willow run bomber plant employees

Managing the utilities and slowly shutting them off has been Lewis' biggest challenge, as the building is hard-pressed to give up its secrets. Starting with 2,600 acres of Henry Ford's bare farmland, ground was broken on the 3.5 million sq.-ft. facility in April of 1941, and the first B-24 Liberator four-engine bomber flew off the giant Willow Run airfield in September of 1942. [8], Coordinates: 421428N 833304W / 42.241N 83.551W / 42.241; -83.551. Women and men were paid the same rate for the same work. Architect Albert Kahn boasted that the Willow Run plant would be the Changeovers required onerous delays and costly retooling. 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. Sorensen and his team carefully planned the new facility to the last detail. Employees at Willow Run celebrated the completion of their 6,000th airplane in September 1944. plant, each paid the same 85 cents an hour as their [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. The company came back to the government with a counter proposal: it wouldn't just build parts for the B-24, it would build complete airplanes using the automaker's highly refined techniques. There were 24 lunch rooms located throughout the complex. [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. The final B-24 bomber was produced at Willow Run plant on June 28, 1945. Labor shortages made women essential to war industries, and the government actively recruited them to join the workforce. You can select the language displayed on our website. In 2013, the Museum was able to purchase 144,000 square feet of the Plant. In only one month, Ford had hired 2,900 workers but had lost 3,100. [21][22], In February 1943, the first dormitory (Willow Run Lodge) opened, consisted of fifteen buildings containing 1,900 rooms, some single- and others double-occupancy, with room for 3,000 people. Ford now planned to build 650 planes each month -- one every 45 minutes. The water is treated in a modern treatment plant completed in 1939. [3], Upon the introduction of the B-24J, all three of the Liberator manufacturing plants converted to the production of this version. Truman was unimpressed -- he didn't want excuses, he wanted finished bombers. Engineering Photographic Department, United States, Michigan, Charter Township of Ypsilanti, Ford Motor Company. Automatic flushing toilets in numerous bathrooms throughout the building didn't stop. Equities Group Holdings offered to buy the former Powertrain plant from the RACER Trust. Thursday May 4th, 2023. Use this Artifact Card to share this great find with others. In addition to complete airplanes, Willow Run produced "knock-down kits" that were shipped to Douglas Aircraft's plant in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Consolidated Aircraft's plant in Fort Worth, Texas, for final assembly. Among them were farmhands, secretaries, housewives, schoolteachers and grocery clerks. Willow Run workers built 1,893 kits over the course of the war. [40], The B-24E was the first variant of the B-24 that underwent primary manufacture by Ford at Willow Run. 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. It also required the installation of two turntables to turn airplane fuselages 90 degrees near the end of the assembly line. Specialized employees -- riveters, for example -- received training in these classrooms as well. Instead, upstart automaker Kaiser-Frazer Corporation moved into the factory. The 2023 Detroit Area Crosstown Challenge. * Carr, Lowell J., and Stermer, James Edison. generations. 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. Copyright 2023. The Willow Run Lodge dormitories accommodated 3,000 single women and men, while Willow Run Village consisted of 2,500 family housing units. Many fled after their first day, traumatized by the smell, constant clanging and motion of machinery, and overpowering size of the place. Despite how smoothly the plant ran, putting out a bomber an hour still wasn't an easy feat. 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. 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. 1, Specialty Press. Ford Motor Company had reinvented the concept with the Model T's moving assembly line. The delivery of seven YB-24Ns by Ford in June 1945 marked the end of Liberator production at Willow Run.[3][42]. They lived in tents, with a mess hall and a chapel on-site, and sold their produce from a roadside stand built by Ford. Although Ford had an option to purchase the plant once it was no longer needed for war production, the company declined to exercise it, and ended its association with Willow Run. Sixty-seven feet long, the B-24 had 450,000 parts and 360,000 rivets in heavy aircraft. The salvaged Hydramatic transmission tooling and machinery relocated to Willow Run and were back in production just nine weeks after the fire.[43]. 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. [3][4] Willow Run's Liberator assembly line ran until May 1945, building almost half of all the Liberators produced. Approximately one-third of the plant's assembly line workers were female. [41], The B-24L was the first product of the new, downsized Liberator production pool. Willow Run's problems came under a microscope in April 1942 and again in February 1943, when Senator Harry S. Truman visited the plant. Visit our updated. 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. Willow Run Lodge[19] was a series of dormitories for single people and was built on the land north of Michigan Avenue and south of Geddes Road. Willow Run Airport has remained active as a cargo and general aviation airfield. From the Collections of The Henry Ford. The B-24H differed from earlier B-24s by having a second turret placed in the nose of the aircraft to increase defensive firepower. While assembly workers formed the heart of Willow Run's workforce, there were numerous administrative, clerical and support staff members too. . We . Crew size was up to ten, and range was up to 3,000 miles. The factory prompted the creation of the Washtenaw County Health Department and was a key part of America's "arsenal of . [13], The Willow Run chapel of Martha and Mary now stands a few miles from where it was originally constructed, on property that used to be owned by Henry Ford's Quirk Farms. [3][41], The B-24M was the last large-scale production variant of the Liberator. GMs Chevrolet Division assembled rear-engine Corvairs in a converted warehouse on the grounds during a 10-year run beginning in 1959. Media coverage hyped by Ford and military publicists wove extravagant tales of a mammoth industrial citadel where 100,000 dedicated workers would produce hundreds of Liberators each week to roar across the oceans and obliterate enemy sources and seats of power. 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. The Story of Willow Run highlights several of the steps involved in building the aluminum-intensive aircraft. 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. [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. 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! The Ford Motor Company's Willow Run Bomber Plant began production in 1942 and continued until June 28, 1945. UAW Local 898, 8975 Textile Rd, Ypsilanti, MI 48197. wrbpipms@gmail.com. Labor shortages made women essential to war industries, and the government actively recruited them to join the workforce. Because of production delays encountered at Willow Run as a result of the inevitable difficulties and snags involved in the adaptation of automobile manufacturing techniques to aircraft, the B-24Es produced at Willow Run were, generally, obsolete by the time that it began to roll off the production lines, and most were relegated to training roles in the United States and hence few ever saw combat. 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. from 1959 to 1969. The company resumed automobile production within a week. They would be built elsewhere. Explore our Digital Collections and curate your own set of artifacts to share with others. A documentary about the Ypsilanti Willow Run airport's legendary B-24 bomber plant will air Sunday on PBS . Women did everything from clerical work in the offices to riveting and welding on the assembly line. In some places, the bulbs had been simply painted over and left in their sockets as GM quickly re-tooled assembly lines. Mr. Ford's steadfast leadership helped the company to make good on its promise. Also constructed at this time was the Parkridge Community Center. [3][41], The B-24H was the first variant produced by Ford at Willow Run in large numbers that went into combat. [36][37], While the planes were being serviced and made ready for overseas movement, personnel for these planes were also being processed. [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. 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. This covered 90 parcels of land[20] totaling 2,641 acres (1,069ha). Overstocked with B-24s, the Air Force already had canceled contracts with Douglas Aircraft and North American Aviation and would terminate Consolidated Fort Worth by years end. Plant construction started in March 1941. 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.

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