 in early June 1942, Japan was forced into a defensive war in which it could not compete with the American war machine. Despite Allied attacks that crippled its shipping industry and weakened its industrial infrastructure, Japan still managed to produce 28,180 aircraft in 1944, a testament to the perseverance of its workers on the home front. That the United States produced 96,318 aircraft during the same year is a testament to the futility of Japan's challenge to American industrial might.
Although Benito Mussolini had built a powerful Italian air force in the late 1920s and early 1930s, by the beginning of World War II in September 1939, Italy's air force had become largely obsolete. This decline was in part a reflection of Italy's weak economy. When Italy joined the war on 10 June 1940, barely half of its 3,296 aircraft were of combat quality. While assistance from Germany (particularly in supplying aircraft engines) allowed the Italian aircraft industry to make modest increases from 2,142 aircraft produced in 1940 to 3,503 aircraft in 1941, Italy's weak industrial sector could not withstand the impact of the Allied bombing campaign, and production dropped to 2,818 aircraft in 1942 and just 967 aircraft by the time Italy surrendered in September 1943.
Although Germany enjoyed a great lead in the number of its combat-ready aircraft at the start of the war, Great Britain had an advantage in that its industry was in the process of introducing aircraft (such as the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire) more technologically advanced than their German counterparts. This qualitative advantage would prove critical to defeating Germany in the Battle of Britain. Secure from the threat of German invasion, British industry succeeded not only in increasing productive capacity with each passing year of the war but also in introducing aircraft such as the Handley Page Halifax and Avro Lancaster that played a critical role in the Allied bombing campaign against Germany. Great Britain's highest annual production total reached 26,461 aircraft in 1944, compared with 39,807 aircraft for Germany that year. Nevertheless, Great Britain's overall production of 131,550 aircraft during the war exceeded that of Germany, which produced 119,331 aircraft.
The Soviet Union possessed large numbers of aircraft at the outbreak of the war, but most of these were inferior to their German counterparts. Making matters worse, when Germany launched its invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, it destroyed 1,200 Soviet aircraft in the first nine hours of the attack. The Soviet Union managed not only to sustain this loss but to recover, because of its monumental efforts to transfer industries eastward beyond the reach of the German army and air force. In the first three months after the German invasion, the Soviet Union relocated 1,523 factories. The primary production line for the Yakovlev Yak-1, for example, was moved more than 1,000 miles and returned to production in less than six weeks. The success of these efforts allowed the Soviet Union to exceed German production for each year of the war, including 1941, for a total of 159,261 Soviet aircraft compared with 119,331 German aircraft.
In 1939, the U.S. economy was still suffering from the Great Depression, with 8.9 million registered unemployed workers. However, the success of the German blitzkrieg against western Europe in 1940 spurred the American war machine into action. The Burke-Wadsworth Act of 16 September 1940 introduced peacetime conscription for the first time in American history, and massive military spending got the American economy working again. Unlike Germany and Japan, the United States not only had a large population base and natural resources that could be mobilized for production but also enjoyed an industrial infrastructure far removed from its enemies. By 1944, a total of 18.7 million Americans, approximately 50 percent of whom were women, had entered the American workforce. Of all of their industrial achievements, none was more spectacular than aircraft production. From ju