1920s The company was founded as the Douglas Company by
Donald Wills Douglas Sr. on July 22, 1921, in
Santa Monica, California, following dissolution of the Davis-Douglas Company. An early claim to fame was the
first circumnavigation of the world by air in Douglas airplanes in 1924. In 1923, the
U.S. Army Air Service was interested in carrying out a mission to circumnavigate the Earth for the first time by
aircraft, a program called "World Flight". Donald Douglas proposed a modified
Douglas DT to meet the Army's needs. The two-place, open cockpit DT biplane
torpedo bomber had previously been produced for the
U.S. Navy. The DTs were taken from the assembly lines at the company's manufacturing plants in
Rock Island, Illinois, and
Dayton, Ohio, to be modified. The modified aircraft known as the Douglas World Cruiser (DWC), also was the first major project for
Jack Northrop who designed the fuel system for the series. After the prototype was delivered in November 1923, upon the successful completion of tests on November 19, the Army commissioned Douglas to build four production series aircraft. Due to the demanding expedition ahead, spare parts, including 15 extra
Liberty L-12 engines, 14 extra sets of pontoons, and enough replacement airframe parts for two more aircraft were chosen. These were sent to
airports along the route. The last of these aircraft was delivered to the U.S. Army on March 11, 1924. The success of the DWC established the Douglas Aircraft Company among the major aircraft companies of the world and led it to adopt the motto "First Around the World – First the World Around". Douglas initially used a logo that combined two letter Ds with two outstretched wings, and two Ds placed back to back to form a heart as a reference to
Clan Douglas. After the success of the DWC, the company adopted a logo that showed three airplanes circling a globe. The logo eventually evolved into an aircraft, a missile, and a globe. This logo was later adopted by
McDonnell Douglas in 1967, and became the basis of
Boeing's current logo after their merger in 1997.
Pre-war Douglas Aircraft designed and built a wide variety of aircraft for the U.S. military, including the Navy, Army Air Forces, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard. The company initially built torpedo bombers for the U.S. Navy, but it developed a number of different versions of these aircraft, including
reconnaissance planes and
airmail aircraft. Within five years, the company was building about 100 aircraft annually. Among the early employees at Douglas were
Ed Heinemann,
"Dutch" Kindelberger,
Carl Cover, and
Jack Northrop, who later founded the
Northrop Corporation. In the mid-1920s the company had manufacturing facilities in Santa Monica at what is now Douglas Park at 25th Street and Wilshire Boulevard. The company retained its military market and expanded into amphibian airplanes in the late 1920s, also moving its facilities to
Clover Field at
Santa Monica, California. The Santa Monica complex was so large, the mail girls used
roller skates to deliver the intracompany mail. By the end of World War II, Douglas had facilities at Santa Monica,
El Segundo,
Long Beach, and
Torrance, California;
Tulsa and
Midwest City, Oklahoma; and
Chicago, Illinois. On November 30, 1928, the company was reorganized as the Douglas Aircraft Company. In 1934, Douglas produced a commercial
twin-engined
transport plane, the
Douglas DC-2, followed by the famous DC-3 in 1936. The wide range of aircraft produced by Douglas included
airliners, light and medium
bombers,
fighter aircraft, transports, reconnaissance aircraft, and experimental aircraft. The company is most famous for the "DC" (Douglas Commercial) series of commercial aircraft, including what is often regarded as the most significant transport aircraft ever made: the
Douglas DC-3, which was also produced as a military transport known as the
C-47 Skytrain or "Dakota" in British service. Many Douglas aircraft have long service lives.
World War II During
World War II, Douglas joined the BVD (
Boeing-
Vega-Douglas) consortium to produce the
B-17 Flying Fortress. After the war, Douglas built another Boeing design under license, the
B-47 Stratojet turbojet-powered bomber, using a government-owned factory in
Marietta, Georgia. The company produced almost 30,000 aircraft from 1942 to 1945, and its workforce swelled to 160,000. The company produced a number of aircraft including the C-47 Skytrain, the
DB-7 (known as the A-20, Havoc or Boston), the
SBD Dauntless dive bomber, and the
A-26 Invader.
Post-war , the military version of the DC-3, on display in England in 2010. This aircraft flew from a base in
Devon, England, during the
Invasion of Normandy. Douglas Aircraft suffered cutbacks at the end of the war, with an end to government aircraft orders and a surplus of aircraft. It was necessary to cut heavily into its workforce, letting go of nearly 100,000 workers. The
United States Army Air Forces established 'Project RAND' (Research ANd Development) with the objective of looking into long-range planning of future weapons. In March 1946, Douglas Aircraft Company was granted the contract to research on intercontinental warfare. Conversely, McDonnell had enough revenue to help solve Douglas' financial problems; soon after the merger was announced, McDonnell bought 1.5 million shares of Douglas stock to help Douglas meet "immediate financial requirements". The merged company was based at McDonnell's facility in
St. Louis, Missouri. It adopted a modified version of Douglas' logo.
Donald Wills Douglas Sr. became honorary chairman of the merged company, a post he would hold until his death in 1981. Douglas Aircraft Company continued as a wholly owned subsidiary of McDonnell Douglas, with Douglas' son,
Donald Wills Douglas Jr., as president. Boeing merged Douglas Aircraft into the
Boeing Commercial Airplanes division, and retired the Douglas Aircraft name after 76 years. The last
Long Beach-built commercial aircraft, the
Boeing 717 (third generation version of the Douglas DC-9), ceased production in May 2006. By 2011, the
Boeing C-17 Globemaster III was the last aircraft being assembled at the Long Beach facility; the final C-17 was assembled in late 2015. However, the Douglas' former logo is preserved on the facility though no longer used by Boeing. ==Products==