This was sent to me by a friend down under and I thought I'd pass it on to everyone here. Pretty amazing stuff. There is a great movie that goes with this but I can't attach it here for some reason. I have sent it off to Brian T..... the computer guy to see if he can get the job done so please check back. If he can get it on here you will enjoy the movie.
Dave
Subject: B24 Bomber at Willow Run MI.
I had no idea Ford was involved in building aircraft during WW II. The figures are staggering ... one off the line every 55 minutes? Incredible. The country's industrial base did a phenomenal job of cranking out hardware in those days. Not like Australia’s today!
I got this a couple of weeks ago from someone else. Very good, because so few people these days have any idea what a massive industrial effort WWII was - or how diverse the production was. I talk to a lot of people at NASM's Udvar -Hazy Center about WWII industrial participation, because we've got some really great examples to show them. For example, the Boeing B-29 Enola Gay, One of our centerpieces, isn't Boeing at all.. It was built by the Martin Co. In Omaha NE. Bell Aircraft also built B-29s in Marietta GA. The Norden bombsight that is in the airplane (the one that actually dropped the bomb on Hiroshima) isn't Norden-built. It came out of the Victor Adding Machine Co. of Chicago IL. And her Curtiss-Wright R-3350 engines aren't CW. They were built by Dodge automotive. The Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engine in the Vought F4U Corsair is, likewise, not from P & WA, but from Nash-Kelvinator, the folks that made washing machines and air conditioners! And the airplane's left horizontal stabilizer is from Goodyear, the company that built many Corsairs as the FG. Many folks have seen one of the five Boeing B-17s that still fly around on the airshow circuit. Most are not Boeing. Rather they come from Douglas or Lockheed. The majority of the Grumman F4F Wildcats and TBF Avengers were built , not by Grumman, but by General Motors at a totally new one-mile-long plant they built in NJ during the war for their Eastern Aircraft Div. of GM. So, President (then Ensign) George HW Bush what shot down in a General Motors airplane, the TBM Avenger. The Willow Run story is fascinating, as are many of these alternative production source stories. Ford had a very difficult time with startup, but they got it right and cranked out a substantial portion of the most heavily produced military aircraft in US history (about 19,000 B-24s and Navy equivalents in four years), including the one my father-in-law (you met him years ago in Dayton) flew on most of his 35 missions over Europe. The whole story of WWII industrial aircraft production (and you could say the same for tanks, ships, guns, and the lot) is really an amazing one.
During WW II, in 1941, beforePearl Harbor,
Ford converted a company farm in Willow Run, Michigan to a factory to produce the B-24 bomber. Over one million parts went together to get one completed.. At peak
production they were coming off the assembly line 24 / 7 at the rate of one every 55 minutes.
Dave
Subject: B24 Bomber at Willow Run MI.
I had no idea Ford was involved in building aircraft during WW II. The figures are staggering ... one off the line every 55 minutes? Incredible. The country's industrial base did a phenomenal job of cranking out hardware in those days. Not like Australia’s today!
I got this a couple of weeks ago from someone else. Very good, because so few people these days have any idea what a massive industrial effort WWII was - or how diverse the production was. I talk to a lot of people at NASM's Udvar -Hazy Center about WWII industrial participation, because we've got some really great examples to show them. For example, the Boeing B-29 Enola Gay, One of our centerpieces, isn't Boeing at all.. It was built by the Martin Co. In Omaha NE. Bell Aircraft also built B-29s in Marietta GA. The Norden bombsight that is in the airplane (the one that actually dropped the bomb on Hiroshima) isn't Norden-built. It came out of the Victor Adding Machine Co. of Chicago IL. And her Curtiss-Wright R-3350 engines aren't CW. They were built by Dodge automotive. The Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engine in the Vought F4U Corsair is, likewise, not from P & WA, but from Nash-Kelvinator, the folks that made washing machines and air conditioners! And the airplane's left horizontal stabilizer is from Goodyear, the company that built many Corsairs as the FG. Many folks have seen one of the five Boeing B-17s that still fly around on the airshow circuit. Most are not Boeing. Rather they come from Douglas or Lockheed. The majority of the Grumman F4F Wildcats and TBF Avengers were built , not by Grumman, but by General Motors at a totally new one-mile-long plant they built in NJ during the war for their Eastern Aircraft Div. of GM. So, President (then Ensign) George HW Bush what shot down in a General Motors airplane, the TBM Avenger. The Willow Run story is fascinating, as are many of these alternative production source stories. Ford had a very difficult time with startup, but they got it right and cranked out a substantial portion of the most heavily produced military aircraft in US history (about 19,000 B-24s and Navy equivalents in four years), including the one my father-in-law (you met him years ago in Dayton) flew on most of his 35 missions over Europe. The whole story of WWII industrial aircraft production (and you could say the same for tanks, ships, guns, and the lot) is really an amazing one.
During WW II, in 1941, beforePearl Harbor,
Ford converted a company farm in Willow Run, Michigan to a factory to produce the B-24 bomber. Over one million parts went together to get one completed.. At peak
production they were coming off the assembly line 24 / 7 at the rate of one every 55 minutes.
: