Defense Industry

The defense industry in California during the last century has several distinct periods that have provided the tempo for California's overall growth: World War I [Page 197]through the interwar years, leading up to mobilization in 1940; World War II from 1940 to 1945; the Cold War; and the defense consolidation period from 1988 through the early 1990s. The population of the state, its economy, its social and cultural fabric, and its overall success and failure is mirrored in the developments linked with the growth and decline of the defense industry.

The growth of the U.S. Navy in the Pacific after World War I was but one of the first steps in the dramatic growth of the state of California that was heavily linked to the military and the defense industry. With the mothballing of the excess destroyer fleet in San Diego in 1919 and establishment of San Diego as an operating base, and subsequently as the headquarters for the Eleventh Naval District, the fortunes of that city came to rely upon military and defense industry dollars to ensure its survival.

While the naval presence on the West Coast grew larger in the years immediately following the Versailles Treaty, the aircraft industries began to grow dramatically in the latter part of the period leading up to World War II. Due to a coordinated effort by boosters in southern California, a high concentration of pre-war military aviation existed there. This drew Consolidated Aircraft Corporation and North American Aviation Corporation to locate factories there in 1935. The Douglas Aircraft Corporation and Northrop Aircraft were already in southern California by this time. Roger Lotchin that, by 1939, more than a third of the nation's aircraft and parts workers and half of those who built airframes were hard at work in southern California's airplane production facilities. As the 1930s drew to a close and tensions boiled in Europe, orders for military planes grew dramatically. Southern California aircraft companies had back orders for $240 million worth of planes at the beginning of 1940, more than twice the total manufactured in 1939. The year 1940 drew to a close with $1.5 billion in unfulfilled orders, as the war in Europe moved beyond tensions to become a bitter reality.

In The Second Gold Rush, Marilynn S. Johnson describes the booming growth of Oakland and the Bay Area during World War II. The book's apropos title also fittingly describes the growth spurt in southern California brought on by the war. During the war, nearly 500,000 people a year migrated to California, bringing the total to 1,987,000 people. Yet not every part of the state grew at such a rapid rate, if at all. Just fewer than half of California's counties actually decreased in population, while dramatic increases occurred in the coastal cities—San Diego's population, for example, more than doubled during the war.

The Bay Area grew at a pace second only to that of San Diego during World War II. Its overall population grew by 39.9 percent; in comparison, Los Angeles grew by 17.8 percent, Seattle by 30.5 percent, and Portland by 33.6 percent (though in real numbers, Los Angeles gained the most new residents). This massive urban growth on the West Coast came at a cost. It is apparent that people were migrating not only from other states, but also from the hinterlands to the cities in droves. Rural areas lost one eighth of their residents during the war boom to urban centers like the Bay Area. Nearly one third of the migrants who settled in California did so in the San Francisco–Oakland area.

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