Across a red brick factory near Providence, R.I. a huge sign sprawls: UNIVERSAL WINDING co., WORLD'S LARGEST MANUFACTURER OF TEXTILE WINDING MACHINES.
Behind that peaceful boast, a miracle in production-for-war was being worked last week. Nine months from scratch—in just half the time normally necessary for production preliminaries—Universal assembled the first service models of a new military rifle.
The rifle: Captain (Marine Corps Reserve) Melvin Maynard Johnson's famed semiautomatic. Up to last week this gun had existed only in a few experimental models. On a subcontract let by Inventor Johnson last November, Universal...
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