The others, completed in the 1930s, were located in Dearborn, Michigan (site of the Fords' Fair Lane estate); Sudbury, Massachusetts; two in Richmond Hill, Georgia (the Fords' winter home); Macon, Michigan; and Willow Run. Perhaps the most impressive breakthrough at Willow Run was Ford's technique for assembling the B-24's center wing section. Sixty-seven feet long, the B-24 had 450,000 parts and 360,000 rivets in 550 sizes, and it weighed 18 tons. The main building would be more than a mile long with dual, parallel assembly lines. What is your previous experience with unions? GM first built transmissions at the plant, and later automobiles including Chevrolet's Corvair and Nova models. The Willow Run airport was to produce the B-24 bomber to support the Allied war effort. The bugs were eventually worked out of the manufacturing processes, and by 1944, Ford was rolling a Liberator off the Willow Run production line every 63 minutes, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The largest of these hangars could house 20 B-24s at once, and included a control tower, a cafe, and a hotel. Some 12,000 women worked at the Willow Run bomber plant, each paid the same 85 cents an . Kaiser also built two C-123 Provider airframes at Willow Run, which were scrapped before delivery, as a procurement scandal involving the company put an end to any chance for future Air Force contracts. Of the seven chapels, this is the only one currently in use as a regular place of worship. Willow Run Wartime Problems - Michigan Technological University [8], Coordinates: 421428N 833304W / 42.241N 83.551W / 42.241; -83.551. sniffed Dutch Kindelberger, president of North American Aviation. "Decommissioning the plant is not an easy task. ", 1960 Chevrolet Corvair Sales Brochure, "The Prestige Car in Its Class". With the pressures of wartime production schedules -- and the sense that victory itself depended on their efforts -- Willow Run's employees needed occasional relief from their burdens. Despite intensive design efforts led by Ford production executive Charles E. Sorensen,[30] the opening of the plant still saw some mismanagement and bungling, and quality was uneven for some time. Approximately one-third of the plant's assembly line workers were female. [36][38], Once production began, it became difficult to introduce changes dictated by field experience in the various overseas theaters onto the production line in a timely fashion. Kaiser-Frazer produced some 739,000 cars at Willow Run between 1947 and 1953, when the company acquired Willys-Overland and moved all operations to the Willys factory in Toledo, Ohio. GM also produced vehicles next door at its Willow Run Assembly plant beginning a few years later, in 1959. The automaker proudly promoted its B-24 efforts in magazine advertisements. This made the farmers dislike the plant and its employees because the farmers viewed Willow Run and its employees as attempting to change the established community. generations. DETROIT -- The public will get the chance to visit the former Willow Run bomber plant in Ypsilanti Township, Mich., one last time Saturday before the factory is demolished. Part of the tour led them to a hidden room within the facility: "His [Lewis] adventures in the plantalways accompanied by multiple flashlightshave lead him to amusing discoveries: a secret break room stashed in the middle of the plant. The valves that would shut the water off to different parts of the plant have been hidden in the building's entrails. [10] Ford, a keen exponent of the virtues of country living, used it as farmland for a "social engineering" experiment that brought inner-city boys to the Willow Run Camp to learn about farming, nature, and the rural way of life. Construction on the Bomber Plant began in March, 1941. The airport is now home to cargo airlines, charter flights and corporate jets. At last Willow Run hit its stride in 1944. Cafeterias provided meals to administrative workers in the plant's offices. It was thought to be the largest factory under one roof anywhere in the world. By Tim Trainor. Willow Run Lodge, Housing for Willow Run Bomber Plant Workers, 1945 Every American automaker turned its workforce and facilities to military production during World War II. Like virtually all of the United States' industrial concerns, Ford Motor Company, by this time under the direction of Henry Ford's only son Edsel, directed its manufacturing output during World War II to Allied war production. Women did everything from clerical work in the offices to riveting and welding on the assembly line. However, in October 1941, Ford received permission from Consolidated and the Army to assemble complete Liberators on its own at its new Willow Run facility. 80, Squadron/Signal Publications Inc. Johnson, Fredrick A (1996) Consolidated B-24 Liberator - Warbird Tech Vol. In April 2013, the Detroit Free Press confirmed that the facility's current owner, RACER Trust, was negotiating with the Yankee Air Museum to preserve a small portion of the original bomber plant as a new home for the museum. Transportation history for an electronic age is underway at Willow Run at the American Center for Mobility, where carmakers, suppliers and high-technology companies have banded together to research, develop and test driverless cars that communicate with one another and with traffic signals to avoid accidents and adjust traffic flow. How Detroit Factories Retooled During WWII to Defeat Hitler - History After nearly 60 years at the site, GM ended its Willow Run operations in 2010. . The influx of workers for the massive war . Summary. move the yankee air museum into . Frank B. Woodford, 'Willow Run Poses Problems,' New York Times, 19 April 1942, E10; Glenn H. Cummings, 'Biggest War Plant,' Wall Street Journal, 26 May 1942, 1; 'Ford Stand Stirs War Housing Issue,' New York Times, 28 June 1942, 25; Agnes E. Meyer, 'Detroit's Willow Run Area Is A Housing Nightmare ,' At peak production, B-24s sheathed in 4,200 square feet of bonded aluminum rolled out the door every hour. Automobiles of the era had 15,000 parts and weighed around 3,000 pounds. Willow Run's problems came under a microscope in April 1942 and again in February 1943, when Senator Harry S. Truman visited the plant. The salvaged Hydramatic transmission tooling and machinery relocated to Willow Run and were back in production just nine weeks after the fire.[43]. Some 2,500 were parked in an Arizona desert awaiting the day when their aluminum skin and innards would be smelted into ingots for production of coffee percolators, toasters, pots and pans, and myriad other consumer and industrial products to satisfy the ravenous maw of Americas peacetime economy. Since the 2010 closure of Willow Run Transmission, the factory complex has been managed by the RACER Trust, which controls the properties of the former General Motors. In 1972, the University spun off WRL into the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan, which eventually left Willow Run for offices in Ann Arbor. During this time he was a pioneer of American production. In on-site classrooms, newly hired workers sat through orientation lectures on the aircraft industry in general, the B-24's specific importance to the war, and the dire consequences should the Allies lose the fight. For this reason, a series of Air Technical Service Command modification centers were established for the incorporation of these required theater changes into new Liberators following their manufacture and assignments. The B-24 Bomber, officially known as the B-24 Liberator, was designed by Consolidated Aircraft Co., San Diego, California. By the mid-1920s, a local family operating as Quirk Farms had bought the land in Van Buren Township that became the airport. the yankee air museum into it and show people what the history . 20900 Oakwood Boulevard, Dearborn, MI 481245029, Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation Overview, Teacher's Choice @ Giant Screen Experience, Henry Austin Clark, Jr. Graduate Internship, Clark Travel-to-Collections Research Fellowship, Diversity and Inclusion Internship Program, Teacher's Choice @ Giant Screen Experience, Educator Professional Development Overview, 6000th Ford B-24 in Flight over Detroit, Michigan, September 13, 1944, B-24 Bomber in Flight, Willow Run Bomber Plant, 1944, Ford Rouge Plant Administration Building from the Ford Rotunda, Dearborn, Michigan, 1936, Henry Ford at Willow Run Bomber Plant Construction Site, 1941, Flow Chart for B-24 Production at the Willow Run Bomber Plant, 1944, Charles Sorensen and Others Viewing a Scale Model of the Willow Run Bomber Plant, July 1941, Interior of the Ford Willow Run Bomber Plant during Construction, 1941, Aerial View of the Ford Motor Company Willow Run Bomber Plant, September 1945, Workers Arriving and Departing by Bus at Willow Run Bomber Plant, 1942, Crowd at Dedication of Tri-Level Highway Overpass, Willow Run, Michigan, 1942, Willow Run Lodge, Housing for Willow Run Bomber Plant Workers, 1945, Employees in Classroom at the Willow Run Bomber Plant, 1942, B-24 Fuselage Assembly Line, Willow Run Bomber Plant, 1942, B-24 Bombers on Assembly Line at Ford Motor Company Willow Run Bomber Plant, January 1943, Senator Harry S. Truman and Ford Executive Charles Sorensen with B-24 Liberator at Willow Run Bomber Plant, 1942, B-24 Engine Assembly Line, Willow Run Bomber Plant, 1942, B-24 Bomber Wing Assembly, Ford Motor Company Willow Run Plant, 1944, Employees Assembling Bomber at Willow Run Plant, March 1943, Women Riveters at Willow Run Bomber Plant, Michigan, 1944, Employee Handling the Material Flow for the B-24 Bomber, Willow Run Bomber Plant, 1944, Chefs Preparing Food at Willow Run Bomber Plant Kitchen, 1942, Hangar Hospital, Willow Run Bomber Plant, 1942, Baseball Game at Willow Run Bomber Plant Recreation Field, September 1944, Comparing Cast and Welded Part with Pieced and Riveted Part to Improve Production, Willow Run Bomber Plant, 1944, B-24 Liberator Assembly Line at Ford Willow Run Bomber Plant, 1944, Portrait of Edsel Ford by Pirie MacDonald, 1934, B-24 Bomber Assemblies Being Loaded Into a Trailer, Willow Run Bomber Plant, circa 1943, 6,000th B-24 Bomber at Ford Motor Company Willow Run Plant, September 9, 1944, Henry Ford and President Franklin Roosevelt Touring the Willow Run Bomber Plant, 1942, Ford Institutional Advertisement on the B-24 Bomber, "Watch the Fords Go By! Ford built 37 planes in January, 70 in February, 96 in March, and 146 in April. The first Ford-built Liberator rolled off the Willow Run line in September 1942; the first series of Willow Run Liberators was the B-24E. workforce became a model of diversity for future [7] Indeed, the majority of the plant was demolished in late 2013 and early 2014. The Ford Motor Company's Willow Run Bomber Plant began production in 1942 and continued until June 28, 1945. [1] Construction of the Willow Run Bomber Plant began in 1940[2] and was completed in 1942. Dwarfs, whose physical stature had limited prewar employment opportunities, toiled inside wings, fuel cells and other confined spaces. 7:00 PM. Do you support unions, and are they still relevant? While . Cast Iron Charlie had two Liberators flown to Dearborn where they were dismantled piece by piece. [3][41], Ford had switched over to the single-tailed B-24N in May 1945, but the end of the war in Europe in the same month brought a rapid end to Liberator production; the contract with Ford was officially terminated on 31 May 1945 and orders for 5168 unbuilt B-24N-FO bombers were cancelled as well. Manufacturing costs were slashed as man-hours per plane plummeted. "[12], Henry and Clara Bryant Ford dedicated a series of churches, the chapels of Martha and Mary as a perpetual tribute to their mothers, Mary Ford and Martha Bryant. Overhead cranes would hoist completed sections onto the final assembly line for joining into a finished aircraft, the same way cars were put together, but on a grand scale in a massive new plant. Instead, upstart automaker Kaiser-Frazer Corporation moved into the factory. "C-SPAN Cities Tour - Ann Arbor: Willow Run Bomber Plant", GM Powertrain plant and engineering center, Environmental Research Institute of Michigan, "Willow Run and the Arsenal of Democracy", "Willow Run Bomber Plant, Beginning Construction, 1940", "How Ford's Willow Run Assembly Plant Helped Win World War II", "Former GM Willow Run plant attracts $9 million offer from redevelopers", "Former GM Willow Run plant may be demolished", "Willow Run | Detroit Historical Society", "Do you have any information on Camp Legion and Camp Willow Run? All Rights Reserved BNP Media. we intend to save that. Willow Run Airport has remained active as a cargo and general aviation airfield. It also provided a final inspection of the aircraft and made any appropriate final changes; i.e., install long-range fuel tanks, remove unnecessary equipment, and give it a final flight safety test. [49] The majority of the $8 million goal reflects separation costs to make the preserved portion of the plant viable as a standalone structure. Changeovers required onerous delays and costly retooling. His sketches embraced the two fundamentals of mass production: standardized, interchangeable parts and continuous, orderly flow punctuated by stops at assembly stations where workers and machines performed repetitive tasks. Not only did Ford build 490 complete planes, but it also supplied components of B-24Es as kits that could be trucked for final assembly at the factories of Consolidated in Fort Worth and Douglas in Tulsa, 144 and 167 kits. Skeptics dismissed mass production of a plane this enormous and advanced as a carmakers fantasy that would crash and burn when repeated design changes disrupted assembly lines and junked expensive tooling. The building is currently being used to house and protect of the Museum's large aircraft . Work Experience of Willow Run Workers 1075 - Jstor [13], The Willow Run Chapel[14] was the one originally built for Camp Willow Run, and became the place of worship for the Belleville Presbyterian Church in 1979 after a series of handoffs. For government officials, Ford offered significant advantages. ", Demolition of the majority of the Willow Run facility began in December 2013. Baseball games at the on-site recreation field took away some of the strain during off-duty hours. Specialized employees -- riveters, for example -- received training in these classrooms as well. It appears that Camp Willow Run shut down after the 1941 season with the coming of the bomber plant, many of the boys went to work at the Willow Run village industry plant, and others moved on to the apprentice and trade school. [50], Meanwhile, the remaining portion of the Willow Run property, which includes over 95% of the historic original bomber plant building, was optioned to Walbridge, Inc., for redevelopment as a connected car research and test facility. Because of the many structural changes required to accommodate the nose turret, the first B-24Hs were delivered slightly behind schedule, with the first machines rolling off the production lines at Ford in late June 1943. Workers at Willow Run built a staggering 8,685 B-24 bombers -- 6,792 complete planes and 1,893 knock-down kits -- by the time the last one was finished on June 28, 1945. It seems like a production miracle that the people working at Willow Run bomber plant were able to produce the B-24 Liberator at such tremendous speed. Although Willow Run is synonymous with the Liberator bomber, B-24s were not the only planes manufactured at Willow Run. Sociologist and professor Lowell Juilliard Carr and James Edson Stermer of the University of Michigan studied the sociological conditions at Willow Run arising from the wartime surge in the worker population in their book of 1952. The B-24 and the Willow Run Bomber Plant | Flickr Architect Albert Kahn boasted that the Willow Run plant would be the Warren Avis, a decorated B-24 pilot in the 376th Bombardment Group, opened the nations first airport rental car service in the terminal and grew it into Avis Rent A Car Systems. 550 sizes, and it weighed 18 tons. It's all narrated with a fantastic mid-Atlantic accent that perfectly fits the . The errant flush caused Lewis grief as he tried to find the source of the sound. He went on to oversee operations at the companys River Rouge complex where 100,000 workers could produce 10,000 cars a day, from raw materials to finished products. Many fled after their first day, traumatized by the smell, constant clanging and motion of machinery, and overpowering size of the place. Sorensen stayed up all night formulating a B-24 assembly process on the backs of Coronado Hotel placemats. The B-24 Liberator was a prolific bomber that was operated by multiple branches of the United States military as well as other Allied forces in the European and Pacific . By mid-1944, the Willow Run assembly plant Perhaps, when peace returned, customers would remember Ford's achievement when it came time to shop for a new car. Completed planes flew off to field modification centers for fixes, upgrades and customizing. the end of the assembly line where 8700 b-24s rolled out. Video: Inside the Ford Willow Run Bomber Plant - Mac's Motor City Garage Ford's Willow Run Factory - Warfare History Network The final B-24 bomber was produced at Willow Run plant on June 28, 1945. Modifications resulted from lessons learned in fighting fronts and from the need to modify the plane for its multiple roles. Here is his description of the visit and how he conceived the Willow Run bomber plant that eventually manufactured 8,800 of these aircraft. The first B-24Ms were delivered in October 1944, and by the end of its production in 1945, Willow Run had built 1677; 124 Ford-built B-24Ms were cancelled before delivery. Ford struggled to get Willow Run running at full potential. Willow Run - B24 Liberator - Military History of the Upper Great Lakes Willow Run, also known as Air Force Plant 31, was a manufacturing complex in Michigan, United States, located between Ypsilanti Township and Belleville, built by the Ford Motor Company to manufacture aircraft, especially the B-24 Liberator heavy bomber. You must have JavaScript enabled to enjoy a limited number of articles over the next 30 days. The factory was nearly an hour's drive from Detroit, and the imposition of wartime gasoline and tire rationing had made the daily commute difficult. Willow Run produced 739,000 cars as part of Kaiser-Frazer and Kaiser Motors, from 1947 through 1953, when after years of losses, the company (now called Kaiser Motors after Frazer's exit from the partnership) purchased Willys-Overland and began moving its production at Willow Run to the Willys plant in Toledo, Ohio. [21], Also in the Willow Run Village were the West Court[24] buildings, with peaked rooftops and space for couples or three adults. It was the company that perfected the moving assembly line in the 1910s and, as a privately owned firm, it could move faster than publicly traded corporations. Handcrafted versions were pressed into service in England, but the San Diego company lacked resources and methods for high-volume production of the largest, most complex airplane ever designed. Mass production of B-24s must rely on continuous assembly flow, or they couldnt be built at all. For webinar sponsorship information, visit www.bnpevents.com/webinars or email [email protected]. The plant was originally designed to be able to continue to operate if parts of it were ever bombedwhich resulted in dedicated water, compressed air and gas lines to different areas of the building.". The ungainly aircraft flew faster (300 mph) than the sleeker B-17, carried heavier payloads (four tons of bombs, later increased to six tons), and had greater range (3,000 miles). Every available room within miles was rented, including those with eight-hour shifts called hot beds. With so many young men drafted into the armed forces, Willow Run's workforce was unusually diverse for its time: African Americans, whites, older people, younger men unable to serve in the military, and -- most notably -- women. The iconic Rosie the Riveter may seem to be simply a fiction from the past but she has a name - and an important history. In 2011, A.E. The Willow Run Plant had many initial startup problems, due primarily to the fact that Ford employees were used to automobile mass production and found it difficult to adapt these techniques to aircraft production. Among them were farmhands, secretaries, housewives, schoolteachers and grocery clerks. In November 2016, RACER Trust sold Willow Run to an entity created by the State of Michigan, which leases the property to the American Center for Mobility (AMC).[9]. You can select the language displayed on our website. Expectations were crushed and the sarcastic appellation Willit Run gained wide circulation. "It was a like a town of its own," said Rancour, 88 . those represent the end of the plant. The war's focus was shifting from Europe to Japan, where more-advanced B-29 bombers were needed. '"[31], A 1943 committee authorized by Congress to examine problems at the plant issued a highly critical report; the Ford Motor Company had created a production line that too closely resembled an automobile assembly line "despite the warning of many experienced aircraftmen."[32]. Charles Sorensen boasted that Ford would produce B-24s at the rate of one each hour. was producing one B-24 per houraccounting Global Headquarters | LITE-ON Technology Corporation Inspection of more than a thousand separate tubing pieces composing the fuel, hydraulic, de-icing and other systems in a bomber is a highly important job. Linen (Material). History of Willow Run Bomber Plant : CSPAN3 - Archive Each completed B-24 contained more than 300,000 rivets in more than 500 sizes. . Consolidated had built each wing with its own temporary jig to hold the structure in place. A rough-hewn, hard-charging martinet, Cast Iron Charlie played a principal role in conceiving and designing the worlds first moving assembly line at Fords Highland Park plant bordering Detroit. On the other side of the airport from the assembly plant were a group of World War II hangars, which were sold to the University of Michigan in 1946. Sixty-seven feet long, the B-24 had 450,000 parts and 360,000 rivets in A never-ending stream of water gurgles through the pipes to parts unknown like an underground stream. Despite how smoothly the plant ran, putting out a bomber an hour still wasn't an easy feat. The Yankee Air Museum acquired a portion of the plant, for preservation and exhibit purposes, in 2013. The 2023 Detroit Area Crosstown Challenge. Click the drop-down menu below and make your selection. GMs Chevrolet Division assembled rear-engine Corvairs in a converted warehouse on the grounds during a 10-year run beginning in 1959. [11], Later in 1953, after a fire on August 12 destroyed General Motors' Detroit Transmission factory in Livonia, Michigan, the Willow Run complex was first leased and then later sold to GM. [3], Upon the introduction of the B-24J, all three of the Liberator manufacturing plants converted to the production of this version. [1] Construction of the Willow Run Bomber Plant began in 1940 [2] and was completed in 1942. How Ford's Willow Run Assembly Plant Helped Win World War II He was violently anti-union and there were serious labor difficulties, including a massive strike. When Ford declined to purchase the facility after the war, Kaiser-Frazer Corporation gained ownership, and in 1953 Ford's rival General Motors took ownership and operated the factory as Willow Run Transmission until 2010. PEGATRON CORPORATION Company Profile | Taipei City, Taiwan Ford Motor would not only build the bombers, it would supply the airfield as well; the farm at Willow Run was an ideal location for the airfield's runways, being under the personal ownership of Henry Ford (thus solving any land acquisition problem) and sited between the main roads and rail lines connecting Detroit with Ann Arbor and points to the west. Adjacent to the factory complex, Ford constructed a 1,484-acre airport with six runways and three aircraft hangars. While assembly workers formed the heart of Willow Run's workforce, there were numerous administrative, clerical and support staff members too. Dies and machine tools were tossed out and redesigned, wasting precious time and millions of dollars. The company resumed automobile production within a week. In some places, the bulbs had been simply painted over and left in their sockets as GM quickly re-tooled assembly lines. According to legend, this arrangement allowed the company to pay taxes on the entire plant (and its equipment) to Washtenaw County, and avoid the higher taxes of Wayne County where the airfield is located; overhead views suggest that avoiding encroachment on the airfield's taxiways was also a motivation.[18]. It was constructed in 1941 by the Ford Motor Company for the mass production of the B-24 Liberator military aircraft. That was the schedule six days a week. [15] Ford Motor was to have first option on the plant after war production ended, an option it ultimately chose not to exercise, although a rumor in Drew Pearson's syndicated column had Ford planning a postwar use as a tractor factory,[16] but that never came to pass. It was an historic but ephemeral achievement. There were 24 lunch rooms located throughout the complex. [48], By the May 1, 2014, deadline, the Yankee Air Museum had raised over $7 million of its original $8 million fundraising goal, which was enough to enable the building's owners to move forward with signing a Purchase Agreement with Yankee, with the actual purchase expected to be finalized in late summer or fall of 2014.
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