In fact, the government brought in auto companies as partners precisely to bring the aircraft industry up to the mass production standards of the auto industry-which it quickly exceeded.

“Big airplanes are made up of small parts,” Lockheed executive Courtland Gross added, “and women build small parts to perfection.”Īs for the jobs that required plenty of muscle, the Martin plant was already reengineering many of them to speed assembly. Martin pointed out to doubters of his “employment experiment”-and there were many-that women were perfectly suited to handle most of the 25,000 parts that comprised a B-26, not to mention the miles of wiring that needed to be snaked through harnesses and other work in close quarters. Once men started shipping off to war, there simply weren’t going to be enough male hands on factory floors to do the job. Glenn Martin-and within a few months the leaders of Lockheed and other aircraft manufacturers as well -realized that times had to change if the United States was going to meet the demands of wartime production.