Erie Basin Metal Products, Inc

By the spring of 1942 requirements for the shell had reached a point where the CWS felt obliged to seek additional contractors, and the service awarded 4 additional prime contracts at that time. Two of the new contractors, Erie Basin Metal Products, Inc., and the David Bradley Manufacturing Division of Sears Roebuck and Co., were located in the Chicago Chemical Procurement District. The other 2, the Guiberson Co. and Hardwicke Etter Co., were in the Dallas procurement district. In 1943 another prime contractor was added, the Day and Night Manufacturing Co. in the San Francisco district. Early in 1945 prime contracts were awarded 5 more manufacturers, 3 in the Boston procurement district and 2 in the Dallas procurement district. But the war came to an end before any of these 5 got into production. 

Five days after Gellman met Garsson and one day after Erie Basin Metal Products, Inc., was certified as a New York corporation. Colonel English, now Chief, Industrial Service, OC CWS, as CWS contracting officer, issued a letter of intent to the new company at 75 West Street, New York, N.Y. This letter was an order for 15,000 4.2-inch chemical mortar shell bodies and 15,000 chemical mortar shell fuzes, "the shell bodies f.o.b. common carrier, Brooklyn, N.Y., or Elgin, 111, the fuzes, f.o.b. common carrier, point of loading and assembly. A provision to manufacture an item at either of two locations was seldom if ever included in government contracts. The provision for the manufacture of fuzes was deleted as of 27 April 1942. ... 

Thirteen years after the close of the war the Department of Justice had two civil and one criminal cases pending against the Erie Basin Metal Products, Inc. and Erie Basin had two civil suits pending against the government. 

---