Posted on 03/09/2010 7:50:58 AM PST by shove_it
Ford built at least 8000 B-24 aircraft in WWII. This a collection of 291 B&W photos from the Henry Ford Museum taken at the old Willow Run Airport and Ford Motor Co. in Detroit. During the war automobile manufacturing was suspended so that GM, Ford, etc., could concentrate on the manufacture of military vehicles and aircraft. Ford Motor Company's assembly line was located adjacent to Willow Run.
The government and Boeing company told Henry Ford during the war that he could not build an airplane like a car on an assembly line. He built the freeway to the plant, built the B-24 plant and spit them out one per hour. This is an interesting bit of history that you may enjoy and share with your children and perhaps your grandchildren as this involved the "greatest generation".
Great link!
I grew up in Ann Arbor, MI during the 1960s. When I was in Junior High, a friend went down to the old Willow Run plant. He discovered an area where they test-fired the .50 caliber guns from the B-24s into a sand pit. When he dug into the sand, he discovered a bunch of .50 caliber slugs in it.
He took about two dozen and gave me half. We drilled holes through them, strung them together on leather thongs, and took them to school as “war beads” (mocking our hippie friends with peace beads).
How long ago was that? So long ago that the teachers approved of what we did.
mark
Wow you could get a life sentence for that now !
My Dad was an IE at the AC plant in Flint. When the war broke out, his team was sent to the Colt Firearms plant in Hartford, CT to study their manufacturing processes for the 50 cal. machine gun. When he told the Colt engineers that AC was going to mass produce them, the Colt folks said it couldn't be done but it was done mainly by unskilled women production workers.
Thanks! I especially enjoyed the assault glider pics. What a collection of pictures of a time when America COULD and WOULD! Now it seems any new idea is just TALKED TO death!
ping for later
My husband grew up in Detroit during WWII. Family entertainment used to be to go down to the Chrysler proving grounds and watch the tanks roll out and take a turn around the field before being turned over to the Army. They had bleachers set up and all the neighborhood would go and cheer them on. We took our entertainment where we could get it during the War.
Great slideshow! Thanks very much for posting.
There’s a photo of that sand pit in the slideshow but you’re gonna hafta hunt for it - it’s somewhere around half way thru as I recall.
Quelle horreur! How could you commit such a hate crime?
Thanks for posting...this is good stuff!
Ping for later.
Fantastic! Thanks for posting.
“Wow you could get a life sentence for that now !”
Nah. Only ten years max. Now the time I staged a coup d’etat during the dictatorship simulation in my eigth-grade civics class (complete with firing a cap pistol into the ceiling) — that I could get a life sentence for today.
Back then I had the teacher laughing so hard that he was virtually in tears. Besides, he took the effort (coordinated with three other students) as a sign that we were paying attention to what he was teaching.
Of course back then they had firearms safety classes at the school, and kids would make rifle stocks as projects in woodshop classes. It was the last decade that public education was still sane.
they just weren’t so pernicious as they are now, but tiularly, they were in charge...that’s why we had a 10 year depression before the war rather than a short one or two year problem.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.