Ford struggled to get Willow Run running at full potential. 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. WOO Network is a fast-growing Fintech startup and a deep liquidity network with a mission to empower individuals with the right to freely trade, invest, borrow and lend to better their lives. Adjacent to the factory complex, Ford constructed a 1,484-acre airport with six runways and three aircraft hangars. The President and First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, visited Willow Run on September 18, 1942, where they joined Henry Ford, Edsel Ford and Charles Sorensen on a tour of the complex. At last Willow Run hit its stride in 1944. Ypsilanti's oldest claim to fame: a bomber plant unlike any other It was an historic but ephemeral achievement. Video: Inside the Ford Willow Run Bomber Plant - Mac's Motor City Garage Winston Churchill called his specially outfitted B-24 the Commando. The plant's kitchen prepared nearly 10,000 rolls each day. But when we send the 24's out, most of them don't. ", 1960 Chevrolet Corvair Sales Brochure, "The Prestige Car in Its Class". All true, but he didnt mention the hard steel dies he authorized, the same types used to slam auto parts into shape, damaged and defaced the softer aluminum, a metal comprising 85 percent of B-24 content. 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. Every American automaker turned its workforce and facilities to military production during World War II. B-24 Liberators line the airfield at Willow Run Airport in this June 1945 photo. Global Headquarters | LITE-ON Technology Corporation [47], Building owner RACER Trust extended the original fundraising deadline (August 1, 2013) a total of three times since the Yankee Air Museum launched its SaveTheBomberPlant.org campaign. Sadly, one of the people most responsible for Willow Run's success did not live to see it. President Roosevelt stunned millions of listeners when he announced during a May 26, 1940, fireside chat that government must harness the efficient machinery of Americas manufacturers to produce 50,000 combat aircraft over the next 12 months to confront the approaching storm of global war. As the problems continued into 1943, critics took to calling the plant "Will it Run.". Long car rides from Detroit over lumpy roads and in overcrowded buses discouraged thousands of employees who left for jobs closer to home. Ford Motor Company built everything from jeeps to generators during World War II, but nothing else was on the scale of Willow Run. 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. In addition to making automatic transmissions, Willow Run Transmission also produced the M16A1 rifle and the M39A1 20mm autocannon for the US military during the Vietnam War. Those who stayed hunkered down in tarpaper shacks, tents, garages, and beat-up trailers and jalopies. The bomber plant adjacent to the airport produced the famed World War II bombers in a plant built by Henry Ford. Together they produced more of the slab-sided behemoths than any American warplane ever. Deemed unfit for combat, they were assigned to training bases, reconnaissance patrols and transport duties. The housing shortage Sorensen complained about arose from his choice of a sparsely populated rural setting 30 miles west of Detroits labor poolan island in Michigan mud, as one writer viewed it. 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.". You cant expect a blacksmith to make a watch overnight, It still has the original pews and other furnishings; the only other set in active use belongs to the Greenfield Village chapel.[13]. Meanwhile, Ford was savaged in the Detroit press because it took too long. Paper (Fiber product) The final B-24 bomber was produced at Willow Run plant on June 28, 1945. According to Max Wallace, Air Corps Chief General "Hap" Arnold told Charles Lindbergh, then a consultant at the plant, that "combat squadrons greatly preferred the B-17 bomber to the B-24 because 'when we send the 17's out on a mission, most of them return. [1] Construction of the Willow Run Bomber Plant began in 1940 [2] and was completed in 1942. GM first built transmissions at the plant, and later automobiles including Chevrolet's Corvair and Nova models. Considerable water was furnished to the Willow Run bomber plant from the Ypsilanti public-supply system during the period from August 1941 through March 1943. Managing the utilities and slowly shutting them off has been Lewis' biggest challenge, as the building is hard-pressed to give up its secrets. 1250 B-24L aircraft were built at Willow Run. Consolidated had built each wing with its own temporary jig to hold the structure in place. While . [48] On October 26, 2013, RACER Trust and the Yankee Air Museum again reached a third, and final, deadline extension agreement that gave Yankee until May 1, 2014, to raise the $8 million estimated as necessary to secure, enclose and preserve a portion of the original Willow Run plant for the Yankee Air Museum. The average daily pumpage in million gallons was about 1.68 in 1942, 1.70 in 1943, and 1.66 in 1944. The Willow Run Expressway also connected with the Detroit Industrial Expressway, built at the same time. you can see the two big hangar doors behind me. Ford proved that even the most complicated military machines could be built using the techniques it pioneered with the Model T. At war's end, Ford Motor Company chose not to exercise its option to buy the Willow Run plant. One pundit referred to it as a sprawling mass of industrial ambition. Folklore has it that Henry Ford decreed that the eastern perimeter of the windowless, L-shaped edifice not spill over into Wayne County, home to Detroit and all those rascally Democrats and union organizers. From the Collections of The Henry Ford. 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. Quirk Farms was purchased by automobile pioneer Henry Ford in 1931. 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. For those unable to endure a long commute, the federal government constructed housing on nearby farmland purchased from Henry Ford. Although officially retired, Henry Ford still had a say in the company's affairs and refused government financing for Willow Run, preferring to have his company build the factory and sell it to the government, which would lease it back to the company for the duration of the war. More than 18,000 were built. The Yankee Air Museum resides on the airport grounds, occupying as of April 2013 a 47,000-square-foot (4,400m2) hangar and other properties. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. Photographic print. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Please click here to continue without javascript.. Increase Assembly Productivity With Cobot Automation, Manufacturing Cost Policy Deployment (MCPD) Profitability Scenarios: Systematic and Systemic Improvement of Manufacturing Costs, How Lean Helped GEs Turbine Factory Find Its Mojo, 2018 Assembly Plant of the Year: Ford Shifts Flexible Assembly Into High Gear. Lloyd, Alwyn T. (1993), Liberator: America's Global Bomber, Pictorial Histories Publishing Co, Inc. O'Leary, Michael, (2003), Consolidated B-24 Liberator (Osprey Production Line to Frontline 4), Osprey Publishing, Weber, Austin. After the war, Ford sold the chapel to Kaiser-Frazer, who in turn sold it to General Motors as part of the purchase of the Willow Run bomber plant. It sat 35 miles west of Detroit, at a site without existing highway or streetcar connections. This was largely because of Henry Ford. Sorensen was shocked. For webinar sponsorship information, visit www.bnpevents.com/webinars or email webinars@bnpmedia.com. By mid-1944, the Willow Run assembly plant was producing one B-24 per houraccounting for half of all B-24s assembled that year. Between June and December 1943, construction was completed on temporary "flat-top" buildings providing homes for 2,500 families. Thirty-eight tons of structural steel, five million bricks, and six months later, the $65-million colossus began churning out parts while equipment was still being installed and roof and walls remained unfinished. He may have been right. 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. At its peak, Willow Run employed more than 15,000 women -- some 35 percent of its total staff. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Sorensen, Edsel Ford and Henry Ford well understood the difficulties in precision mass production. Reality proved otherwise. In the meantime, visitors to the Yankee Air Museum at the airport can see how the blacksmith made a watch and helped win a war. Unlike menacing B-24 Liberators that took off from the same spot, these silent vehicles are on a mission to save lives and prevent destruction. A Bomber An Hour - Strategos, Inc After nearly 60 years at the site, GM ended its Willow Run operations in 2010. 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]. Blacks and other minorities were welcomed and so were immigrants. The largest of these hangars could house 20 B-24s at once, and included a control tower, a cafe, and a hotel. 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. After Ford declined to purchase the plant, it was sold to the Kaiser-Frazer Corporation, a partnership of construction and shipbuilding magnate Henry J. Kaiser and Graham-Paige executive Joseph W. Frazer. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. When . Ford Motor Company had reinvented the concept with the Model T's moving assembly line. Sorensen protested that Willow Run could not function under these strictures. Four 1,200-hp Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp engines assembled by Buick Motor Division shook the earth as the newly minted war machines cast aloft on test flights. 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. generations. Some 12,000 women worked at the Willow Run bomber plant, each paid the same 85 cents an . The standard workweek for all hourly employees was 54 hours, with time-and-a-half pay for each hour over 40. [40], The B-24E was the first variant of the B-24 that underwent primary manufacture by Ford at Willow Run. This was done at Willow Run by 1st Concentration Command (1st CC). [55] By mid-2014, the majority of the facility had been demolished and cleared. Their shopping list included 12,000 of these aerial battleships to attack Germanys heartland, hammering military installations, bridges, factories, rail yards, fuel storage tanks and communications centers. Another large dormitory project, containing 1,960 rooms and known as West Lodge, was also ready for tenants at that time. Numbers climbed steadily throughout the year. The residents of the Willow Run Camp planted, tended, and harvested field crops and collected maple syrup, selling their products at the farm market on the property. Birthplace Of Rosie The Riveter: The Willow Run Bomber Plant Here is his description of the visit and how he conceived the Willow Run bomber plant that eventually manufactured 8,800 of these aircraft. While assembly workers formed the heart of Willow Run's workforce, there were numerous administrative, clerical and support staff members too. The museum would consolidate operations scattered on various parcels at Willow Run, and the Trust expects to clear the remainder of the plant for redevelopment. [21], Also in the Willow Run Village were the West Court[24] buildings, with peaked rooftops and space for couples or three adults. [7], For a period of time before the eventual demolition of Willow Run Assembly, portions were used as a warehouse, about a quarter of which was leased by GM as a facility for parts distribution.[45]. The Willow Run bomber plant made aviation, industrial and social historyalong with new B-24s by the hour. How Ford's Willow Run Assembly Plant Helped Win World War II One thousand planes a day: Ford, Grumman, General Motors and the The company also develops, designs, and manufactures peripherals and components for its products. In only one month, Ford had hired 2,900 workers but had lost 3,100. Ground-water supplies of the Ypsilanti area, Michigan Even with people driving 100 miles or renting every spare room between Ann Arbor and Grosse Pointe, the sheer size of Willow Run led inevitably to a housing shortage. 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. restore a piece of the building, about 175,000 square feet. 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. [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. Willow Run - B-24 Brief history | Chevy Tri Five Forum While there were many injuries, it is notable that Willow Run did not record a single fatality while the factory was in service. [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. Click the drop-down menu below and make your selection. Willow Run workers built 1,893 kits over the course of the war. . They presented the plan to Consolidated President Reuben Fleet and George Mead, procurement director for the Advisory Council for National Defense, who countered with an offer to produce a thousand sets of wings. Changeovers required onerous delays and costly retooling. Plastic Model Club | Willow Run Bomber Plant IPMS Chapter | Ypsilanti Boyshad time for recreation as well as work, each camp had a baseball diamond and the boys participated in a softball league, there was also volleyball and handball, movies were shown, and each camp also hosted harvest dances, inviting nearby high school students to join. [41], The B-24L was the first product of the new, downsized Liberator production pool. When Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945, only 7,400 employees remained on the Willow Run payroll. Riveting was an essential craft at Willow Run. A thousand-member tool design group worked around the clock seven days a week for almost a year to create three-dimensional schematics of the planes 30,000 separate components, generating five million square feet of blueprints in the process. [11] The Willow Run plant featured a large turntable two-thirds of the way along the assembly line, allowing the B-24 production line to make a 90 turn before continuing to final assembly. . For government officials, Ford offered significant advantages. Sorensen reviewed his concept at breakfast with Edsel, who responded enthusiastically to its vision and boldness and initialed it on the spot, as did Henry II and Benson, his two sons accompanying him on the trip. Most controversial was Ford's decision to replace soft metal dies -- thought to be gentler on aluminum airplane components -- with hard steel dies. The B-24H differed from earlier B-24s by having a second turret placed in the nose of the aircraft to increase defensive firepower. 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. Sorensen and his team carefully planned the new facility to the last detail. Many fled after their first day, traumatized by the smell, constant clanging and motion of machinery, and overpowering size of the place. GMAD required 16 years to completely absorb Fisher Body's operations, and Fisher would manufacture bodies at Willow Run Assembly until the 1970s; vehicles would roll off the line there until 1992. [21], By the end of 1943 there were six different temporary projects in the vicinity of Willow Run: two dormitory projects, two trailer projects (one renting trailers, and another for privately owned trailers; each with community laundry, shower, and toilet facilities), and two projects with apartments for couples or families, West Court and the Village. FDRs goal exceeded the total of all planes built in the U.S. since the Wright brothers 1903 flight at Kitty Hawk, NC, and he challenged the aviation industry to match that number in succeeding years. A parcel of land to the south of Powertrain was set aside for assembly operations that began in 1959, with a Fisher Body plant that built bodies for the Chevrolet models assembled there, including the Corvair and Nova. Willow Run Wartime Problems - Michigan Technological University High school graduates worked the line next to 70-year-olds. Ford would eventually sell its land to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation's Defense Plant Corporation in July 1944, shortly after the Ford farms were transferred to the company's ownership. The plant initially built components. Baseball games at the on-site recreation field took away some of the strain during off-duty hours. The remaining four hours were used to restock parts and change tooling. 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. The iconic Rosie the Riveter may seem to be simply a fiction from the past but she has a name - and an important history. . [6] In April 2013, a redevelopment manager for the RACER Trust said unused portions of the powertrain plant would likely be razed as a step toward redeveloping the property. The B-24J incorporated a hydraulically driven tail turret and other defensive armament modifications in the nose of the aircraft. They were producing a custom-made plane put together as a tailor would cut and fit a suit of clothes. In the process, the boys were to learn self-discipline and the values of hard work, and benefit from the fresh air of the country.[11]. After Kaiser left, General Motors leased and then purchased Willow Run. Willow Run's problems came under a microscope in April 1942 and again in February 1943, when Senator Harry S. Truman visited the plant. Faces of Detroit: War: Lunch at Willow Run Construction on the Bomber Plant began in March, 1941. It's all narrated with a fantastic mid-Atlantic accent that perfectly fits the . 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. But, as 1943 arrived, problems got solved and Willow Run turned a corner. AskUs", "Oral History Interview with John W. Snyder", "Ford May Convert Willow Run Into Huge Tractor Plant", "History of the original Willow Run Village", "They may save our honor, our hopesand our necks", AFHRA Document 00155775 1 Concentration Command History, AFHRA Document 00150138 AAFTC Technical Training Command, "Tucson International Airport's Historic Hangars", "History of the Willow Run Plant, Part 3", "Preservation group gets extension to raise money for historic Willow Run factory", "Willow Run bomber plant preservationists get more time to reach goal", "Yankee Air Museum signs deal for part of Willow Run Bomber Plant", "YPSILANTI TOWNSHIP: RACER Trust reaches demolition, development agreements for Willow Run plant", "Death of a factory: inside the Willow Run GM Powertrain plant for the last time", "Willow Run assembly plant demolition proceeding", "A Future NEW Home for the Yankee Air Museum", Detroit Edison Company Willis Avenue Station, Michigan Bell and Western Electric Warehouse, Piquette Avenue Industrial Historic District, Frederic M. Sibley Lumber Company Office Building, List of Registered Historic Places in Michigan, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Willow_Run&oldid=1134554587, Defunct aircraft manufacturers of the United States, Motor vehicle assembly plants in Michigan, United States home front during World War II, Michigan State Historic Sites in Washtenaw County, Michigan, Defunct manufacturing companies based in Michigan, Articles with dead external links from September 2020, Short description is different from Wikidata, Infobox mapframe without OSM relation ID on Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, military draft each month 8,200 workers drafted into military service, school the Aircraft Apprentice School had up to 8,000 students per week completed training and reported for work, dimensions More than 3,200 feet long and 1,279 feet across at its widest point, subassemblies parts production and subassemblies at almost 1,000 Ford factories and independent suppliers, This page was last edited on 19 January 2023, at 07:10. Ford built the factory and sold it to the government, then leased it back for the duration of the war. [1] Construction of the Willow Run Bomber Plant began in 1940[2] and was completed in 1942. Ford recruited workers throughout the Midwest and South. [44], By the time General Motors entered bankruptcy in 2009, manufacturing and assembly operations at Willow Run had dwindled to almost nothing; the GM Powertrain plant closed in December 2010 and the complex passed into the control of the RACER Trust, which is charged with cleaning up, positioning for redevelopment and ultimately, selling properties of the former General Motors.[7]. [46] The campaign attracted national, and even international, attention from media outlets that include many major news dailies in the US as well as National Public Radio, The History Channel magazine, National Geographic TV, The Guardian and the Daily Mail, the latter two of the UK. Willow Run Bomber Plant IPMS - USA. [36][37], While the planes were being serviced and made ready for overseas movement, personnel for these planes were also being processed. During this reduction, there was rumor that Ford would repurchase the plant from the government . the yankee air museum into it and show people what the history . A typical month saw as many workers quit as were hired, and 8,200 more were drafted into military service. Completed planes flew off to field modification centers for fixes, upgrades and customizing. By mid-1944, the Willow Run assembly plant It also required the installation of two turntables to turn airplane fuselages 90 degrees near the end of the assembly line. Manufacturing costs were slashed as man-hours per plane plummeted. Ford created a permanent jig into which wings could be moved in and out by overhead crane. most enormous room in the history of man.. sniffed Dutch Kindelberger, president of North American Aviation. Willow Run After WWII - Military History of the Upper Great Lakes Construction began April 18, 1941. An unknown number dwelt in the memories of plant foremen. Charles Sorensen boasted that Ford would produce B-24s at the rate of one each hour. The Story of Willow Run highlights several of the steps involved in building the aluminum-intensive aircraft. 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 . Do you support unions, and are they still relevant? [34] The B-24 holds the distinction of being the most produced heavy bomber in history. Cast Iron Charlie had two Liberators flown to Dearborn where they were dismantled piece by piece. To their dismay they discovered that engineering drawings for the big bomber were uselessincomplete and filled with discrepancies and unfamiliar signs and symbols. That was the schedule six days a week. In 1968, General Motors began reorganizing its body and assembly operations into the GM Assembly Division (GMAD). Eighty years ago this month, workers began clearing land near a small creek in Ypsilanti Township to make way for the largest factory in the world, the Willow Run Bomber Plant. By the end of the war, Ford had pushed 8,865 B-24 heavy bombers out the Willow Run doors for the Army . Out of sheer necessity, Willow Runs 42,500-member workforce became a model of diversity for future generations. Sorensen and his team methodically broke the complex bomber plane into 11 major assemblies, and then further divided these into 69 sub-assemblies. [17], Architect Albert Kahn designed the main structure of the Willow Run bomber plant, which had 3,500,000 square feet (330,000m2) of factory space, and an aircraft assembly line over a mile (1600m) long. The B-24 Bomber, officially known as the B-24 Liberator, was designed by Consolidated Aircraft Co., San Diego, California. When Cherry Hill outgrew the little chapel and decided to build a new church, it sold the chapel to the Belleville Presbyterian Church for one dollar in July 1978. "It was a like a town of its own," said Rancour, 88 . Sorensen could not guarantee that precision parts built by Ford would fit in airplanes built by Consolidated under those conditions. Employee training was a constant process at Willow Run. This website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. 80, Squadron/Signal Publications Inc. Johnson, Fredrick A (1996) Consolidated B-24 Liberator - Warbird Tech Vol. The aircraft manufacturer Douglas Aircraft, and the B-24's designer, Consolidated Aircraft, assembled the finished airplane. She was part of that migration, part of the 40,000 employees at the Ford-run Willow Run B-24 bomber plant and part of the great Arsenal of Democracy that Detroit and the Southeastern Michigan region became, cranking out airplanes, tanks, trucks, and weapons.
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