William Signius Knudsen (March 25, 1879 – April 27, 1948) was a leading Danish-American automotive industry executive and an American general during World War II. His experience and success as a key senior manager in the operations sides of Ford Motor Company and then General Motors led the Franklin Roosevelt administration to commission him directly as a lieutenant general in the US Army to help lead the United States' war materiel production efforts for World War II. Background Knudsen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. His name was originally Signius Wilhelm Poul Knudsen. He immigrated to the United States and arrived in New York in February 1900. Career Knudsen was working for the John R. Keim Company of Buffalo, New York, a bicycle and auto parts maker, when the Ford Motor Company bought it in 1911 for its steel-stamping experience and tooling. Knudsen worked for Ford from 1911 to 1921, a decade that saw the formative development of the modern assembly line and true mass production. Working first for the Ford Motor Company and later for General Motors from 1921, Knudsen became an expert on mass production and a skilled manager. Knudsen was president of the Chevrolet Division of General Motors from 1924 to 1937 and was president of General Motors from 1937 to 1940. In 1940, US President Franklin Roosevelt, at the recommendation of Bernard Baruch, asked Knudsen to come to Washington to help with war production. Knudsen was appointed as Chairman of the Office of Production Management and member of the National Defense Advisory Commission for which he received a salary of $1 per year. In January 1942, Knudsen received a commission as a lieutenant general in the US Army, the only civilian ever to join the army at such a high initial rank, and appointed as Director of Production, Office of the Under Secretary of War. In that capacity, he worked as a consultant and a troubleshooter for the War Department. In both positions, Knudsen used his extensive experience in manufacturing and industry respect to facilitate the largest production job in history. In response to the demand for war materiel, production of machine tools tripled. The total aircraft produced for the US military in 1939 was less than 3,000 planes. By the end of the war, America produced over 300,000 planes of which the Boeing B-29 Superfortress benefitted greatly from Knudsen's direction. Production of both cargo and Navy