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.
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.
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?
The photo of that sand pit is at #149.