In 1941, the Levitts won a government contract to provide 2,350 housing units for defense workers in Norfolk, Virginia. While building these units, the brothers learned valuable lessons about the mass producing of houses. In 1944, William Levitt, then 36 years old and father of a 10-year-old son and a baby, James, was sent to Oahu, Hawaii as a lieutenant in the Navy Seabees. He was the personnel manager for 260 men in the Navy construction unit, but spent most of World War II gambling, drinking, and playing jazz piano. He also thought about what he would do after the war, knowing that his father and brother were making plans for him. Levitt felt that anyone who built a lot of low-cost housing after the war was going to be very wealthy. Wartime shortages had crippled the housing industry, but veterans were eager to buy homes and take advantage of government loans after the war.
