A chunk of the arsenal of democracy quietly fades away.

On December 29, 1940, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave what is generally recognized as one of the top 50 speeches of the 20^th Century. (text here, or audio here)  In a masterful use of the language, the President draew the nation into a new vision.

 “Guns, planes, and ships have to be built in the factories and arsenals of America. They have to be produced by workers and managers and engineers with the aid of machines, which in turn have to be built by hundreds of thousands of workers throughout the land.”

The speech continues, and the President arrives at the punch line, the phrase that we all know.

“We must be the great arsenal of democracy.”

The nation responded, and the industrial base made an astounding pivot.  Even General Motors started building bombers.  One of the epicenters of the military industrial complex that emerged was in Southern California.

In particular, Southern California, with clear skies and pleasant weather, came to be a critical node in aircraft production.  I probably will miss many, and might have a mistake or two in here, but Boeing, Consolidated, Douglas, Hughes Aircraft, Lockheed, Northrop, and Vultee all had significant airplane manufacturing taking place in SoCal by the end of World War II.

Today, most of those companies are gone.  Some faded away, but most merged into one another over the course of the past five decades.  And as they faded away so did their military aircraft manufacturing.

In Southern California, we have one aircraft manufacturing facility left, Boeing’s massive assembly plant for the C-17 Globemaster.  The facility began operations over 70 years ago for Douglas Aircraft, and ultimately became part of Boeing in their merger with McDonnell Douglas.

Boeing is winding up production of the C-17, and winding down operations in Long Beach.  Layoffs have begun, and by this summer the line will be shut down.

Military logistics will never be the same, and one of the cornerstones of the arsenal of democracy will be no more.