Voice of the People

After I returned from the war in Europe in December, 1945, I was asked a question something like this: “How did you fellows beat the Germans so quickly?” My response was something like this: “We overwhelmed them with our tanks, trucks, Jeeps, fighter planes and bombers.”

Then, a few years ago I read about an interview of a young German who had been drafted into Hitler’s army. He was sent to fight the Americans who had landed at Anzio. Among other things, he said that when he looked down that mountain and saw all of the trucks that the Americans had put ashore he knew they did not have a chance.

Later I read an interview with an older German soldier that had fought the Americans in France and Germany. He attributed our victory to all of the motor vehicles we had, including the M-4 tank.

Now, just recently I read the verbatim interview of Herman Goering, which took place shortly before he committed suicide while in captivity. For those who do not know, he was the head of the German air forces and one of Hitler’s closest friends. In this interview he said that he tried to talk Hitler out of declaring war on the United State because he was afraid of our tremendous industrial capacity. He mentioned especially our automobile industry.

We had about a dozen companies that made very good automobiles. In 1940 over five million automobiles were made in the United States. That was more than were made in all of the rest of the countries of the world combined. Also, more steel was produced in Lake County Indiana in 1940 than was produced in Germany, Italy and Japan combined. Hitler did not take his advice.

American automobile companies made more trucks and such vehicles. I carried an M-1 carbine that was made by General Motors, drove tanks made by Henry Ford’s Company and saw thousands of B-24 bombers fly over my head headed for Germany. They destroyed the industry of the Ruhr thereby depriving Hitler’s army of much needed equipment. Thousands of those bombers were made at Ford’s Willow Run bomber plant.

Now, the American people themselves have destroyed the American Automobile industry by buying cars made in Japan and Germany, many of them made by companies that made weapons that were used to kill Americans.

Ford and General Motors are the only ones left and both are in bad trouble because Americans are giving their money to foreign companies. When the next all out war comes we will not have the capacity to produce armaments with which to equip our armies. There is not even one shoe factory left in our country. And I resent that Bill Clinton discarded our Overseas Cap that was in use for so long and to buy millions of berets from his buddies in Communist China. Most American industry has been destroyed by Americans. What will we do in the end thereof?

Malcolm E. Anderson

Posted 10/18/2006