Willow Run - History

History

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. Despite intensive design efforts led by Ford production executive Charles E. Sorensen, the opening of the plant still saw some mismanagement and bungling, and quality was uneven. According to Max Wallace, Air Corps Chief General Arnold told Charles Lindbergh, then a consultant at the plant, that "combat squadrons greatly preferred the B-17 bomber to the B-24 because 'when we send the 17’s out on a mission, most of them return. But when we send the 24’s out, most of them don’t'” A 1943 committee authorized by Congress to examine problems at the plant issued a highly critical report; the Ford Motor Company had created a production line that too closely resembled an automobile assembly line "despite the warning of many experienced aircraftmen."

Although the jumping of an automotive company into aircraft production posed these quality problems, it also brought remarkable production rates. 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. By autumn 1943, the top leadership role at Willow Run had passed from Charles Sorensen to Mead L. Bricker.

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.

Sociologist and professor Lowell Juilliard Carr of the University of Michigan studied the sociological conditions arising from the wartime increase in the worker population in his landmark book on Willow Run in 1952.

On the other side of the airport from the assembly plant were a group of World War II hangars, which were sold to the University of Michigan in 1946. The university operated Willow Run Laboratories (WRL) from 1946 to 1972. WRL produced many innovations, including first ruby laser and operation of the ruby maser. In 1972, demonstrations by anti-Vietnam War activists forced the university to detach WRL from it.

The airfield continues to operate as the Willow Run Airport. The airfield is primarily used for cargo and general aviation flights. The Yankee Air Museum is also located on the airport grounds. On October 9, 2004, a fire destroyed the museum's main hangar, H-2041.