National Affairs: Spirit of Lockheed-Vega

Short, blond, athletic-looking, 21-year-old Burton Griffin works by night in the stock room of Vega’s Burbank (Calif.) plant, goes to bed with the dawn. One morning last week young Griffin couldn’t sleep; a wild idea chased through his mind. Finally it drove him to put on his clothes, hustle off to the plant to tell his boss. Soon 1,500 questioned employes of Lockheed-Vega voted to put it in practice. The idea: “I got to thinkin’ about Christmas and about all those bombers we’re making for the British. . . . And I got this idea about making them a Christmas present of one of the bombers.”

Lockheed Hudson bombers cost $90,000, take 24,000 man-hours apiece to build. From its 20,000 employes (average pay: 75¢ an hour) Lockheed-Vega solicited voluntary pledges of two or more hours of pay per man, planned to make up the difference itself (expected to be almost 50% of the cost, despite an estimated 100% subscription). Proclaimed the Brothers Gross (Robert E., president of Lockheed, and Courtland S., president of Vega) after querying the State Department on procedure:*”We will be very glad to transfer the funds so raised … to Lord Lothian with the employes’ instructions that the Ambassador use this money toward the purchase of a Lockheed Hudson for the people of England. . . .”

Three days before Christmas, at Burbank’s Union Air Terminal, workers will trundle out the plane, done up in cellophane and red ribbons. They will be disappointed if Lord Lothian is not there to see their gift christened The Spirit of Lockheed-Vega with two bottles of champagne (one for Lockheed, one for Vega).

*Under the Neutrality Act, implements of war cannot be donated directly to a belligerent.