Pinch Year

"The important and astounding fact is that in 1944, the year in which the crescendo of war mounted to a thunderous climax, the [civilian] American consumer . . . was furnished with more goods and services than in any year since 1941."

Thus, in a glowing, rhetorical, chart-studded, 142-page report to the President, WPB Chairman Julius Albert Krug expressed his pride in U.S. wartime industry.

If burly "Cap" Krug was talking about dollar value for goods and services, his blurb was sound. But if he was talking about quality (e.g., of men's shirts, clothing), he was talking through his hat: 1944 would go down in history as a pinch year, no matter how much money civilians spent. Nevertheless, in 1944 U.S. industry had performed prodigies. The U.S. had:

¶Produced more than one and a half times as much combat munitions as Japan and Germany together.

¶Turned out 96,359 planes (including 16,048 heavy bombers), 30,889 ships, 17,565 tanks, 595,330 trucks, 3,284 heavy field guns and howitzers, 7,454 light artillery pieces, more than 200,000 bazookas.

¶Overcome innumerable manpower, materials and engineering problems to keep abreast of the constantly changing needs of the field forces.

For all this, said Krug, the nation had paid; more than $61 billion had been spent for munitions alone.