Dressed and in His Right Job

Again & again for the last six months, the scene has been repeated in war plants all over the country.

A tall, lumbering, grey-thatched man with a quizzical look and the three silver stars of a lieutenant general quietly strolls in. Quietly he walks up & down the production lines, looking hard, saying little. Sometimes he stops, shows a workman how to handle a tool more smoothly. Sometimes he reroutes a whole line. He leaves without fuss, flies on to the next plant, the thanks of production bosses ringing after him.

Lieut. General William S. Knudsen is a happy man again. The Danish immigrant who rose to be production boss of General Motors but who, as half-boss of the ill-fated OPM, seemed to be a square head in a round hole, is working hard at a job he likes. He knows that what he does is worth while and is appreciated.

Lieut. General Knudsen started his tireless jaunt February i, three days after the President put him in uniform as director of Army Production. He has been to 350 plants in nearly a hundred cities and towns; he has flown 55,000 miles over the U.S.; he has talked to thousands of Americans about their work. In six swift months Knudsen has had an experience that would make any land-conscious American poet desperately envious. No poet of words, he is the kind of American who fingers shiny, greasy machines with a conscious, tactile pleasure--and because he loves machines they seem to work well for him.

His trips have brought no revolutionary changes in production; but in an hour's visit he finds a dozen ways to save precious time and critical materials. Typical Knudsen touches:

P: A Southern shell plant had conveyor lines running lengthwise; when shells reached the end of one line they had to be carted by truck to the start of the next line. Knudsen revised the lines, made one start where the other ended. Said he: "Now throw your trucks out the window."

P: In an Ohio plant he spotted castings being made of aluminum. He ordered them to be made of steel instead.

There have been small changes. Multiplied in hundreds of plants, they are invaluable. Last week a telegram for Knudsen ticked in to the War Department's Signal Office. It was from Nash-Kelvinator, now making airplane propellers: "Final production for July exceeded by more than 50% the figure for any previous month. This is a new high, a tribute to 'Knudsen month' inaugurated by your recent visit. Kindest personal regards."

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