GENESEE COUNTY, MI -- When Richard Grovom returned from the military after WWII had ended and went to work for General Motors, he knew he wasn't just going to work for an auto company.

He knew the company was part of the reason his country had found victory in Europe and the Pacific. He knew the company had stopped the spread of fascism and genocide and Nazi Germany.

He knew he was joining a company that made cars, but stopped making them altogether when the world needed tanks and machine guns and aircraft engines.

"It felt good," said the 87-year-old Grand Blanc man.

Who knows what might have happened in WWII without General Motors.

When the country went to war, GM become its chief supplier, its plants in Flint and elsewhere ceasing production on civilian vehicles and cranking out military trucks, aircraft, weapons and parts.



"Basically, for three and a half years, they didn't make any cars," said Charles K. Hyde, a former Wayne State professor and author of "Arsenal of Democracy: The American Automobile Industry in World War II."

The Flint Journal took a look at the local community's contribution to the war effort as part of MLive's Michigan Honors project -- an effort to recognize our living World War II veterans across the state.



Here in Genesee County, General Motors' contribution to the war effort was huge. And every plant in Flint helped.



"There are scores of (Flint-made) products that have never been publicly listed, but the others make an array that is impressive enough," read a 1943 Flint Journal article. "They are Buick's Pratt & Whitney aircraft engine parts, tank parts, steel shell cases, gun mounts, aluminum casings and forgings for other manufacturers of aviation engines. There are Chevrolet's armored cars, Pratt and Whitney parts, tank parts, antiaircraft cannon and shot. There are AC spark plug division's machine guns, automatic pilots, aviation spark plug and combat vehicle instrument panels. And now it's Tanks by Fisher instead of Body by Fisher."



It didn't start this way, though.

"Alfred Sloan, who was the head of General Motors, was never really enthusiastic about the war effort," Hyde said.



Sloan was not excited when, in 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked one of his executives, William Knudson, to come to Washington and help lead war production efforts.



"Sloan was a very, very conservative, right-wing sort of guy," said Hyde. "And he didn't really like Roosevelt and the Democrats. He really thought we should stay out of the war."



Sloan didn't get his way. But in time, his tenure at the helm of GM would be celebrated for defeating fascism in Europe and ushering in a new era of prosperity for American manufacturing.



Even as early as 1938 -- three years before the U.S. would formally declare war -- plants in Flint and Genesee County were being quietly studied by the military.



"War department officials have spotted 10,000 industrial plants and mills which either are now manufacturing war necessities or could quickly be converted to such production," read a 1938 Flint Journal report.



The report goes on to detail how Flint could help.



"Buick, Chevrolet and other industrial units in the Flint area are included in plans and men working in these plants would be assigned to definite jobs."



By 1940, a major contract for the Flint area had come in. A deal to make more than $61 million worth of machine guns at the AC Delco plant in Flint was signed.



By 1944, reports emerged that Genesee County had contributed nearly $2 billion worth of war production, mostly from GM's contracts. This accounted for nearly 1 percent of the entire national production and 8.7 percent of Michigan's production.



One especially notable contribution: the General Sherman tanks.



It was 1942, the year after the attack on Pearl Harbor. On a strip of rural property called Page's farm, a 452,000-square-foot factory was built to protect a nation headed to war.



From April 1942 to May 1945, 11,385 General Sherman tanks were built at the facility and about 1,190 Pershing tanks from November 1944 to June 1945, according to GM and Flint Journal archives. The facility built 4,200 of the Patton M-48 tanks.



"President Roosevelt recently requested Congress to appropriate $6.5 billion for additional army ordinance, which undoubtedly will include tanks to be manufactured in the Flint area," read a November 1941 Flint Journal article with the headline, "Tank Plants Given Contractors: Work Near Whigville Expected to Start in Few Days."



Many believed the tanks were key to the Allied forces' success in WWII.



"No one has a higher opinion than myself of the value of American tanks, nor of the important part they play in this war," wrote General George S. Patton in a 1945 letter to Grand Blanc resident and local teacher Joyce Sette. She had written the general informing him that her school yearbook would be dedicated to service members and also recognize the tanks built at the Grand Blanc plant.





Blake Thorne is a reporter for MLive-The Flint Journal. Contact him at bthorne1@mlive.com or 810-347-8194. Follow him on Twitter or Facebook.

Here is a database of the Michigan World War II veterans we've found so far. The database is updated weekly.