Ford's Willow Run Factory

   The Liberators flown by the crew while in training at Pueblo, and in combat in Italy, were manufactured at the Ford Willow Run plant in Michigan.
   The War Department asked Ford to put it's production know-how to the task of producing planes at an unprecedented rate - essentially the need was to build bombers faster than the enemy could shoot them down.
   The plant Ford built at Willow Run had an assembly line that was a mile long. At the peak of it's production, the assembly line was producing a Liberator an hour. Willow Run had its own airfield. It employed 30,000 workers.
   The first completed B-24 came off the assembly line at Willow Run on May 15, 1942. On June 28th, 1945 production Run ceased - 8,685 planes had been manufactured.