[2] The company was formed on 9 December 1940 as the Todd California Shipbuilding Corporation.
[3] The company was originally a major producer of magnesium during World War II and derives its name from the Permanente Creek in Santa Clara County, California where mining operations commenced in the early 1930s.
To make use of its major product, powdered magnesium, PMC also developed and supplied an incendiary bomb mixture of magnesium powder, asphalt, gasoline, and other components (known as "goop," with similar characteristics to napalm); 17,000 short tons of goop-filled bombs were used in World War II (approximately eight percent of the total tonnage of incendiaries that were dropped during that conflict).
[4] Permanente ranked 42nd among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.
Permanente Metals was henceforth the Kaiser Aluminum & Chemicals Corporation.