🇺🇸 Several months before Pearl Harbor, in August 1941, my paternal great-grandfather Alex Taub was tapped to help the U.S. auto industry convert production from cars to arms manufacturing. Imagine that. Planning ahead to enlist industry to help in advance of disaster.
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"Mr. Taub, a naturalized American citizen who worked in American automobile factories before joining the Vauxhall organization, said that his work with the English auto firm in defense work continued until a bomb wrecked his office and literally blew him outside the door."
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"He said that he was confident the American automobile industry could handle a large additional volume of defense orders if they were planned so as to provide 'a reasonable continuity of work.'"
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"Without a doubt, there is within the confines of the automobile industry the greatest group of development brains in the world,' he said."
timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1…
timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1…
Just to be clear, Alex Taub was not an ordinary guy at GM or Vauxhaul. He was the chief auto engineer at GM (and designed the Chevy 6 engine), and he also designed the Churchill Tank engine. Here's one account from David Foster
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File under, "immigrants, we get the job done."
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