Pratt & Whitney
North American Aviation
American Royal Gliders
Darby

Pratt & Whitney:
The War Production Board and the Navy urged Pratt &Whitney to supervise and run a facility inland from the east coast. Chicago, St. Paul and Kansas City were the candidates. Kansas City was chosen because of its location and the availability of electrical power and water, and the high education level of the population. The single 57-acre Pratt & Whitney Engine Plant cost $85,000,000 to construct. Kansas Cityís Long-Turner Construction company won the "E" for a good job well constructed. Located at Bannister and Troost on an old corn field, this was the Navyís number one engine plant.

The ground breaking was July 4, 1942 with Senator Harry Truman presiding and construction was completed over the next 9 months. Even while construction was going on, Pratt &Whitney was procuring tooling and training employees. The executives had doubts that the Missourians could produce the newest of the company engine designs, the R-2800-C. But they not only produced this engine but had it in production and delivered on time for use in the Battle of the Bulge - less than a year after ground breaking.

Pratt &Whitney continued to produce R-2800s and a few R-4360s at the facility until September 1945, when operations ceased. A total of 7931 engines were produced at the Kansas City plant and at its peak capacity in 1945, they employed 23,000 people.

B-25 Bombers at North American Aviation

From December 1941 until August 1945, a total of 59,337 men and women contributed to the war effort by helping build 6,608 B-25 Mitchell Bombers at the North American Aviation plant in Kansas City, Kansas. The war could not have been won without the contribution of the "bomber builders".

Pride and patriotism and teamwork and sacrifice were not just words but ways of living. North American Aviation, Incorporated, a major player in the aviation industry in the ë30sÖ had won a 1938 war contract from England to build what became the Mustang fighter. Once the U.S. entered the war, we desired the same plane with improvements, the P-51 MustangÖ.and became the primary producer of war planes during World War II, building a total of 41,839 planes.

All B-25 production was transferred to the Kansas City plant from Inglewood in 1944, so the California plant could concentrate on the P-51 Mustang. In 1942, Kansas City produced 435 B-25s, in 1943 1701; 3012 in 1944; and 1460 in 1945 totalling 6608.

Breidenthal and Stanley brought North American to Kansas City. They realized the need for war production away from the coast lines, since they were vulnerable to attack. They twisted every arm of every general, admiral, Congressman and dollar-a-year man to get the contract. In December 7, 1940, the War Department awarded the contract and assembly of the plant would be constructed on 75 acres lying between Reimer Road and the Missouri River on the northwest corner and adjacent to the west side of Fairfax Airport in the Fairfax Industrial area in Kansas City Kansas.

The plant opened in early December 1941 with approximately 1000 workers. The first B-25 was completed on December 23, 16 days after Pearl Harbor and was test flown on January 3, 1942. By 1944, more than 40 percent of the employees in Kansas City bomber plant were women, and they worked in almost every department. … The bomber plant had itís own postal service, cafeteria, security, fire protection, power plant, schools, newspaper, ambulance and 14 room hospital. It was a small city. Employees today still have fond memories, a camaraderie perhaps not found from the other war plants.

Gliders & American Royal

Commonwealth Glider plant was housed in the American Royal Building.

In mid-1943 the Kansas City-produced glider was sent to other glider factories as a prototype. The president, Raymond Voyes of New York, promised that Commonwealth would be manufacturing several models of light planes here in Kansas City after the war.

Rearwin Aircraft and later Commonwealth Aircraft produced 100 CG-3A gliders and 1,470 CG-4A gliders in 1942. The CG-3 was used primarily for training, and the CG-4A was a larger cargo and troop carrying glider. … The company was 2nd only to Ford in glider production.

Amphibious Vehicles - DarbySteel

Even though the city was 1000 miles inland, it produced ocean going vessels carrying men and machines to the "enemyís front door." In May of 1942, the Navy announced that LCTs(Landing Craft,Tanks) and LCMs (Landing Craft, Mechanized) would be built in the Darby Corporation Shipyards at Kaw Point. Darby transformed the Kawís mouth into an amazing ship building center that could hold 8 135í LCTs and 16 LCMs in various stages of construction. These "Prairie Ships" took Allied troops to Normandy.