Eastern Aircraft Division of General Motors Corporation ...

Mark Allen M · **Joined:** Fri Feb 03, 2012 1:48 pm **Posts:** 7815

"In order to free the Grumman production lines for assembly of the F6F Hellcat, the Navy
instructed Grumman to transfer production of Wildcats and Avengers to the Eastern Aircraft
Division of General Motors Corporation. The first Eastern-built Wildcats (called FMs) and
Avengers (called TBMs) were delivered in August 1942 and April 1944 respectively. All told,
Eastern built over 7,400 TBMs and over 5,800 FMs". Source, NMNA archives

Part 1

Ceremony awarding Army-Navy E to Trenton Plant. 2 2 1945

Ceremony awarding Army-Navy E to Baltimore Plant. 2 6 1945

Actress Mary Martin with Kenneth Bratton, a TBM Avenger gunner, who was the subject of famous photograph showing him wounded and being pulled from his aircraft after a raid on Rabaul.

Autographed image of company test pilots with FM Wildcat

Clearing a runway of snow at one of the plants. c 1945

Mark Allen M · **Joined:** Fri Feb 03, 2012 1:48 pm **Posts:** 7815

Part 2

Scenes of activities at the Tarrytown, New York, plant

Scenes of activity at Baltimore, Maryland, plant

Exterior view of Linden, New Jersey, plant

Exterior view of Trenton, New Jersey, plant

Mark Allen M · **Joined:** Fri Feb 03, 2012 1:48 pm **Posts:** 7815

Part 3

Exterior view of Trenton, New Jersey, plant

Company test pilots with a TBM Avenger c 1945

Visit of Army Air Forces General Knudsen to one of the plants. c 1945

Actress Jean Parker commissioning a new aircraft and a view of other visitors to one of the plants.

Mark Allen M · **Joined:** Fri Feb 03, 2012 1:48 pm **Posts:** 7815

Part 4

Exterior view of Baltimore, Maryland

Mark Allen M · **Joined:** Fri Feb 03, 2012 1:48 pm **Posts:** 7815

Part 5

Exterior view of building at Bloomfield, New Jersey

Scenes of activities around the plants. c 44 45

k5083 · **Posted:** Wed Mar 05, 2014 5:32 pm

Some fun facts:

Another division of General Motors was General Aviation, which from 1933 to 1948 held a controlling interest in North American Aviation. So we could speak of "General Motors Mustangs."

The Tarrytown, NY, Eastern Aircraft plant was demolished only in the 1990s, see http://www.hudsonvalleyruins.org/rinald ... rytown.htm. During the war it made TBM parts. Later it became a Chevy plant, ending up doing minivan assembly. Environmental clean-up was just recently completed and the currently vacant site is now proposed to be a "mixed-use waterfront project with residential units, retail space, office space, an inn, [and] the possibility for an on-site train station." Although debates about the plans have led to litigation and nothing is currently happening. The slabs of the factory floors are still sitting there.

The TBM components were shipped from Tarrytown to the Eastern Aircraft plant at Trenton NJ where several of Mark's pics were taken. It too was closed by GM and demolished only in the 1990s. The site is located next to Trenton-Mercer airport from which the completed TBMs were test flown and delivered. It is on Parkway Avenue off the southeast corner of the airport.

The Linden, NJ, Wildcat assembly plant lasted even longer, producing Blazers till 2005, closing only in 2007. It may not yet be completely demolished. The site now goes by the name Legacy Commerce Center and is a proposed industrial development. This web site by one of the underwriters contains a PDF brochure including a handy satellite map locating the site. http://www.cbre.us/o/newjerseycentral/p ... rview.aspx.

I wonder if any of these sites, when redeveloped, will feature any marker or memorial to their roles in both automotive and warplane production.

August

Charlie Cartledge · **Joined:** Sun Dec 11, 2005 9:43 pm **Posts:** 70

Thank you for posting all the pictures of the Eastern Aircraft plants! I have a few books with various pictures but nothing like that!

Cherrybomber13 · **Posted:** Wed Mar 05, 2014 10:20 pm

I live down the road from the old Tarrytown plant site. Its high priced waterfront condos now.

SaxMan · **Posted:** Wed Mar 05, 2014 10:46 pm

The CAF/NCS Avenger (Bu No 91426) was built in Trenton, with the subassemblies made in Baltimore. I wonder if parts of the plane are in any of the pics?

Interesting pic of Kenneth Bratton. I am very familiar with the original picture of him being removed from his turret via the emergency exit after the 11/5/43 raid on Rabaul from the Saratoga. You always wonder when seeing that pic: what happened to this guy? Obviously, he recovered from his wounds. Any word on what he did after the war?

mike furline · **Joined:** Wed May 05, 2004 3:45 pm **Posts:** 2635

The Baltimore plant closed in May 2005. http://www.gmbsrc.org/Memories/SmedleyC ... istory.htm

The above pictures are from "A History of Eastern Aircraft Division", a quick google search shows many available if interested.
https://www.google.com/#q=eastern+aircr ... ision+book
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HISTORY-of-EAST ... 0642777793

Mark Allen M · **Joined:** Fri Feb 03, 2012 1:48 pm **Posts:** 7815

The above pictures I posted came from the National Museum of Naval Aviation archives along with several other items I didn't post that are also of interest regarding Eastern Aircraft. The photos originally came from the Public Relations Dept. of the Eastern Aircraft Division which were created c 1944, 1945 .... For those who care :roll:

http://collections.naval.aviation.museu ... tartAt=101

I used to drive by that Terrytown plant location when I was consulting for IBM several years back.

gilt · **Posted:** Thu Mar 06, 2014 12:50 pm

The Tarrytown plant originally produced Maxwell automobiles.

Tom-

makin' boost · **Posted:** Thu Mar 06, 2014 10:51 pm

Thank you Mark for posting the factory photos, always a favorite of mine.

Question; What kind of shift did they work ? ........ Was it 6 days @ 10 hours or what ? I assume the plant ran 24 / 7.

Thanks again for posting the wonderful photos.

Mark Allen M · **Joined:** Fri Feb 03, 2012 1:48 pm **Posts:** 7815

Your quite welcome and I find these factory photos fascinating as well. Been posting quite a bit of them lately. Incredibly amount of production generated during the war years.

From what I have read the usual wartime factory shift consisted of 12 hour shifts usually 8am to 8pm Monday thru Saturday and night shifts 8pm to 8am the same days. 24 hour production at least six days a week if not seven. These hours and shifts could vary according to what factory produced what, but I would safely suggest these 12 hour/24 hour shifts were quite standard during the war.

John Dupre · **Posted:** Fri Mar 07, 2014 9:37 pm

A couple of interesting facts regarding Eastern Aircraft. GM was forbidden from hiring experienced mechanics and assemblers from Grumman or other established aircraft manufacturers. As a training aide Grumman built up two TBF airframes that were largely assembled with Parker Kalon sheet metal screws thus allowing Eastern's workers to disassemble and reassemble the aircraft to determine how best to conduct the assembly process.

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