Thomas Heinrich

This is an interesting work that takes a new look at an old theme. That theme, that the United States was victorious in World War II not so much by force of arms over her enemies, but rather by drowning them in a tidal wave of mass-produced material. Author Thomas Heinrich recasts this argument by looking at U.S. warship production during the war and contrasting that with ally Great Britain and foes Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The crux of Heinrich's argument is that the fleets deployed by the United States Navy in the various war theaters were not the products of the mass production systems (driven by Fordism), at least not to the extent that Army tanks and vehicles and Army Air Forcess and Navy aircraft were. The author is professor of business and naval history at Baruch College, City University of New York, so he has the academic background to make this book a worthy read.

Heinrich is ambitious in writing this book; he packs a lot into 233 pages of text. Along with the almost obligatory table of contents there is a list of illustrations, another of charts, and a third of statistics. There are acknowledgments and an introduction before the author begins the first of five numbered chapters which present his case to the reader. Chapter 1 delves into the state of American shipbuilding between the world wars, while Chapter 2 speaks to interwar U.S. Navy waship design and construction practices. Chapter 3 expounds on a view of American naval stategy during both the interwar period and the war itself and where shipbuilding stood with executing that strategy and the Navy Department. Chapter 4 talks about the wartime Navy Yards while Chapter 5 is about private shipyards and government-owned contractor-operated yards. Heinrich then gives us a conclusion followed by extensive endnotes, a lengthy bibliography, and an index. There are few illustrations provided, but they are well-chosen and have not appeared in many previously published works, if at all. The statistical charts and tables are quite helpful in illustrating the author's points.

This was a fairly quick if dense read. There's a lot for the reader to get their head around because Heinrich is looking at an aspect of World War II naval history that is simply not covered that much. Most historians treat the U.S. Navy's rise to supremacy during World War II as if the fleets magically appear by the end of 1943. Heinrich explains how the shipyards (and the bureaucracy that managed them) created these fleets whose ships would dominate the postwar U.S. Navy for the next 25 years. Heinrich, in addition to detailing American naval shipbuilding, uses an effective comparison/contrast technique that compares British, German, and Japanese efforts that paralleled the American one. In the end, the reader is rewarded with a well-reasoned case that questions the role of mass-production techniques in naval construction--the only direct comparison can be made with Henry Kaiser's mass production of Liberty and Victory ships whose construction details were far simpler than those of warships--even those as small as destroyers and destroyer escorts. Heinrich recounts how the vast majority of American warships were products of traditional warship design and construction practices--the expansion of numbers is directly related to the expansion of the traditional yards that built warships for the U.S. Navy.

I am sold on Heinrich's argument--the question remains whether future historians continue to gloss over the industrial aspects of the U.S. Navy's World War II victory or will they incorporate Henrich's analysis in their new work.… (mere)

TEIL 1
Vorwort ARGE Württemberg _7
Vorwort Thomas Heinrich _9
Einführung _10
Abkürzungen _14
Stumme Stempel _15
Einzeilige Langstempel _19
Zweizeilige Langstempel mit Datum _23
Steigbügelstempel _27
Zweikreisstempel _29
Dreikreisstempel _37
Einkreisstempel _47
Datumbrückenstempel _55
Hufeisenstempel _59
Bahnstempel _61
Fächerstempel _69
Postablagestempel _71
Nebenstempel _83
Charge-Stempel
Bahnhofstempel
Distributionsstempel
Landpostbotenstempel
Sonstige Nebenstempel
Umstellung Stempelfarbe 1853 _91
Stempel der Kreuzerzeit, spät-, nachverwendet _95
TEIL 2
Einführung A — Z-Teil _102
Ortsregister Aalen bis Zwiefaltendorf _103
Literatur- und Quellenverzeichnis _215… (mere)