United States Builds For War

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23850, 28 December 1940, Page 6 (Supplement)

United States Builds For War

Work is already under way at the Packard factory in the United States for the building of 9000 Kolls-Royee Merlin 12-cylinder aircraft engines, (3000 of which are for the British Government. They will cost in the region of £'sooo each. This order alone will provide employment for 11.000 workers, and before it is completed a further order from Uritain for 10.000 more .Merlins is likely. The first engines are expected to bo ready for shipment to England next July. At the Ford River Rouge plant, Detroit, a huge aeroplane engine plant costing £1,000,000 is in course of construction. By March the production of •1000 air-cooled 18-cylinder 2000 horsepower Pratt and Whitney Wasp engines is scheduled. The peak output i<- expected to be 16 engines a day. General Motors, in addition to undertaking extensive work on war equipment, has set apart four of its large plants to cope with an order for machine-guris to the value of £12,000,000. The Chrysler Corporation has spent £5,000,000 on building a tank factory on a. 113-aere tract of land near Detroit, llv September next- year 6000 workers will be engaged on the first order for 1000 25-ton tanks at a cost of approximately £8370 each.