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foreign [Music] the fall of France as well as Belgium Luxembourg and the Netherlands in just a few weeks in 1940 was unexpected and titanically shifted the world situation the United States was suddenly facing the very real possibility that we might be the last great democracy left surrounded on all sides by enemies but the nation was not at all on a war footing and lacked even basic military production we were not even able to supply our army with sufficient rifle ammunition and thus began what was possibly the largest industrial transformation in the history of the United States in rural Wisconsin the largest Munitions Factory in the world sprang up as if from nowhere one of the many military facilities training bases Supply Depots airfields some the size of small cities that transformed the nation built to meet the demands of a global war it is history that deserves to be remembered in May of 1940 the same month that Germany began its lightning invasion of Western Europe America was learning just how unprepared they were according to the war department the U.S army was almost hopelessly unprepared the country lacked enough anti-aircraft guns to defend a single American city what artillery they had was still mostly mounted on wooden Wheels could only be towed by horse or mule Senator Henry Cabot Lodge bemoan that I have recently seen all the tanks in the United States about 400 in number were about one finger of the fan like German advance those tanks were nearly all light tanks about the only bright part of the report was that the Army had enough rifles and machine guns but hardly enough bullets bombs or artillery shells more weapons and ammunition would take time to make one Senator complained that the Army's ambition is to get ready in a period of 18 or 24 months when we are living in a period of wars being settled in 30 days it was not true that the country had done nothing to prepare for war in 1937 the Army had established an office in Delaware that studied the capacity of the nation's existing Munitions plants and prepared estimates of future demand in collaboration with the DuPont and Hercules corporations the office developed plans for smokeless powder and high explosive plants since selected possible sites for new factories in 1940 and 41 six sites were chosen for new smokeless powder plants instead of adding on to existing plants the government planned to build numerous plants by Contracting out to American companies in various locations around the country the benefits would be twofold first spreading out the factories made it more difficult for an enemy to shut down production and it brought jobs to more communities still suffering from the depression 1940 and 41 saw 77 industrial facilities contracted as government-owned contractor operated Hercules powder Corporation built a number of the facilities including beginning in 1940 the Radford Army ammunition plant in Southwest Virginia Hercules...