[1] In 1920 Anthony Fokker had established the Netherlands Aircraft Manufacturing Company of Amsterdam as his American sales office.

[2] The company's representatives were Robert B. C. Noorduyn and Frits Cremer, a friend and test pilot for Anthony Fokker since before World War I.

But Fokker's typical construction of wooden wings and a steel-tube fuselage, both covered with fabric, also attracted the attention of the US Army.

The only restriction was that these had to be manufactured in the United States, therefore, Fokker purchased the Wittemann-Lewis factory in 1923 and founded the Atlantic Aircraft Corporation in May 1924.

Fokker Aircraft Company of America became a subsidiary of General Motors which acquired a 40 percent holding in May 1929, but ended operations the following year as a combination of the effect of the Great Depression and bad publicity[clarification needed] surrounding the 1931 crash of a Transcontinental & Western Air Fokker F-10 that killed celebrated football coach Knute Rockne.