Donald W. Douglas opened the Long Beach facility on the eve of World War II, having run out of production space at his plant in Santa Monica, Calif., as well as at a second facility in El Segundo, Calif. In 1941, when Douglas opened the new aircraft assembly plant adjacent to Daugherty Field in Long Beach, the company was a major supplier to allied air services in World War II. During the war, it delivered more than 31,000 aircraft, including the C-47 Skytrain (a version of the DC-3), SBD dive-bomber, C-54 transport (the military version of the DC-4), A-20 and A-26 attack bombers and B-17 bomber.