The U.S. Once Built Airplanes Quickly

 

How long should it take to build an airplane?

"The current controversy is about Air Force One. Boeing in 2018 signed a contract to manufacture two presidential planes, with a delivery date of 2024. The jets still aren't ready and by some accounts may not be until 2029. While the high-decibel debate about the propriety of accepting a plane as a gift from the Qatari royal family escalates, the delay at Boeing drags on.

There was a moment in America when the question of how quickly planes could be built had life-or-death urgency. It didn't entail the various security complexities involved in tailoring a 747 for the White House. Yet it is one of the most astonishing tales of ingenuity in manufacturing history.

As 1939 began, the U.S. had fewer than 2,000 military aircraft. With World War II looming, President Franklin D. Roosevelt knew the country desperately needed to remedy the situation. He turned to America's top manufacturers for help.

One of them was the Ford Motor Co. Henry Ford owned farmland in a place called Willow Run, around 30 miles from Detroit. In 1940 workers began constructing an enormous manufacturing-and-assembly plant and an airfield on the bucolic property. It was finished within six months.

After the Pearl Harbor attack, the plant was ready to mass-produce B-24 Liberators: bombers that weighed 18 tons, were 67 feet long and had wingspans of 110 feet. Could massive warplanes be built with the same assembly-line method as family automobiles? It had never been tried before.

Ford's production genius, Charlie Sorensen, was put in charge. Soon 42,000 workers filled the factory floors in around-the-clock shifts. With so many Americans off fighting in Europe and the Pacific, some of the men and women at Willow Run had never done manufacturing jobs before. So a school was set up near the plant: Some 8,000 employees a week were taught to build airplanes.

Those four-engine B-24s, according to documents from Willow Run, each contained 1.2 million parts held together by more than 300,000 rivets. "Rosie the Riveter" entered the American lexicon, as women who had never before done such work helped manufacture the Liberators.

How long should it take to build an airplane? By the time Willow Run was operating at full capacity, a B-24 was rolling off the mile-long rural assembly line every 55 minutes. A Liberator an hour. The nation needed those planes, and it got them.

By war's end, factories across the U.S. had built nearly 300,000 military aircraft.

The aviators, soldiers and sailors came home victorious, and they started families. Those of us who were their children, and who grew up hearing their stories, could be excused for allowing ourselves to believe that when this country's back is against the wall, there is nothing it can't accomplish.

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Mr. Greene's books include "Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War."” [1]

The 300,000 military aircraft allowed  bombing campaigns newer seen before. Allied bombing campaigns in WWII, particularly against Germany and Japan, resulted in significant devastation and had a mixed impact on the war's outcome. While they contributed to weakening Axis power, especially through damage to infrastructure and morale, the campaigns also caused immense civilian casualties and raised ethical questions. 

Those were good times for airplanes. If you took off, you could drop whatever you wanted and as much as you wanted. It was hard to shoot you down. Those factory methods allowed the US and British military people to take off easily and bomb heavily. Now, if you took off, you are an easy target. Things are different now.
 

1. The U.S. Once Built Airplanes Quickly. Greene, Bob.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 14 May 2025: A17.