North Carolina Army-Navy "E" Awards Records, WWII 7

[Item name or title], [Box Number], [Folder Numbers], North Carolina Army-Navy "E" Awards Records, WWII 7, WWII Papers, Military Collection, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N.C.

The collection is composed of program booklets, programs, invitations, photographs, company historical reports, award ceremony proceedings text and transcripts, certificates, newspaper clippings, a scrapbook, and miscellaneous materials, documenting the North Carolina companies, plants, industries, and corporations, who received the Army-Navy "E" Award for Production during World War II from the U.S. War Department. The materials were donated by the various companies in June and July 1944 to then North Carolina Department of Archives and History (present-day North Carolina Office of Archives and History, Division of Archives and Records) as part of the State Archives' collecting effort to document the home front in North Carolina during the war.

The Army-Navy "E" Award (also known as the "Army-Navy Production Award") was an award presented in the United States by the U.S. War Department's Production Service Division to civilian companies and corporations during World War II, whose production facilities achieved "Excellence in Production" ("E") of war equipment. The award was created to encourage industrial mobilization and production of war time materials by American businesses and corporations, in order to maximize the home front workforce and limited supplies of materials. The wartime honor recognized businesses that consistently met high standards of quality and quantity in light of available resources.

The companies represented in this collection include: Barnhardt Manufacturing Company; Carolina Aluminum Company, Badin Works; Chatham Manufacturing Company; Cramerton Mills, Inc.; Firestone Cotton Mills, Inc.; Goode Construction Company; P.H. Hanes Knitting Company; J. A. Jones Construction Company; Marshall Field & Company's Manufacturing Division in Spray, N.C.; National Munitions Corporation of North Carolina; Proximity Manufacturing Company; Revolution Cotton Mills; United States Rubber Company; and Wright's Automatic Machinery Company.

The collection is arranged alphabetically by the companies' names in folders.

The Army-Navy "E" Award (also known as the "Army-Navy Production Award") was an award presented in the United States by the U.S. War Department's Production Service Division to civilian companies and corporations during World War II, whose production facilities achieved "Excellence in Production" ("E") of war equipment. The award was created to encourage industrial mobilization and production of war time materials by American businesses and corporations, in order to maximize the home front workforce and limited supplies of materials. The wartime honor recognized businesses that consistently met high standards of quality and quantity in light of available resources.

The U.S. War Department and the U.S. Navy Department had agreed to make a single award to individual plants which had achieved outstanding performance on war production, to be known as the Army-Navy Production Award. This award replaced the Navy "E" Awards made prior to July 1942, when the Navy "E", the Army "A" and the Army-Navy Munitions Board "Star" Awards were merged to became known as the Army-Navy "E" Award. 4283 of American war production facilities and companies earned the Army-Navy "E" Award for their part in the defeat of the Axis Powers in World War II.

The award was only presented to about 5% of the estimated war plants in the nation-those plants meeting the stringent eligibility requirements ranged in size from a one-man plant, to large corporations-and included facilities that converted from peace to war production, as well as new plants built especially for war purposes. Both prime and subcontractors were eligible to receive the award. Approximately 50% of the Army-Navy "E" Awards went to plants having less than 500 employees, which the War Department generally considered as "smaller war plants."
The Army-Navy "E" Award was granted only to facilities which were particularly outstanding in production for the War and Navy Departments (which prior to the passage of the National Security Act of 1947 operated separately). Excellence in quality and quantity of production were two of the determining factors in granting awards. Others included: overcoming of production obstacles; low rate of absenteeism by employees; avoidance of work stoppages by unions or for other reasons; maintenance of fair labor standards; training of additional labor forces; effective management; good record on accidents, health, sanitation, and plant protection; utilization of sub-contracting facilities; cooperation between management and labor as it affected production; and conservation of critical and strategic materials.

Nominations for the Army-Navy "E" Award were the responsibility of the Technical Services of Army Service Forces, the Army Air Forces, the Bureaus of the Navy Department, the Coast Guard, or the Marine Corps-whichever had the largest contractual interest in the given plant being nominated. If the Army had the largest volume of business in the plant, it nominated the plant. If the Navy had the largest interest, it nominated the plant.

For the U.S. Army, the nomination originated with the field procurement officer in closest touch with the plant. The field procurement officer of the service having the largest contractual interest in the plant (such as the Ordnance Department, Chemical Warfare Service, or other technical service of the Army, or the Army Air Forces) recommended a plant for the award. From the local inspector or District Office, this recommendation was forwarded to the Office of the Chief of the Service for review, prior to the nomination's submission to the U.S. Army Board for Production Awards.

The U.S. Navy followed a similar procedure. The cognizant inspector or supervisor (such as the inspector of Naval Aircraft, the Inspector of Naval Material, the Naval Inspector of Ordnance, or the Supervisor of Shipbuilding) initiated the recommendation for the award. This was forwarded to the appropriate Bureau of the Navy Department for further review, prior to submission to the U.S. Navy Board for Production Awards. The action of either Board had to be concurred in by the other Board before an Award was granted.

Plants which maintained an outstanding record of performance for six months after receiving the original Army-Navy "E" Award were granted a Star Award, indicated by a white star on their "E" flag. Additional stars could be won by continued outstanding performance for succeeding six-month periods until the flag carried four stars, after which the interval was increased to one year. Plants and companies receiving the award were given Army-Navy "E" Award flags or pennants, and employees were given "E" Award pins.

[The majority of the information for this historical note was taken directly from a joint U.S. Army-Navy Press Release, 1945: Army-Navy E Award Termination, December 5, 1945, U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington, D.C., viewed online through their website].

The materials in the collection were acquired from 1942 to 1946 by the North Carolina Historical Commission under the auspices of the North Carolina Department of Archives and History. The materials were donated by various North Carolina businesses and companies to the State Archives as North Carolina historical wartime materials for the state's war records collection project during World War II. Many of these materials have accompanying letters from the companies' management indicating the donation of these materials to the State Archives.The records in this collection were collected under the funding appropriations authorized for the World War II state records collection project in the 1943 North Carolina General Assembly. In his regular message to the General Assembly, North Carolina Governor J. Melville Broughton specifically requested that the war records program receive the financial support. The requested appropriation was made and became available to the Historical Commission from the General Assembly on July 1, 1943, under Senate Bill 11 (1943), Chapter 530. The collection of these wartime records by the North Carolina Department of Archives and History was authorized through Section 5i of Senate Bill 154, Chapter 706, "An Act Conferring Emergency War Powers on the Governor. . . ."