Submit a Request for Proposal (RFP) to suppliers of your choice with details on what you need with a click of a button. Although Willow Run is synonymous with the Liberator bomber, B-24s were not the only planes manufactured at Willow Run. 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. Over the course of the war, the hospital handled more than two million medical cases. Sorensen and his team carefully planned the new facility to the last detail. 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. Women represented approximately one third of the workers at Ford Motor Company's Willow Run plant during World War II. 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. For those unable to endure a long commute, the federal government constructed housing on nearby farmland purchased from Henry Ford. This section was known as Willow Run Village. While this was unfolding, Sorensen retained renowned industrial architect Albert Kahn to design a factory that would adapt Fords automotive assembly techniques to mass production of a giant aircraft. Paper (Fiber product) 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. [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. "[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. 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. Automatic flushing toilets in numerous bathrooms throughout the building didn't stop. During this reduction, there was rumor that Ford would repurchase the plant from the government . Willow Run stepped up outsourcing of parts production and subassemblies to almost 1,000 Ford factories and independent suppliers while focusing on building B-24s in more predictable designs that minimized shutdowns. 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. 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. Years later, that stretch would become a section of I-94. The largest of these hangars could house 20 B-24s at once, and included a control tower, a cafe, and a hotel. Crew size was up to ten, and range was up to 3,000 miles. The twin-finned, high-winged B-24 with its dual bomb bays and tricycle landing gear debuted in 1939 as a repurposed land model of Consolidateds bulky flying boats. from 1959 to 1969. The first two extensions were to October 1, 2013, and then to November 1, 2013. Ford Motor Company built everything from jeeps to generators during World War II, but nothing else was on the scale of Willow Run. In some places, water cascades from the rafters of the buildingsending a shower on to the oily floor below. But, as 1943 arrived, problems got solved and Willow Run turned a corner. Willow Run Airport became a Midwest destination for passenger airlines until the late 1950s. GMs Chevrolet Division assembled rear-engine Corvairs in a converted warehouse on the grounds during a 10-year run beginning in 1959. The plant was the embodiment of America's "Arsenal of Democracy" -- the enormous manufacturing capacity so vital to the Allies' victory. 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. On October 31, 1945 Ford published a notice that cut its workforce from 1,400 employees down to 100 employees who would finish cataloging remaining parts and finish the records. Thought to be overly ambitious in its scope, the plant hoped to boost bomber production from one aircraft per day to one plane per hour. Copyright 2023. The airport is now home to cargo airlines, charter flights and corporate jets. He may have been right. Linen (Material). 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! 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]. A never-ending stream of water gurgles through the pipes to parts unknown like an underground stream. Steel dies proved more precise, longer lasting, and perfectly safe. At the request of the government, Ford began to decentralize operations and many parts were assembled at other Ford plants as well as by the company's sub-contractors, with the Willow Run plant concentrating on final aircraft assembly. Click the drop-down menu below and make your selection. This covered 90 parcels of land[20] totaling 2,641 acres (1,069ha). 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. Expectations were crushed and the sarcastic appellation Willit Run gained wide circulation. [36][37], While the planes were being serviced and made ready for overseas movement, personnel for these planes were also being processed. Automobiles of the era had 15,000 parts and weighed around 3,000 pounds. [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. The company also develops, designs, and manufactures peripherals and components for its products. Ford built 6,972 of the 18,482 total B-24s and produced kits for 1,893 more to be assembled by the other manufacturers. 8,685 B-24's were built in Willow Run bomber plant (Story of Willow Run, p.70). Together they produced more of the slab-sided behemoths than any American warplane ever. The water is treated in a modern treatment plant completed in 1939. The Willow Run airport was to produce the B-24 bomber to support the Allied war effort. [3][4] The Birmingham Air Depot's primary mission was modifying Liberators from Willow Run. 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. 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. The metal entry doors were also fashioned with magnets to effectively keep the door shut. 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]. Meanwhile, Ford was savaged in the Detroit press because it took too long. 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.". All Rights Reserved BNP Media. The B-24J incorporated a hydraulically driven tail turret and other defensive armament modifications in the nose of the aircraft. Dies and machine tools were tossed out and redesigned, wasting precious time and millions of dollars. you can see the two big hangar doors behind me. Watch on. Truman headed a presidential committee charged with eliminating wartime production waste, and Willow Run's struggles worried him. No.2, Ziyou St., Tucheng Dist., New Taipei City 236, Taiwan +886-2-2268-3466 Design, CMS, Hosting & Web Development :: ePublishing. For the next six months, Sorensen shuttled 70-man teams of engineers and draftsmen back and forth on 2,300-mile trips from Ford headquarters to the Consolidated works in San Diego to immerse themselves in B-24 design, engineering, parts and components. What is your previous experience with unions? Dwarfs, whose physical stature had limited prewar employment opportunities, toiled inside wings, fuel cells and other confined spaces. Some riveted parts were replaced with cast pieces to simplify and speed their manufacture. 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. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By the mid-1920s, a local family operating as Quirk Farms had bought the land in Van Buren Township that became the airport. In early 1941 the Federal government established the Liberator Production Pool Program to meet the projected demand for the B-24, and the Ford company, joined the program shortly thereafter. The plant at Willow Run was also beset with labor difficulties, high absentee rates, and rapid employee turnover. male counterparts. 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). 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. The bomber plant adjacent to the airport produced the famed World War II bombers in a plant built by Henry Ford. From the Collections of The Henry Ford. 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. 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 . Part of the airport complex operated at various times as a research facility affiliated with the University of Michigan, and as a secondary United States Air Force Installation. The standard workweek for all hourly employees was 54 hours, with time-and-a-half pay for each hour over 40. At its peak, Willow Run employed more than 15,000 women -- some 35 percent of its total staff. Sorensen and his team methodically broke the complex bomber plane into 11 major assemblies, and then further divided these into 69 sub-assemblies. In 1972, the University spun off WRL into the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan, which eventually left Willow Run for offices in Ann Arbor. The U.S. government contributed $200 million to the project.Originally 975 acres of farmland owned by Henry Ford, the site was developed by the Ford Motor Company into A documentary about the Ypsilanti Willow Run airport's legendary B-24 bomber plant will air Sunday on PBS . 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. for half of all B-24s assembled that year. 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. 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. Though the outside may appear to be a stubborn tool shed that won't open by pulling the handle, simply pushing the door open reveals a secret room hidden from prying eyes. Adjacent to the factory complex, Ford constructed a 1,484-acre airport with six runways and three aircraft hangars. The resulting housing complexes were built in several different groups. Fifty variants of the aircraft were dispatched to allies throughout the world from these sites. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. those hangar doors represent the end of the plant, the end of the assembly line where 8700 b-24s rolled out. 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. By mid-1944, the Willow Run assembly plant The Willow Run plant was formally dedicated on October 22, 1941, in a ceremony attended by Major Jimmy Doolittle of the U.S. Army Air Forces. However, he finally relented and did employ "Rosie the Riveters" on his assembly lines, probably more because so many of his potential male workers had been drafted into the military than due to any sudden change of principle on his part. Summary. Join Ernst Neumayr, Channel Development Manager from Universal Robots, and Jeremy Crockett, Business Manager for Automation from Atlas Copco, and discover how cobots can build your business and increase productivity in your manufacturing facility without multiplying the complexity of your processes! [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. [3][4], By autumn 1943, the top leadership role at Willow Run had passed from Charles Sorensen to Mead L. [3][41], The B-24M was the last large-scale production variant of the Liberator. 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. The aircraft manufacturer Douglas Aircraft, and the B-24's designer, Consolidated Aircraft, assembled the finished airplane. Willow Run ran two nine-hour shifts. That was the schedule six days a week. Also constructed at this time was the Parkridge Community Center. They were producing a custom-made plane put together as a tailor would cut and fit a suit of clothes. 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. "Decommissioning the plant is not an easy task. Plant construction started in March 1941. There was no sequence or orderly flow of materials, no sense of forward motion, no reliance on machined parts, he said. 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. 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. Consolidated maintained control over design changes and so did the Army Air Corps (retitled U.S. Army Air Force in June 1941). Only 56 airplanes were built in all of 1942. Feeding the thousands of workers at Willow Run was no small task. Employees at Willow Run celebrated the completion of their 6,000th airplane in September 1944. At peak production, the plant had a bomber come off the assembly line every 55 minutes, and the continued boost of one bomber produced a day was one bomber finished a day. 1250 B-24L aircraft were built at Willow Run. Some 12,000 women worked at the Willow Run bomber plant, each paid the same 85 cents an . Quirk Farms was purchased by automobile pioneer Henry Ford in 1931. 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. Blacks and other minorities were welcomed and so were immigrants. Access the "best of" at The Henry Ford and other great visit planning resources. 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. Planes were assembled outdoors, exposed to a hot sun that distorted parts out of shape. Explore our Digital Collections and curate your own set of artifacts to share with others.
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