Page 32 - Volume 13 Number 5

orders for the Model 75 and the export Model 76 kept the production line humming with activity throughout the year, and by December the Stearman Division had delivered 46 airplanes and exported another nine for total sales exceeding $1.2 million.
When 1939 began, the only problem facing Julius Schaefer was how to create more space to build more airplanes. His concern was valid. In September of that year Germany had invaded Poland, prompting both England and France to declare war on Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. In the United States, however, although the general public was concerned about the invasion, a great majority of Americans clung to their isolationist policy and wanted nothing to do with “Europe’s war.”
Meanwhile, out west in Wichita, Julius Schaefer’s chief concern was how to build more trainers for the U.S. military. Time was of the essence. In fact, only three weeks before the assault on Poland began, the U.S. War Department had issued contracts worth more than $688,000 for training aircraft, and if the Air Corps and Navy chose to exercise an option for additional airplanes that figure could increase to more than $2 million.2
By late 1939 the Stearman Division was swamped with orders for the Model 73-, Model 75- and Model 76-series aircraft and more orders were imminent. That autumn
the factory employed about 600 men and women and there was no additional space for production. The only choice was to expand the campus if parent company Boeing Aircraft was to meet its contractual obligations. It was, therefore, no surprise to Schaefer when, on Sept. 20, 1939, Assistant Secretary of War Louis Johnson signed a contract for $3 million worth of Stearman PT- 13B primary trainers.
Under terms of the order, the Air Corps was buying 255 of the airplanes in an effort to accelerate pilot instruction. The contract mandated that Boeing enlarge the Stearman Division and hire hundreds of new workers. “The contract is the largest ever received at the Stearman plant and the largest ever signed by any Wichita airplane manufacturer,” reported the Wichita Eagle Sept. 21, 1939. The reporter added that, “A certain amount of rearrangements and conversion of plant facilities to take care of business will be one of the first things on the program.” Plans called for additional machinery to be acquired and installed, and the final assembly line reconfigured to optimize manufacturing throughput. Schaefer added that he expected to hire and train at least another 400-500 people in the next few months, but stipulated that, “Only American citizens of undoubted loyalty will be carried on the payroll.”
30 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
MAY 2019
Fuselages for Army Air Corps PT-13A and Navy N2S- series airframes were photographed in December 1940 as demand for the trainers increased significantly. (Addison Pemberton)