The first tank delivered from Detroit’s newest and largest defense plant was an M3, which weighed 30 tons and was produced at a rapid pace during World War II. Officials from both the Chrysler Corporation and the American military gathered in Warren, Michigan, to witness a demonstration in which the new tank fired its weapons, crashed through a telephone pole and destroyed a house. Due to its impressive production of weapons and vehicles needed for the fighting, the city of Detroit was often referred to as the “Arsenal of Democracy” during the war. Indeed, many historians have since demonstrated that the course of the war and its outcome were both significantly affected by the large production rates which were achieved in Detroit. By the end of World War II the Detroit Tank Arsenal produced more than twenty-two thousand tanks.
The M-3 Grant tanks were used by the British to fight the Germans and Italians in North Africa. Chrysler also made the Sherman tank, and was one of the primary military suppliers for the Allied war effort.
A Chrysler factory builds M-3 tanks during World War II.
For more information see
State of War: Michigan in WWII / Alan Clive. Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, c1979.
Detroit’s wartime industry : arsenal of democracy / Michael W.R. Davis. Charleston, SC : Arcadia Pub., c2007.
Ann M. Bos and Randy R. Talbot, “Enougn and On Time : The Story of the Detroit Arsenal“, Michigan History, March/April 2001.
Michigan Historical Calendar, courtesy of the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University.