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Hellcat's Father. The father of the Hellcats is a medium-sized, 49-year-old man. He has a pink face, seamed with hundreds of tiny wrinkles, sharp, bright blue eyes, sandy red hair and the twanging voice of a New England storekeeper. He is stoop-shouldered and extraordinarily shy, moves about as if he hopes no one will notice him. A Navy flyer, meeting him for the first time, said: "You don't look like the guy who builds Hellcats." Roy Grum man looks more like the suburban fellow who lives next door.
The Grumman home is a white-shingled, blue-shuttered, 17-room house in Plandome, L.I., overlooking Long Island Sound. There Roy Grumman lives with his wife, Rose Marion, and his four children: Marion, 22, whose Army captain husband is stationed in England; Florence, 20, called "Flicker"; Grace, 18; and David, 9, who is known as "Butch" by his own request.
Because Grumman plants, 17 miles away at Bethpage, have sucked in all available labor, Roy Grumman sometimes cuts the grass on his three acres himself. At 8:30 a.m. on workdays he drives his Lincoln Continental to Bethpage, returns about 6:30 p.m. He spends his evenings reading, drops in on neighbors with his wife, or plays bridge — with men if possible. He thinks women "talk too much."
Although he lives only 20 miles from Manhattan, Roy Grumman rarely goes to town. He dislikes big cities. He was born in a small town, Huntington, L.I. (pop. 6,000), where his father had a carriage shop, some ten miles from the present Grumman plant. Roy has seldom got far away. Four years at Cornell (he worked his way through) and three years in the Navy as a World War I seaman and pilot — he was a lieutenant (j.g.) when discharged — failed to loosen his Long Island roots. He has a small-towner's taste in clothes, usually wears blue-striped shirts and striped ties. He is particular only about his shoes, which must have thick, crepe-rubber soles (he bought ten pairs just before World War II began). These bulky sneakers are easy on his feet as he shambles over the acres of plant floors.
Shirt Sleeves. There is nothing of the big business tycoon about Roy Grumman in his office. As soon as he gets there, he takes off his coat. Then he props his feet on the desk or an open drawer, puts a pipe or cigar in his mouth, and is ready to make all the Hellcats the Navy needs.
His office is small, with brown linoleum on the floor. Small as the office is, President Grumman shares it with a balding onetime professional basketball player named Leon A. ("Jake") Swirbul, 45, Grumman's executive vice president and production boss. Like Grumman, Jake Swirbul grew up in a small town (Sag Harbor, L.I. — pop. 2,517), also attended Cornell, but left to enlist in the Marines in World War I. Swirbul is big, hard-muscled and walks with the quick steps of a prizefighter. He is talkative, exact (Grumman is vague), with a passion for planning production to the last thousandth of an inch. These two temperamental opposites mesh into the smoothest team in the aircraft industry.
How the Team Plays. Roy & Jake have a big job on their hands. The Bethpage plant sprawls over 200 acres employs 21,000 workers. Its five red brick buildings turn out more combat planes than any other single plant in the U.S.