Willow Run B-24s: Willow Run B-24s The long hanger at Willow Run, Michigan has a 90 degree turn-table in it so Henry Ford would not have to pay taxes in the next county. That short end...

llamb Loc: Northeast Ohio

Willow Run B-24s

The long hanger at Willow Run, Michigan has a 90 degree turn-table in it so Henry Ford would not have to pay taxes in the next county. That short end is being saved and restored today as a museum.

The big hanger doors are still operational after all these years.

This is one of the best and most informative clips about a great American accomplishment, thanks to the Ford Motor Company during WWII.

A Ford Airplane! AMAZING!

Production began here 6 months BEFORE Pearl Harbour! Henry Ford was determined that he could mass produce bombers just as he had with cars, so he built the Willow Run assembly plant and proved it.

This was the world's largest building under one roof at the time.

One B-24 every 55 minutes! Ford had its own pilots to test them. And no recalls!

ADOLF HITLER HAD NO IDEA THE U.S. WAS CAPABLE OF THIS KIND OF THING.

Click below
B-24 Liberator Willow Run Assembly Plant - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/embed/iKlt6rNciTo?rel=0

bhanusa Loc: Maui, Hawaii

Dalek Loc: Detroit, Miami, Goffstown

Bridges Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA

llamb wrote:

Willow Run B-24s br br The long hanger at Willow ... (show quote)

I wonder if Hitler had understood the capabilities of US manufacturing, would he have been so anxious to declare war on the US?! Interestingly enough, the US is the only country Germany declared war on during WWII and the one country he should have feared most.

fourlocks Loc: Londonderry, NH

Few people realize Willow Run (not Japan) was the start of what we now know as "Lean Manufacturing." Right after the war, the Japanese visited the plant and took note of the production techniques that led to that plant making "a bomber an hour." They instituted those techniques in their auto manufacturing while Detroit stuck with its old, inefficient assembly practices. By the '90's, when Toyota ruled, American manufacturers were visiting Japanese plants to try to understand why the Japanese were building cars so much more efficiently than us.

whatdat Loc: Del Valle, Tx.

Been reading a book titled “unbroken” that covers the WWII era. According to the book, the B24 was riddled with problems. If I remember correctly, more crew members crashed & died in them in non-combat situations than combat situations. A lot in training situations due to difficult to control problems.

clickety

llamb wrote:

Willow Run B-24s br br The long hanger at Willow ... (show quote)

Yes we were once a great country until we decided to not make it great again.

pendennis

whatdat wrote:

Been reading a book titled “unbroken” that covers the WWII era. According to the book, the B24 was riddled with problems. If I remember correctly, more crew members crashed & died in them in non-combat situations than combat situations. A lot in training situations due to difficult to control problems.

The B-24 was far more fragile than its counterpart, the B-17. The B-17 "Flying Fortress" withstood far more punishment from AA and enemy fighters.

When Willow Run was built, there were a plethora of production problems before they got to the "one-every-fifty-five-minutes" goal. Ted Sorensen was an engineering genius and he led the effort to produce a quality, on-time product. He also made a few enemies within the company at the same time.

thomseninc

War story. I apologize in advance if this gets a little long.

My father was a B-17 pilot in WWII. On his first (and only) combat mission he flew out of southern Italy in July '44 to bomb a critical oil refinery in Ploesti, Romania. The Romanians were allied with the Germans. He got shot down and taken to a POW camp in Romania. There were a few hundred B-24 crews there, veterans of the earlier B-24 raid on Ploesti. A few months later the Russians were approaching so the Romanians ran away, and the prisoners were freed, eventually ending up in Cairo, Egypt. The 15th Air Force in Italy shut down all bomber operations so they could fly every available aircraft to Cairo to ferry the former POWs back to Italy. My father said that all of the B-24 crews refused to fly out on the B-24 because they didn't trust it. They flew out on the B-17s instead. I've never heard that mentioned in any of the B-24 documentaries I have seen.

TimmyKnowles Loc: Gallup, New Mexico

Yes, the B-24 was not an easy plane to fly, compared with the B-25.

TimmyKnowles Loc: Gallup, New Mexico

Germany was the only country to declare war on the US? Did you forget Japan? The Imperial edict of declaration of war by the Empire of Japan on the United States and the British Empire (米國及英國ニ對スル宣戰ノ詔書) was published on December 8, 1941 (Japan time; December 7 in the United States), 7.5 hours after Japanese forces started an attack on the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor and attacks on British forces in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong. The declaration of war was printed on the front page of all Japanese newspapers' evening editions on December 8.

twowindsbear

whatdat wrote:

Been reading a book titled “unbroken” that covers the WWII era. According to the book, the B24 was riddled with problems. If I remember correctly, more crew members crashed & died in them in non-combat situations than combat situations. A lot in training situations due to difficult to control problems.

That sounds more like the B-29. There were 'issues' with the aircraft that had to be solved by the men flying them, and more men died in 'accidents' of some sort than died in combat.

pendennis

TimmyKnowles wrote:

Germany was the only country to declare war on the... (show quote)

The Japanese had a habit of actually starting hot wars, before declaring them to their enemies, or at least acting simultaneously.

The Japanese had hoped to attack Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, Wake Island, etc., within minutes of a declaration of war being delivered to the U.S. State Department. However, problems with translating and decoding in the Japanese embassy in Washington, D.C., prevented the timing the Japanese had wished.

The late Gordon Prange, who wrote several books on the war in the Pacific, covered this in "At Dawn We Slept". There's also excellent coverage in the movie "Tora! Tora! Tora!".

PS - Italy and Germany, in line with Japan, declared war on the U.S. on December 11th, the same day the U.S. declared war on them.

twowindsbear

TimmyKnowles wrote:

Germany was the only country to declare war on the... (show quote)

No, you have misquoted that post. This is what was said: ". . . the US is the only country Germany declared war on during WWII." Germany declared war on the US, in support of their ally, Japan, after US declared war on Japan. And, I'm not sure at all if Germany actually DECLARED war on any other nation that Germany waged war upon.

clickety

twowindsbear wrote:

No, you have misquoted that post. This is what was said: ". . . the US is the only country Germany declared war on during WWII." Germany declared war on the US, in support of their ally, Japan, after US declared war on Japan. And, I'm not sure at all if Germany actually DECLARED war on any other nation that Germany waged war upon.

👍👍👍. Proof that reading and reading comprehension were taught for a reason.