 Neither you nor I can say with any assurance How long it will take to achieve the final victory for which we all yearn All of us like to enjoy again the satisfaction of peacetime life So would our fighting men in the army the Navy and the Air Force So would the brave fellows who man our merchant ships and transport planes They once had private lives too And they would like to get back to their families and their peacetime work But they know and we know That the job is not yet finished as an American citizen and Particularly as one of America's war workers You have met your responsibilities splendidly so far You have electrified the world with your achievements At the beginning of 1942 When you began to get into action in earnest The United Nations were losing the war We were menaced on either side By the two most dangerous and treacherous nations in history The turning point came one morning long before daybreak not far from the Egyptian border until the battle of El Alamein We had had practically nothing but bad news Rama was poised to strike at Egypt and the Near East Had he succeeded Suez would have been lost and the Nazi armies might well have overrun all the near and Middle East But on October 22nd 1942 General Montgomery and his immortal 8th Army had accumulated all munitions and Supplies and equipment needed for their great African campaign and We're ready to go on the offensive at zero hour on that famous day The United Nations revealed their aggressive power for the first time and so did the enemy that future Generations will marvel at our good fortune in escaping Until that morning the Nazi armies were full of boastful confidence Never before had they been driven into headlong retreat. They were forced to retreat for 1,000 miles And at the end of those grim thousand miles, they were hurled off the continent of Africa Never to return That same autumn Hitler's armies in Russia smashed themselves against the unforgettable Russian defense at Stalingrad El Alamein and Stalingrad in those two great battles The enemy lost his most potent secret weapon The legend that he could not be beaten American industry and American labor Can be proud of their part in these momentous events At the famous Tehran conference Marshall Stalin declared without American production. The United Nations could never have won the war That record must not and I am sure it will not Be imperiled by any letdown due to overconfidence. I know that any job at a desk Or at a workbench cannot seem very important in comparison with the worldwide scope of this war Using a typewriter is certainly a long way from using a machine gun checking over papers May seem a petty business In comparison with piloting a flying fortress and the jobs you were doing in office or factory You will never get the purple heart for your wounds or the Medal of Honor for your valor But you can earn an invisible decoration That is no less worth winning the inner satisfaction The knowledge of true patriotism That comes to all faithful workers of the home front Who give their full energies and minds to their war jobs The machine guns could not be fired and the planes could not fly The bombs could not fall on our enemy without the painstaking effort of millions of desk workers and factory workers This war is one gigantic enterprise In which the work of each one of us plays an essential part Whether he be soldier or desk worker Employer or workman before the right weapons can get in the hands of our fighting men at the right places At the right times and in the right quantity Before that can happen Thousands of anonymous workers here at home must do their part. I Can safely say that you have helped to win many a battle perhaps without realizing it War production is the foundation of our war effort And by the same token What you do from day to day affects your country's success in this war never forget You are working for him For the youth of America For the boy next door On the last day of the last war Thousands of such boys were killed if the war had ended 24 hours earlier They would have returned What you do tomorrow today in the next hour Can help to bring the last day of this war closer and to save lives that would otherwise be lost We are all in this together You and I your own boy and the boy next door Our job is not finished Let's finish the job together press the urgent need For throwing ourselves again With renewed energy Into the task of winning this war. I want to make this point First with the employees of the war production board Whose loyal and hard work has meant so much to the country since the war began Second I am speaking to the men and women of American industry Whose amazing record of production has staggered the imagination of the world Third I should like to reach all my fellow countrymen Who have dedicated themselves to victory Under the utter destruction of the enemies of our democratic way of life Let me begin by showing you a familiar face Perhaps you cannot call him by name But you know him well enough He is the youth of America your boy the boy next door But he's grown up now He has the maturity which comes to a man when he goes out to fight for his people and to face death for his country He is the primary reason for your work and my work in this war We have a silent understanding with him He is out there fighting to protect us and we on our part are working to provide protection for him Perhaps at this very moment He is on a destroyer cutting its way through the North Atlantic Perhaps he is slogging through some treacherous jungle of the South Pacific Or perhaps he is fighting his way through the fortified Nazi lines in Europe Wherever he is He is keeping faith with his country and with the great fighting tradition of American manhood For us and all who will come after us That fighting man is doing the hard and dangerous job That has to be done to preserve freedom against the enemies of mankind On him depends every plan that we make for the future Every hope that we have for ourselves and for our country He will fight until his job is finished To the day of final victory And until his job is finished We on this side of the water Must carry on with our war jobs Every bit of energy determination and endurance we have Must be thrown into the fight to back him up For our best military and naval authorities tell us that the war is far from over In a recent official report to the nation they said The first fascist the weakest Axis partner is gone Still Germany or still Japan They don't consider themselves beaten Following Pearl Harbor Japan extended her empire with startling swiftness over the far east Burma Java Indochina now the Japanese dominator subject population of 385 million hard-working cheap labor that can be used in war production Although the Japanese have suffered severe losses in aircraft They have more first-line planes now than when they attack at Pearl Harbor She has spun around herself a web of powerful bases and major strongholds Every base is supported by the others This is what is meant by interlocking bases and interior lines of supply At any one point we attack we come up against the whole system So far we have only dented these defenses This system is defended to the death Task of destroying these fanatical warriors was not easy. It has just begun The destruction of Germany is further along But make no mistake that army today is still a powerful fighting machine well equipped highly trained battle-harden Germany has three times the combat divisions that had at the beginning of the war each division Comprises 15,000 men today. There are some 300 divisions You have heard how the Germans lost about 25 divisions at Stalingrad Tunisia and Sicily and More on the neaper and the Crimean front army intelligence reports That the Germans have meanwhile created or reformed 60 new divisions Each of these divisions was given more and better weapons than the divisions destroyed All this equipment was produced by increasing the number of war workers 50% Largely imported foreign labor This does not include the millions in conquered countries who have to work like it or not for their Nazi master Germany today is better fed than she was in 1918 Heavy workers and soldiers actually eat better today than at the start of the war The natural wealth of Europe is being looted Germany suffers no dangerous shortages in any basic war material whether coal steel oil or rubber With Nazi ruthlessness and German fairness Europe has been made into a national of fascism The enemy is exploring to the limit the most densely industrialized continent in the world To keep pace with the changing war and the Germans have had to stop some production and increase other as often and as drastically as we Have but these problems are common to all war economies the Germans have taken them in their stride Their films boast of their industrial strength They are making good their boats The conclusive proof of German strength is the quality of her weapons Plain production is up After the Luftwaffe was forced on the defensive it made fewer bombers But this made it possible to produce more fighter planes Deadly folk wolves deadly Messerschmitts every new model is better than the last Workers in the Ruhr in the arsenals of France and Czechoslovakia are forging huge coastal governors slave labor bills their emplacements Gigantic concrete structures They do not scorn to use such orthodox weapons on the other hand. They know the need for mobility and fire power They have developed this rocket gun with a firepower equal to six heavy howitzer Its mirage is devastating. We still lose ships and their precious cargo Every month replacements food and maintenance for each man require another ton of shipping For half a million men this means one half a million tons 50 Liberty ships a month From England our 8th Air Force is bombing Germany systematically But we will never have enough planes and bombs to wipe out so big an industrial nation Germany is fighting back with increased firepower Our gunners face vicious opposition Fortress is hit Another of our planes will not return In the outskirts of Berlin is this graveyard of smashed American bombers. We must replace this equipment These men can never be replaced The sea takes its toll in every amphibious operation Drowned vehicles swamp boats This is the price paid to the enemy This landing ship was hit at Jailer Her flaming deck full of half tracks Personnel carriers that will never carry a man These are some of the extra costs of successful amphibious assault The great loss of equipment the loss of lives