STORY OF WILLOW RUN

[Music] This is the story of Willow Run, one of the Ford farms that virtually overnight became the largest aircraft plant that had ever been built. A story that now can be told in full. Here, before our security and freedom were challenged by war, boys were learning the trade of being productive and responsible Americans. They were taught to till the land and plow a straight burrow. Guided by farm experts and aided by modern machinery, the boys at the Willowrun Farm planted, grew, and harvested the finest produce. [Music] In the early spring, they tapped the sugar maples, collected the rising sap, and took it to the nearby sugar house where it was converted to maple products. Then came the threat of war. The sugar house, the maples, and the farm were sacrificed to make room for a plant designed to produce one consolidated valti liberator every hour. Thousands of skilled workers were employed, pouring 100,000 yds of concrete, erecting 38,000 tons of structural steel, setting 10 million bricks, fitting miles of piping, and running more miles of electric cable to operate the thousands of machines that were to be installed in this truly giant structure. The Army Air Forces asked Ford to undertake mass production of this bomber in addition to other aerial weapons produced by the company which included troop carrying gliders, turbo superchargers, and the 2,000 horsepower Prattton Whitney aircraft engine. This 80 acre plant was built in record time. In reality, it was made into two plants under one roof, a manufacturing plant and an assembly plant. The now famous Willowrun airfield covers 1,434 acres and provides 280 acres of concrete runways and taxi strips. Enough to make a two-lane concrete highway 120 mi long. And this was Willow Run's product, a giant flying machine for which the plant was so carefully toled that it could produce one every 55 minutes. This is the Army Air Force's Liberator Heavy Bomber, the ship that made headlines and was affectionately known among flyers as the LIB. This great aircraft is 110 ft from wing tip to wing tip and 67 ft 4 in from nose to tail. Powered by four 1,200 horsepower air cooled engines, the LIB can carry 10 men, four tons of bombs, and 5,000 rounds of machine gun ammunition at better than 300 mph at high altitude. The B-24, as it is officially designated, can fly 3,000 m nonstop. And as the pilot signals a control tower and prepares to bring her down, we will soon see for ourselves how this modern miracle of mass production has been performed. Located by the tower and lined up with the runway, we are bringing in 20 tons of bomber at better than 100 mph. [Music] We're down on solid concrete. The pilot again calls the control tower and is assigned a position on the apron. And as we taxi to this birth, we pass just part of a day's production, waiting to be tested by Ford pilots. The flags wave our pilot to his position and we are grounded at fabulous Willow Run. At the entrance to the administration building, one mile away from the landing apron at the other end of the plant. This plaque proves that the Army Air Forces and Ford were ready when war came. Dedicated June 16th, 1941, 6 months before Pearl Harbor. In offices of the Army Air Forces and in that of the Ford Superintendent, a close check was kept on the movement of all bomber assembly lines with this master board. Numbered, movable models show the step-by-step progress of the nearly 100 bombers which were always progressing down through the plant assembly lines. People flooded in the gates of Willeran summer and winter by day and by night. At one time, 42,000 of them. They made up the ranks of the bomber plant production force. To teach these workers how, a half million dollar school was built adjoining the plant. More than 50,000 workers were graduated in from one to 10 subjects by this school organization. To do this vital job, Ford had to provide hundreds of instructors to teach more than 50 courses. Workers learned about the complicated aircraft hydraulic system and the mysteries of aircraft electronics. Cutaway engines serve to illustrate installation and service details. Farmer and our production made necessary the erection of a detached warehouse covering 11 acres to house and handle raw materials. In this vast space, 785 totally different items were stored. There were enough materials here and in the plant at one time to build 1,000 liberators. Here you would find sheet aluminum, aluminum bars, coiled aluminum wire, and virtually every other known form of this lightweight metal. For 85% of a liberator's 20 tons is aluminum. This was the first step of construction. Aluminum sheets were cut into proper sizes for handling in the plant's presses and forming machines, such as this great battery of presses, which stamped out parts for the B24. Some of these, the same presses Ford uses to make bodies and fenders for automobiles, were loaned to Willow Run. Because of the great variety of parts that go into a bomber, nearly 15,000 dyes had to be constantly rotated through these presses to maintain a sufficient stock of parts on hand. Before these aluminum sheets were fed into presses, they had to be sprayed with the lubricant to prevent scratching and to help the metal flow in the dyes. [Music] In this operation, three presses are seen shaping a wing bulkhead. Because of the wing taper, 57 different shaped and size bulkheads were made for each wing. These presses soon produced enough of this size for many ships after which the dyes had to be changed. So the die changing operation went on continuously. Since these planes were to be flown over salt water, in the tropics, far north, all over the world, individual parts had to be treated to protect them from the elements. Racks like these dipped 52,000 shining pieces, plus 4 1/2 tons of rivets every working day. And speaking of rivets, 400,000 went into every liberator. And these two were produced at Willow Run. This plant produced more than 400 sizes and 13 varieties of rivets carefully checked by inspectors. In sharp contrast to small rivets are these 250 lb landing wheels shipped in ready to install. Just the tube of this tire weighs more than the complete tire and tube on the average family car. The wings and fuselage took thousands of feet of stringers. the ribs of the body and these were shaped on miniature rolling mills such as this. Each roller adds a bend in the stripped aluminum. Then the length is sliced off. After treating, stringers went to punch presses where as many as 312 holes were punched with one stroke through which rivets later held the aluminum skin. Practically everything in a bomber had to be curved in one direction or another. The revolving action of the dye bends the metal to the needed shape. This peculiar looking operation was typical of many at Willow Run. [Music] At this station, heavy stock was rolled into a circular track for a power gun turret. And this later was machined to fine tolerances. so that the guns could swing smoothly and swiftly in combat action. Aluminum tubes made up the arteries of the lib. These tubes carried gasoline, oil, hydraulic fluid, oxygen, compressed air, fire extinguishing fluid, steam, deicing solution, screening smoke, and antifreeze to various parts of the ship. More than 1,700 different tubes were installed in each B24 to feed the 12 different control systems. Straight pieces of tubing were cut, bent carefully, flanged, degreased, treated to prevent corrosion, prepared with proper fittings, and inspected. Each was identified with colored tape. Instead of putting individual tubes into the bomber, Ford's mass assembly technique called for making them up into clusters which were made in special jigs and fitted into the bomber in entire units. And here you see workers assembling the pre-bent tubes into one assembly unit. [Music] These clusters assembled with other sections made up the bombers's complicated plumbing system. Basically, Willow Run's manufacturing system was like that of the Ford automobile plants. This was the key to the secret of building one bomber every hour. This chart shows how Ford production men cut up the Liberator into major assembly sections. One, the center wing. Two, the nose. Three, the aft fuselage. Four, the engines. Five, the tail. And six, the outer wings. And these were handled very much like automobile assembly lines where cars are also divided into major components. The frame, the engine, the wheels, and the body all made it on the final assembly line. [Music] Like the automobile, this bomber started with small parts being fastened together, such as by spot welding. There are no sparks in spot welding. The metal's being fused by pressure and an electrical charge. This welder makes 300 spot welds a minute. So close together that they make a leak proof seam. Applied to aircraft manufacturer, Ford spot welding technique saved 35,000 man-h hours of labor per month and replaced 15,000 relatively heavy rivets in every bomber. Parts that do not lend themselves to other methods of assembly were welded by gas. And here these men and women use gas torches to join parts. Gas welding of aluminum is a highly specialized job and scores of welders were trained in the Willow Run School. Plenty of special tools like this pressure riveter were designed for use in this work. Small assemblies for planes required much handwork as demonstrated by this use of an air drill on one assembly phase of the tail turret well and more dramatically shown by the building of the pilot's control column. Because of the relatively few units required to meet bomber an hour production, it would not have been practical to devise a moving conveyor line for such as operations as these. Assembly work was of course simplified by precision machining operations by which formed and cast parts were shaved down almost to perfection with allowable tolerances running from only 1/2 of 1,000th of an inch to 15,000. [Music] Among the small subasssemblies, some of the more interesting originate in the plexiglass section, where windows of strange shapes were made of this light plastic. After being soaked at 256°, transparent plastic becomes flexible and can be readily shaped to needed patterns. After cooling, this particular piece becomes part of the bombader's enclosure for the nose of the ship. [Music] dipped in this solution, it acquired a protective coating to prevent scratching during handling. This coating was removed later. And here workers are shown fastening aluminum skin to a stringer assembly to make a most important part of the bomber, the center wing section. [Music] Like the frame of an automobile, the center wing is the backbone of the liberator. It carries the load of the four engines, the gasoline tanks, the bombs, the fuselage, and the landing gear. The spar is the main beam that runs the entire length of the center wing. The whole wing is built around it. By breaking the center wing down into sub assemblies and by using mass production fixtures such as these, Ford cut the cycle time for building wings from 19 days to a matter of hours. From 11,414 man hours of labor to just a few hundred. When the sub assemblies were completed, they were swung by crane to big 27 ton vertical fixtures, the massiveness of which ensured rigidity. After the spars were in place at the bottom, bulkhead and stringer assemblies were lowered and fastened together to form the main structure of the wing. Aluminum skin was then riveted to the outside and another center wing assembly was completed. The completely assembled wing section then moved off through the air to the next operation. With the possibility of a bottleneck in the machining and milling of such a large section as this wing, Ford engineers borrowed an idea which they had used for many years in making automobiles. They designed a brand new machine shop combine known as the final machining unit. While the wing was held firmly in position, it was attacked from all directions by drills and milling tools. [Applause] [Music] A simple illustration is offered by this multiple drill used to machine Ford V8 engine blocks at the Rouge plant. Note that the drills come in from all angles and drill many holes at one time. So it is with the final machining unit. Many machine operations were performed at the same time and in exactly the same position on every wing. This illustrates why every part of every Ford built Liberator is exactly like every similar part and shows why these parts have been interchangeable from ship to ship all over the world. Cranes fed the completely machined wings to twin furnishing lines, each of which was about a city block long. Here, women workers began installation of the incredibly complicated wing wiring system. Also, the tubing clusters you saw being assembled in another part of the plant. And the four turbo superchargers, actually turbine pumps, which force air to the four engines, increasing horsepower and enabling the ship to fly higher where the atmosphere is thin. These superchargers are exhaust driven turbines, the rotors of which speed up to an incredible 26,000 revolutions per minute. The landing gear was installed here, hooked up to its controls and tested to be sure it retracted. And so we now see the center wing section, the chassis of the bomber completely assembled and on its way to the four final assembly lines. It is ready for mating to the other main sections of the bomber which have been assembled in other parts of the vast plant. The nose section was next with its vital flight instruments, cabin for pilots, radio man, flight engineer, navigator and bombader. This section is the nerve center of the ship. The nose section started out with this ribbing in which the woman worker is installing a window frame. Aluminum skin then could be riveted to this ribbing to form the outer wall. Side panels for the nose, consisting of more than 500 structural parts, were attached to a conveyor and moved along an assembly line. Each of these women workers had a certain job to do in furnishing this wall with its necessary equipment, including more than 1,000 different parts. This method of assembly saved time and money because this work would take much longer if done in the limited quarters of the bomber after assembly. Here on these assembly lines, the workers could do their job quickly and easily. The pilot's floor controls and instrument panel was put together on a 400 ft merrygoround type of assembly line which revolved very slowly and which consisted of 30 stations. This obviously very intricate and complicated assembly job consisted of 190 separate installations, each of which had to be a sub assembly with a maze of detail within itself. Complete with its surrounding framework. The pilot's floor was then lowered into a special mating fixture. [Music] A crane then brought the complete sidewalls over to the fixture and placed them in position. This wall was furnished with a great deal of equipment, including an electrical harness consisting of more than a half mile of cable. This fixture was so built that both side walls could be slid over against the framework that supported them. Then the entire unit was fastened. [Music] The cabin roof came next, followed by the canopy called the greenhouse by flyers. s workers could then finish mating the tubes, wires, and installing other nose furnishings. Next step in assembling a liberator at Willow Run was building the tail part of the fuselage. These boatlike objects are aft bottom panels. The ribbing was held in place by fixtures while workers applied the skin. After which the paddles were turned over and furnished on this moving assembly line. In the meantime, the tail cone had been made and its furnishings are here shown being completed on this line. [Music] Tail section side panels were joined together to form the top and sides of the aft fuselage seen here as it is being lowered to meet its bottom panel. [Music] [Applause] This worker is hooking up the oxygen system which supplies the life sustaining gas to members of the crew when the bomber is flying at high altitudes. The complete assembly out of the fuse lodge after the wing was then lifted and carried to a 15 station moving assembly line where the remainder of its furnishings were installed. Throughout all these processes, company inspectors, one for every 13 workers, ensured that these bomber components were wellmade and ready for assembly. Meanwhile, the center wing section had been moved on to one of the four assembly lines, which in the end narrowed to two. [Music] As the bomb racks, catwalk and bomb bay sides go in. You can see the fuse lodge takes shape where it connects with the center wing. At this point, the nose section and the aft section of the fuse lodge were fed into the final assembly lines by being lifted to an overhead conveyor which brought them to the proper spot for mating with the center wing. The first major section, the nose, was lowered to the assembly line where a cradle was used to slide it backward for connection with the wing. Next came the aft fuse lodge section. When the wing and this section were mated, it really began to look like a bomber. [Music] The gun turret in the bomber's nose was quickly installed. [Music] Then came engine installation. All four went on at one station, one after the other, with calling and accessories all attached. One of the 12,200 horsepower Prattton Whitney engines was carefully lowered into position and attached to its mounting in the wing. Each engine was fastened in place in 15 minutes, but of course, added time was needed to hook up their controls as the ship progressed down the line. Only four bolts hold the engine to the wing, and each of these is a mere 5/8 of an inch in diameter. As engines were installed, the great twin tail made in the Ford Rouge plant and assembled at Willow Run was swung down by a crane to its proper points on the fuselage. Made to fit with precision. The actual fastening of this unit required only a matter of minutes. [Music] But after the tail was attached, all of the controls leading to the elevators and rudders had to be hooked up so the plane could be controlled in the air. Then another business unit of the bomber went into place, the top turret. Notice that the bomber then no longer rode down through the plant on conveyors. It rolled on its own giant wheel. At this point too, the great bird was ready to extend its wings. The bomber stopped on a floor conveyor and was slid sidewise to the middle of the bay. Note the little who will get inside the main wing to fasten the outer wing to the center section as it swings into position. [Music] The same action took place on the other side of the ship as well. And with both outer wings in place, the complete span is 110 ft from tip to tip. A few finishing touches remained as the bomber continued to move on a faster schedule since all of the large assemblies were in place. The insignia was painted on. Delicate instruments, radio equipment, wing flaps, soundproofing, and propellers quickly were added in this stationto station progress. Here, the 4200 square ft of bomber skin was cleaned. The woman worker polishes the bombaders's window. There is enough aluminum here to fabricate 55,000 coffee percolators, and it's quite a cleaning job. Back in 1941, it was believed impossible to build a bomber as big as the Liberator in an hour. In fact, in several hours. Even the conception of a plant such as this was viewed with considerable skepticism. But the people at Ford have vision as well as skill. They have always planned and worked on a broad scale, have always struck out on pioneering paths, and they're wise in the ways of mass production. Of course, this was something new in assembly, not just another relatively simple automobile with only 15,000 or so parts to be made and assembled. Each of these machines is made up of 1,225,000 parts, and each had to be perfect. And in these lines, you see the evidence of another Fordmade miracle. The Willowrun Bomber Plant has furnished one of the miracle production stories of this war. It produced 8,685 bombers in a steady stream, relentless, unceasing, on time, as methodical as a great river fed by its tributaries. These ships are the product of experience. Constant changes, some dictated by service conditions, have given to the Army Air Force's bombers that fly farther, faster, and higher, with the result that the final marbles look far different than their older cousins. After the ship was built, Ford's job was not yet done. Because each ship, each of the thousands made at Willow Run, had to be thoroughly tested by both ground and flight crews. [Music] The 50 caliber machine guns were fired and steel bullets buried themselves in the sand pit. Engines were revved up to takeoff speed. In some dummy bombs were loaded to test the racks. But in all the planes, hours and hours were spent in tests and checks by specially trained ground crews before functional tests. From flight operations center, fourman test crews took over. These crews consisted of pilot, co-pilot, radio man, and flight engineer. A touch on the hydraulic button and the bomb bay door opens to give access to the ship. engines [Music] start and she taxis out to the runway for her first flight. The big ship gathers speed rapidly, racing down the runway for a full power takeoff. We're airborne and the wheels are retracted into their wing well. In the air, the belly turret is lowered and tested. Each of the four propellers is fully feathered. When the pilot readjusts the blades, the rush of wind will again start the engine. Bomb bay doors are opened and closed. [Music] The flight engineer checks performance of the engines and equipment, including the inner communication system, after which the Bombay doors are opened again and the dummy bombs are away. Test completed. Our ship peels off. This ship is strong with strength built in by skilled brains and hands with all the experience that Ford has gained over the years of mass production. For the Army Air Forces, it has strength to fly and fight and return to fly and fight again and again and again. That is its contribution to winning a peace. So out of the pain and fury of war has arisen the beginning of a means of rapid transport to the farthest places in the world which in times of peace will help unite mankind that all may share in the abundance of the earth.