File:Cracker USA 1944.png

English: America's petroleum industries pour out fuel and lubricants for the United Nations. These three new catalytic oil "cracking" units are turning out gasoline for the new machines of war at the plant of a large U.S. refining company in the southern U.S. state of Louisiana. In the eight years of the development of the "cracking" process in producing gasoline, it is estimated that 1,000,000,000 barrels of crude oil have been saved by the oil industry. The "cracking" process subjects crude oil to heat and pressure by which the oil molecules are broken down and made to release more of their derivable elements. The drain of war on such gasoline producing units as these is shown by the fact that the U.S. has manufactured 180,000 planes since December 7, 1941, propelled by gasoline motors. For example, one U.S. Liberator four-motored bomber in a six-hour bombing run consumes 1,800 gallons of gasoline, enough to last the average U.S. civilian motorist from three to five years