last Word. In the welter of rumor, one explanation floated to the top. The explanation: Hudson and the Navy had bickered over Navy's intent to shift the arsenal away from mass production and to turn it into a gigantic repair shop and manufacturer of "custom-built" Navy products. According to this version the Navy had highhandedly settled the argument by its Commando raid.

Mindful of all the war contracts Hud son still holds, President A. Edward Barit only commented: "These are war times and we are dealing with the Government. This is no time to stir up a controversy." But many a Detroit industrialist, jittery over the Navy's precipitate action, pressed Washington for a complete explanation. At week's end, Truman Committeeman Homer Ferguson of Michigan was probing the mystery.