PRODUCTION: The Winner

PRODUCTION The Win

Marshal Stalin's famed Teheran toast to U.S. industry—"Without American production the United Nations could never have won the war"—was never more appropriate. The war was ending, and the record was in.

In the five years since the fall of France, U.S. industry and labor had turned out:

¶299,000 combat planes (96,000 last year);

¶3,600,000 trucks;

¶100,000 tanks;

¶87,620 warships (including landing craft), 5,200 merchant vessels;

¶44 billion rounds of ammunition;

¶434 million tons of steel;

¶36 billion yards of cotton textiles for war.

Despite this, U.S. home-fronters had remained the best housed, best clothed and best fed people in the world. But U.S. basic resources had suffered what might be an irreparable drain. Said an anxious Mead Committee report fortnight ago: war has left the U.S. with only enough oil for twelve years (at present production rates), enough iron ore for eight years, a seriously depleted timber supply.