Ford Willow Run Plant in World War II: “Women on the Warpath” B-24 Liberator 1943 Ford 10min
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On women building B-24 Liberators at Ford’s Willow Run plant during WWII.
NEW VERSION with improved video & sound:
Public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and equalization.
The Willow Run manufacturing plant, located between Ypsilanti and Belleville, Michigan, was constructed during World War II by Ford Motor Company for the mass production of the B-24 Liberator military aircraft.
After the war, ownership of the assembly plant passed to Kaiser Motors and then to Ford rival General Motors…
Willow Run was used by GM to manufacture a number of models, including Chevy trucks (1956–58), the Nova and Caprice. It was also used to manufacture parts for the Vega subcompact. Perhaps the most well-known product assembled at Willow Run was the Chevrolet Corvair. Most Corvairs were built there from 1960 through 1969.
GM’s Fisher Body division was also located at Willow Run, and built bodies for the Chevrolet models assembled there.
In 1968, General Motors reorganized its body assembly divisions into the monolithic GM Assembly Division (GMAD). GMAD absorbed many Fisher body plants, but Willow Run was one of the plants where Fisher continued to build bodies until the 1970s.
On June 1, 2009, GM announced it would be closing the plant as part of its bankruptcy proceedings.
The plant has given its name to a community on the east side of Ypsilanti, defined roughly by the boundaries of the Willow Run Community Schools district.
The site of the plant was a farm owned by Henry Ford. He had used the farm to provide summer employment for youths. Ford Motor Company, like virtually all of the United States’ industrial companies, directed its manufacturing output during WWII for Allied war production. The Ford Motor Company developed the Willow Run site to include an airfield and aircraft assembly facility. The plant held the distinction of being the world’s largest enclosed “room.” At its peak, Willow Run produced 650 B-24s per month by 1944. By 1945, Ford produced 70% of the B-24s in two nine hour shifts. Pilots and crews slept on 1,300 cots waiting for the B-24s to roll off the assembly line at Willow Run. Ford produced half of the 18,000 total B-24s at Willow Run. The B-24 holds the distinction of being the most produced heavy bomber in history.
An interesting feature of the Willow Run plant was a large turntable two-thirds of the way along the assembly line where the B-24s would make a 90° turn before continuing to final assembly. This arrangement was to avoid having the factory building cross a county line and be taxed by two counties. The neighboring county’s taxes were higher.
After war production ended, the plant was used by a partnership of Henry J. Kaiser and Joseph W. Frazer. They produced both Kaiser and Frazer models beginning in 1947(including the compact “Henry J,” which was also sold through Sears-Roebuck as the “Sears Allstate”) until 1953, when Kaiser Industries purchased Willys-Overland and consolidated all passenger-vehicle operations at the former Willys-Overland plant in Toledo, Ohio. (At that time, Kaiser Industries phased out its Kaiser and Willys passenger-car lines, ending all but Jeep and Willys pickup/station wagon production by 1955.) Later in 1953, after a disastrous fire (on August 12) destroyed General Motors Detroit Transmission factory in Livonia, Michigan, the plant was first leased to GM, and eventually sold to it, with the salvaged Hydra-Matic transmission tooling and machinery relocated to Willow Run, and put back into production just nine weeks after the fire.
B-24s were not the only planes produced at Willow Run. From 1952 to 1953, the facility was used by Kaiser to assemble Fairchild C-119 “Flying Boxcar” cargo planes…
The Consolidated B-24 Liberator was an American heavy bomber… The B-24 was used in World War II by several Allied air forces and navies, and by every branch of the American armed forces…
Mass production was brought into full force by 1943 with the aid of the Ford Motor Company through its newly constructed Willow Run facility, where peak production had reached one B-24 per hour and 650 per month in 1944. Other factories soon followed. The B-24 ended World War II as the most produced Allied heavy bomber in history, and the most produced American military aircraft at over 18,400 units, due largely to Henry Ford and the harnessing of American industry. It still holds the distinction as the most-produced American military aircraft…
