Free Eagles at War by Walter J. Boyne Page B

home.
    "They would yield at least three hundred thousand good, smart workers. Instead of talking about sending them to Madagascar, we ought to build ghettos around factories and let them put in twelve hours a day helping the Reich they've exploited so long."
    Weigand nodded. "But even three hundred thousand is a drop in the production bucket."
    "You're right. But there are almost two million French prisoners of war. Should we just feed them, or let them go back to Paris to drink wine? They can work, too. Mussolini has been pressured into sending Italian laborers. And that's not the end of it."
    Weigand knew what was coming. "The East?"
    "Of course, Poland, and when it comes, Russia. The bodies are out there. All we need is someone to press-gang them into service, like the British navy used to do. You are that someone."
    "I do know how to organize such a campaign. But I don't know anything about allocating the workers."
    "That will be my job."
    Weigand gestured to Josten. "And, may I ask what all this has to do with Captain Josten? I'm a little surprised that you would speak so frankly in front of a junior officer."
    "Ah, Weigand, I should have explained. Josten was in my squadron during the war in Spain; I trust his judgment: I'm going to need someone on operational duty to work with me, to be my legs, to tell me the truth about what they are saying in the front lines. Josten is that man."
    "One of your 'right sergeants,' according to Frau Schroeder?"
    "Exactly, except he is a 'right captain' now, arid it won't be long before he's a 'right major.'' I want his help for the other part of this establishment's mission, the visionary half."
    "Visionary?"
    "Exactly. Do you think we can take on half the world and win with inferior weapons? We are going to have to win with ingenuity, with weapons the Army High Command hasn't even dreamed of."
    "Like what?" Weigand's Berliner accent dripped doubt.
    "Come, let me show you."
    Hafner opened a door and rolled down the polished hardwood path at a speed faster than the other two men could run, spinning twice like a top to wait for them at the entrance to the building.
    "Let's look at solutions to the production problem first. This is my fastener section. Nobody thinks about it, but fasteners are one of the most important elements in building an airplane. They determine how large a section you can build at a time, how strong you can make it, how you can put it together."
    They went inside. The machine shop was lavishly equipped, and in a large jig was a section of an aircraft fuselage, mounted next to a stub of a wing.
    "Let me show you how Junkers designed the wing attachment for the Ju 88."
    He pointed to the two sections. "You see these bolt holes? They are so precisely drilled that you have to use a jig to install the wing; it's like fitting a gear in a watch. Wonderful craftsmanship—but it takes twenty man-hours to do in the factory, and can't be done at all in the field." He turned to a burly machinist, lovingly wiping the turning metal on his lathe with an oily rag.
    "This is an old comrade, Fritz Ihelfeld. Fritz, show the gentlemen your wing attachment fitting."
    "Jawohl, Herr Direktor. It's quite simple—you bore a large tapered hole in the fuselage fitting, and slide the bolt in easily. Then you use a squeeze plate to take up the slack with the nut. Three mechanics can replace a wing in forty minutes with hand tools. And it's stronger than the original."
    Both Josten and Weigand nodded approval. All that Hafner said had made sense; this sort of thing added to the force of his argument. If you doubled the work force and reduced the skill requirements, you could increase production enormously.
    Hafner sped them around the peripheral track from building to building. The first four had dealt with solutions to production problems: quality control, interchangeability, standardized specifications, training techniques, determining how to make things good enough—but not too good.