We postponed converting as long as we possibly could. We put steel into luxuries and men into peacetime industries. Then we had to convert fast. Millions of our younger men were called to the armed service Their places in industry and on the farm had to be taken by other men and women. Wartime production required special skills for which peacetime industry had inadequately prepared us, and there was little time for training.
Total war requires enormous manpower.
Those are only the estimates. The demands may well be greater. Assuming that we have enough manpower to meet these needs, the sorry fact remains that we don't have enough at the right times at the right places. We have men working in nonessential industries who should be helping to make materials of war. We have skilled men in one comer of the country who are worse needed in other places.