willow run bomber plant employees

The Willow Run area wasn't prepared to house many of the 42,000 workers who arrived when Ford Motor Company established its bomber plant there during World War II. Kaiser-Frazer moved into Willow Run and built civilian-style Jeeps, Henry J sedans, and C-119 cargo planes until going under in 1953. Sorensen and his team methodically broke the complex bomber plane into 11 major assemblies, and then further divided these into 69 sub-assemblies. Well build the whole plane or nothing, Sorensen barked, accompanied by the audacious claim that Ford would assemble new B-24s every hour. After nearly a year of work, the cost to keep the plant shuttered and standing is $7 million annually. Lewis, charged with dismantling the facility, has found it's taken more detective work than he thought to shut the plant down. those hangar doors represent the end of the plant, the end of the assembly line where 8700 b-24s rolled out. . Only 56 airplanes were built in all of 1942. we intend to restore a piece of the building, about 175,000 square feet. Years later, that stretch would become a section of I-94. The first section of an 850-acre airfield adjoining the plant opened three days prior to Pearl Harbor, signaling the Liberators primary war mission: long-range flights over Pacific waters to bomb networks of enemy-held islands stretching from Australia and Guadalcanal to the Japanese mainland some 3,000 miles distant. By the mid-1920s, a local family operating as Quirk Farms had bought the land in Van Buren Township that became the airport. Ford's production methods depended on a "fixed" design -- each design modification required expensive and time-consuming updates to the assembly line. Sadly, one of the people most responsible for Willow Run's success did not live to see it. It was an attempt to reverse the trend toward ever-increasing weight of the Liberator as more and more armament, equipment, and armor had been added, with no corresponding increase in engine power. 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. Do you support unions, and are they still relevant? Public bus lines offered 35 daily trips from Detroit, while private carriers offered 130. Production steadily increased, reaching the magical plane-per-hour pinnacle in mid-1944 while accounting for half of all B-24s assembled that year. While assembly workers formed the heart of Willow Run's workforce, there were numerous administrative, clerical and support staff members too. Established aircraft manufacturers, used to a much slower rate, considered the claim preposterous. The airport is now home to cargo airlines, charter flights and corporate jets. Every fluorescent light bulb in the plant must be taken out before the building can be torn down. 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. The Boeing B-29 Superfortress was taking over the long-range bombing role in the Pacific Theater and no new B-24 units were programmed for deployment in the other combat theaters of Europe, the Mediterranean or in the CBI. Every available room within miles was rented, including those with eight-hour shifts called hot beds. Ford proved them wrong, not easily nor entirely, during a 2.5-year production run in a 3.5-million-square-foot factory built over Willow Run Creek near Ypsilanti, MI. 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. Sixty-seven feet long, the B-24 had 450,000 parts and 360,000 rivets in This was largely because of Henry Ford. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. 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. was producing one B-24 per houraccounting Deemed unfit for combat, they were assigned to training bases, reconnaissance patrols and transport duties. During that time, the Ford Motor Company produced almost half of the B-24s built--8,685 out of 19,256. A never-ending stream of water gurgles through the pipes to parts unknown like an underground stream. The worksite Sorensen chose was a 1,875-acre Ford-owned tract that had been a farm camp for boys whose fathers were killed or disabled in World War I. Kahn had designed the Rouge and hundreds of other manufacturing facilities over a long and storied career. Summary. The plant held the distinction of being the world's largest enclosed "room." Photographic print. Perhaps, when peace returned, customers would remember Ford's achievement when it came time to shop for a new car. Construction began April 18, 1941. Five main contractors hurried the project along, and parts of the plant began production in September 1941. Four engines powered the aircraft, and together its two bomb bays could carry up to 8,000 pounds of explosives. The bomber plant produced its first B-24J in April 1944; 1587 were built at Willow Run. Many fled after their first day, traumatized by the smell, constant clanging and motion of machinery, and overpowering size of the place. The team developed the B-24's build sequence from these divisions. The chosen site was farmland owned by Henry Ford on the eastern edge of Michigan's Washtenaw County, near a creek called Willow Run. But when we send the 24's out, most of them don't. 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. '"[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]. The Willow Run complex has given its name to a community on the east side of Ypsilanti, defined roughly by the boundaries of the Willow Run Community School District. High school graduates worked the line next to 70-year-olds. By the end of the war, Ford had pushed 8,865 B-24 heavy bombers out the Willow Run doors for the Army . The airfield passed into civilian hands after the war and is now controlled by Wayne County Airport Authority. "It was a like a town of its own," said Rancour, 88 . In a strategic campaign, the airplanes and their crews attacked factories, railroads, harbors and -- as the war progressed -- cities in Germany, Italy and occupied France. The automaker proudly promoted its B-24 efforts in magazine advertisements. The skilled women who accomplished this work -- at Willow Run and elsewhere -- inspired the symbolic "Rosie the Riveter" character. Feeding the thousands of workers at Willow Run was no small task. Expectations were crushed and the sarcastic appellation Willit Run gained wide circulation. The building is currently being used to house and protect of the Museum's large aircraft . The Willow Run bomber plant made aviation, industrial and social historyalong with new B-24s by the hour. There was no sequence or orderly flow of materials, no sense of forward motion, no reliance on machined parts, he said. [8] In 2014, the Yankee Air Museum moved into the bomber factory. Another large dormitory project, containing 1,960 rooms and known as West Lodge, was also ready for tenants at that time. Bricker.[33]. we intend to save that. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. "Decommissioning the plant is not an easy task. But just when that milestone seemed possible, the government drastically cut its order for B-24s. You can select the language displayed on our website. In 1941, Henry Ford had his company build a factory at Willow Run in the Detroit area. >> the willow run plant is in the process right now of being demolished. you can see the two big hangar doors behind me. This young employee at the giant Willow Run plant uses her tiny flashlight to discover any internal defects in the tubing. But, as 1943 arrived, problems got solved and Willow Run turned a corner. In 1968, General Motors began reorganizing its body and assembly operations into the GM Assembly Division (GMAD). All Rights Reserved BNP Media. A 175,000-square-foot section, where B-24s were gassed up and towed out the door, was spared for the future home of the National Museum of Aviation and Technology. Workers on the factory floor could purchase meals from lunch wagons that traveled the facility. Employees at Willow Run celebrated the completion of their 6,000th airplane in September 1944. Truman was unimpressed -- he didn't want excuses, he wanted finished bombers. General Motors took over and produced transmissions until 2010, when the company declared bankruptcy and moved out. Women did everything from clerical work in the offices to riveting and welding on the assembly line. Each completed B-24 contained more than 300,000 rivets in more than 500 sizes. "[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. 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. Linen (Material). 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. A documentary about the Ypsilanti Willow Run airport's legendary B-24 bomber plant will air Sunday on PBS . Sections included center wing, outer wings and wing tips, fuselage, nacelles, flight deck, nose and tail. In some places, the bulbs had been simply painted over and left in their sockets as GM quickly re-tooled assembly lines. Before the first employee was hired, the factory stood as a national symbol of Americas fearsome production prowess. 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. [21], In addition to the Willow Run Lodge and Village housing projects, another community named Parkridge Homes was also built in 1943 to house African-American Willow Run employees. [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. Designed by Consolidated Aircraft of San Diego, California, the B-24 Liberator served in every branch of the armed forces during World War II. 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 factory was nearly an hour's drive from Detroit, and the imposition of wartime gasoline and tire rationing had made the daily commute difficult. The first two extensions were to October 1, 2013, and then to November 1, 2013. Charles Sorensen boasted that Ford would produce B-24s at the rate of one each hour. Out of sheer necessity, Willow Runs 42,500-member 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. The war's focus was shifting from Europe to Japan, where more-advanced B-29 bombers were needed. The influx of workers for the massive war . GMs Chevrolet Division assembled rear-engine Corvairs in a converted warehouse on the grounds during a 10-year run beginning in 1959. There were seven known modification centers: the Birmingham Air Depot in Alabama; Consolidated's Fort Worth plant, the Oklahoma City Air Materiel Center at Tinker Field, the Tucson Modification Center at Tucson International Airport;[39] the Northwest Airlines Depot in Minneapolis; the, Martin-Omaha manufacturing plant, and the Hawaiian Air Depot at Hickam Field. Cast Iron Charlie had two Liberators flown to Dearborn where they were dismantled piece by piece. But no project captured the public's imagination like Willow Run, where Ford Motor Company built one B-24 Liberator airplane every 63 minutes. It sat 35 miles west of Detroit, at a site without existing highway or streetcar connections. Women represented approximately one third of the workers at Ford Motor Company's Willow Run plant during World War II. Few new hires had ever been in a factory, so Ford built the Aircraft Apprentice School on the grounds to familiarize these industrial novices with tools and techniques of high-precision aeronautical manufacturing. Following the success of the Save the Bomber Plant campaign, the Museum purchased a portion of the Willow Run Bomber Plant that produced B-24 Liberators during World War Two. As the problems continued into 1943, critics took to calling the plant "Will it Run.". Highway improvements came in September 1942 when the Willow Run Expressway opened between the plant and Detroit. [27] In May 2017, the Michigan State Historic Preservation Office recognized Parkridge Homes with the unveiling three historic markers signifying the importance to Ypsilanti history.[28]. The factory prompted the creation of the Washtenaw County Health Department and was a key part of America's "arsenal of . [49] The majority of the $8 million goal reflects separation costs to make the preserved portion of the plant viable as a standalone structure. [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. This was done at Willow Run by 1st Concentration Command (1st CC). 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 . [3][4], Also, Henry Ford was cantankerous and rigid in his ways. Working with architect Albert Kahn, Ford officials envisioned a massive factory with bombers built on a moving line, just like Ford's automobiles. More than 18,000 were built. This website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. Among them were farmhands, secretaries, housewives, schoolteachers and grocery clerks. Women and men were paid the same rate for the same work. 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. 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. [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 B-24 Bomber, officially known as the B-24 Liberator, was designed by Consolidated Aircraft Co., San Diego, California. A ghostly, decaying reminder of the industrial and military history echoing within its cavernous expanse, Willow Run was demolished in 2014. Yankee was originally granted until August 2013 (deadline was later extended) to raise the funds needed to purchase and separate a portion of the approximately 5,000,000 sq. 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. Efforts to desegregate Willow Run Lodge and Village and build additional integrated housing were rebuffed by the Detroit Housing Commission and the National Housing Agency,[25] so noted African-American architect Hilyard Robinson was contracted to design an 80-unit community. Planes were assembled outdoors, exposed to a hot sun that distorted parts out of shape. Sorensen stayed up all night formulating a B-24 assembly process on the backs of Coronado Hotel placemats. workforce became a model of diversity for future Among the 37 workers surveyed, nearly 10 percent were Negroes.4 Men as young as 19 and as old as 71 were employed; the age range for . Employees Assembling Bomber at Willow Run Plant, March 1943, Employees Assembling Bomber at Willow Run Plant, March 1943 / back. 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. The president and his advisers were convinced that long-range, high-altitude heavy bombers would be the decisive weapon in a war dominated by air power and industrial muscle. 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. Search our website to find what youre looking for. 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. those represent the end of the plant. Willow Run Bomber Plant, By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center. By 4 a.m. he had configured floor space and time requirements for sequential assembly of the planes principal sections, each fabricated in choreographed progression through separate, self-contained cells. Over the course of the war, the hospital handled more than two million medical cases. Modifications resulted from lessons learned in fighting fronts and from the need to modify the plane for its multiple roles. It was thought to be the largest factory under one roof anywhere in the world. [8], Coordinates: 421428N 833304W / 42.241N 83.551W / 42.241; -83.551. Adjacent to the factory complex, Ford constructed a 1,484-acre airport with six runways and three aircraft hangars. 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 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). More than 3,200 feet long and 1,279 feet across at its widest point, the plants 80-acre interior exceeded the Empire State Buildings floor space by 20 percent. 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 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. The Story of Willow Run highlights several of the steps involved in building the aluminum-intensive aircraft. Every American automaker turned its workforce and facilities to military production during World War II. A technological marvel for a new age of aerial warfare, the B-24 was now obsolete. Of the 1,000 apartments in West Court, some had no bedrooms and were called "zero bedroom" apartments, and the rest had one bedroom. While . There were 24 lunch rooms located throughout the complex. When Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945, only 7,400 employees remained on the Willow Run payroll. Buses were among the only practical solutions. In response, the federal government built Willow Run Lodge, an on-site dormitory complex that could accommodate 3,000 single women and men; and Willow Run Village, with 2,500 family housing units. Ford now planned to build 650 planes each month -- one every 45 minutes. May 2023 WRBP Meeting -. He may have been right. Willow Run ran two nine-hour shifts. The government's constant design changes to the B-24 were particularly troubling. Ford Motor Company had reinvented the concept with the Model T's moving assembly line. They lived in tents, with a mess hall and a chapel on-site, and sold their produce from a roadside stand built by Ford. The main building's "L" shape prevented its crossing into neighboring Wayne County. That hulking plant was idled in the early 1990s, putting about 4,000 people out of work. 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 . Like many successful technology companies, LITEON outgrew the garage to become a leader of its chosen industry through years of hard work. [3][4] Willow Run's Liberator assembly line ran until May 1945, building almost half of all the Liberators produced. [7] Indeed, the majority of the plant was demolished in late 2013 and early 2014. The plant was the embodiment of America's "Arsenal of Democracy" -- the enormous manufacturing capacity so vital to the Allies' victory. MARC and WRL produced innovations, including the first ruby laser and operation of the ruby maser, as well as early research into antiballistic missile defense and advanced remote sensing. Some 12,000 women worked at the Willow Run bomber In only one month, Ford had hired 2,900 workers but had lost 3,100. The aircraft manufacturer Douglas Aircraft, and the B-24's designer, Consolidated Aircraft, assembled the finished airplane. The remaining four hours were used to restock parts and change tooling. In 2011, A.E. Steel dies proved more precise, longer lasting, and perfectly safe. Willow Run Airport became a Midwest destination for passenger airlines until the late 1950s. Labor shortages made women essential to war industries, and the government actively recruited them to join the workforce. The airfield, owned by the Wayne County Airport Authority since 2004, continues to operate as the Willow Run Airport and is primarily used for cargo and general aviation flights.

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