Eastern Aircraft Division


The Eastern Aircraft Division was formed by the General Motors Corporation for the duration of the Second World War, to manufacture Grumman's F4F Wildcat and TBM Avenger carrier-based aircraft under license. The division comprised five plants on the East Coast of the United States, which, since the declaration of war in December 1941, had had to cease production of automobiles or car components.
Created in January 1942, the new organization soon became operational. The aim was to manufacture two Grumman aircraft, so that the manufacturer could concentrate on assembling its new F6F Hellcat fighter.
The Navy assigned Eastern Aircraft the code M, so the F4F Wildcat fighter became the FM, and the TBF Avenger torpedo bomber became the TBM.
Eastern produced its first Wildcat in September 1942 and its first Avenger in November of the same year. Production increased rapidly, and Grumman was able to cease production of both models before the end of 1943.
By the end of the war, Eastern Aircraft Division had built nearly three quarters of the total number of Wildcat and Avenger aircraft produced during the Second World War. This represented a quarter of the total US wartime production of carrier-based combat aircraft.

Background

During the years preceding the declaration of war, Congress voted several massive increases in the size of the American armed forces. On July 19, 1940, for example, the Two-Ocean Navy Act authorized construction of eight
additional Essex-class aircraft carriers.
Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States entered the war and all shipbuilding programs were accelerated. Emergency conversion programs were also implemented both for existing ships and those under construction.
The need for shipborne aircraft, already high following the pre-war increases, rose sharply with the outbreak of hostilities. All the country's resources were mobilized, but demand was such that the existing factories could no longer meet it.

The Navy's requirements and the manufacturers response

The aircraft manufacturers selected by the Navy therefore had to increase the capacity of their factories or establish new ones. But it was not enough: they needed to call on other aircraft manufacturers, or even of manufacturers active in other fields. For example, Vought, the builder of the F4U Corsair fighter, turned to Goodyear and Brewster both established aircraft manufacturers to subcontract part of the production of their fighter to them. The Goodyear version of the F4U was called FG and the Brewster-built version F3A. Curtiss did the same for its SB2C Helldiver, which was also manufactured by Canadian Car & Foundry Ltd as SBW and by Fairchild Canada as SBF.
In Grumman's case, the company needed to increase the production rate for its F4F Wildcat fighter and simultaneously put the TBF Avenger torpedo bomber into production. But it also needed to prepare for the launch of its new fighter: the F6F Hellcat, which the Navy has just selected to replace the F4F, and which had been given top priority.
Grumman and the Navy therefore turned to other manufacturers, including General Motors, which was looking for work for its idle automobile plants.
Several actions took place simultaneously, both at the General Motors management level and at the plants level. The management of the Linden plant contacted Grumman about the Avenger. During a subsequent meeting, the Linden representative realized, to his great surprise, that it wasn't just a question of supplying components or sub-assemblies, but of manufacturing the whole aircraft. A second surprise came up later: in subsequent contacts, the initial request changed again, with the idea now being to manufacture not just one, but two aircraft: the Avenger and the Wildcat.
General Motors was quick to react, forming a new division by grouping together several factories, a move which became official on January 21, 1942.
In response, the Navy confirmed its request with two letters of intent: on February 5 for the bomber manufacturing program, and on February 9 for the fighter program. These letters of intent were followed by two contracts dated March 23 and March 25 respectively.

Setting up the Division

Challenges

For an automaker, the challenges were manifold, since making airplanes and cars are two different businesses. First of all, the products manufactured were different, with much more stringent weight and assembly precision requirements for aircraft. The materials and therefore the assembly and welding techniques were also different: mild steel for car bodies, duralumin, aluminum alloys and chromium-molybdenum for aircraft. Aircraft, flight controls are covered with fabric and equipments such as radios, flight instruments, self-protected fuel tanks, armor and weapons are highly specific. The only activity that could be transferred easily was upholstery.
Work organization was also different. Manufacturing of cars is a high-volume production business, where each job is ultra-specialized. Production changes are infrequent, whereas aircraft production runs are more limited, with more frequent and usually very urgent changes.
In addition to the problem of retraining GM workers, there was the problem of hiring new ones, which was exacerbated by the shortage of skilled workers in the aeronautical industry. The same applied to the search for suppliers and subcontractors, Grumman having made it clear that GM could not use theirs.

The plants

The new division comprised the following five plants, with the following work repartition:
  • Bloomfield : this automotive battery manufacturing plant became a specialized center for the manufacture of the many sub-assemblies incorporated in the two aircraft. It supplied the two final assembly plants in Linden and Trenton.
  • Linden : originally a final assembly plant for Buick, Oldsmobile and Pontiac vehicles, it became the center responsible for manufacturing most of components of the FM fighter, then for its final assembly.
  • Trenton : a plant specialized in the production of all internal accessories from door handles to window cranks, it became the center responsible for the manufacture of the central fuselage section of the TBM bomber, followed by its final assembly.
  • Baltimore : this body production plant specialized in the manufacture of the TBM rear fuselage section, as well as the ailerons.
  • Tarrytown : this body production plant becomes responsible for manufacturing the TBM's wings and front fuselage.
Major work was immediately undertaken: dismantling of assembly lines, conveyors, ovens, machine tools and hydraulic presses, storage for preservation purposes, and reorganization of work areas. In the case of the Linden plant, the entire roof had to be raised by. For each of the two final assembly plants, a complete airfield with runway and control tower was created.
Subsequently, the ramp-up of manufacturing programs necessitated numerous extensions to the premises, either by constructing new buildings or by reclaiming other premises from adjoining plants. At the same time, the need to recruit new staff led to a sharp rise in the number of employees. By the end of 1942, for example, the Eastern Aircraft division employed 22,848 people, double the maximum workforce of the five plants prior to its creation.

Launching the program

Eastern set up numerous training programs, either in-house or with the help of local schools. The needs were immense. For example, every welder needed to be Navy-qualified, and received a personal number and a personal steel stamp to mark each weld for traceability and quality control. For managers, general aeronautics courses were supplemented by management training programs, in partnership with East Coast universities and the General Motors Institute. Training courses were also organized with other manufacturers, as in the case of the Baltimore employees who went to Goodyear to learn how to cover flight controls with fabric.
Eastern employees sent to Grumman discovered manufacturing methods very different from their own. For example, Grumman was not equipped to produce the thousands of bills of materials, drawings and plans to which GM people were accustomed, and since the Navy required that the models manufactured by Grumman and Eastern be interchangeable right down to the individual parts they would have to draw up their own 1:1 scale plans of every part they needed, starting from the parts themselves. However, each of the aircraft they were to build consisted of 10,000 to 15,000 parts.
It was agreed that, in order to help Eastern, Grumman would supply a complete model of each aircraft, plus ten additional aircraft called "PK ships" because they were assembled with Parker-Kalon screws instead of rivets, allowing them to be easily disassembled and reassembled for training purposes.
The first production aircraft would also be assembled from Grumman-supplied parts, but it was agreed that Eastern should take over very quickly.
The "clash of cultures" between two such different organizations inevitably produced some friction, but the two programs progressed rapidly and, in view of the results and the recognized quality of the aircraft produced by Eastern a relationship of trust based on mutual respect soon succeeded to the initial difficulties. In fact, as the two ranges evolved, Eastern took full responsibility for industrialization and aircraft production, with Grumman content to develop prototypes.

The planes

FM Wildcat

The version initially produced under the name FM-1 was virtually a carbon copy of the last F4F-4 model, which had entered service in 1942. The most notable difference was the return, starting with the eleventh model produced, to a battery of four 50-caliber machine guns, as insisted upon by American pilots.
The Wildcat was gradually withdrawn from front-line service, but as it took up less space than the Hellcat and Corsair, its use was favored on escort aircraft carriers, mass production of which was accelerated and demand remained high until the end of the war.
Eastern Aircraft delivered the first 23 machines in 1942, and by the time production ceased in September 1943, had delivered a total of 1134 FM-1s.
In 1943, Eastern began production of the latest version of the Wildcat, the FM-2. Based on Grumman's XF4F-8 prototype, the "Wilder" Wildcat, as it was nicknamed, was significantly lightened and fitted with a more powerful Wright R-1820-56 and 56A engine, with extended fin and rudder to handle the increased engine torque. During production, the FM-2 was also fitted with under-wing rocket launcher mounts.
When production ceased in May 1945, a total of 4777 FM-2s had been produced for the United States and British navies.
In the Royal Navy, the Wildcat produced by Grumman or Eastern had been renamed "Martlet", but this name was dropped in early 1944. FM-1s became Wildcat Mark Vs and FM-2s became Wildcat Mark VIs.