Saving the Willow Run Bomber Plant | Detroit Public TV Documentary 

This it's so cool to me because my dad was a waste gunner on a b-24 and they were shot down 3 months before the war ended and he became a POW in Bulgaria. When my dad died he was 92 years old and I'm so proud of him and his service to our country. I would love to see the inside of a b-24 and put my hands on one of the machine guns where he would have been stationed. they'll probably never happen but it would be so cool if it did. thanks Dad.

In the early 80s, I worked at a company in Rochester, MI. I designed a number of plastic parts that went into high speed impact printers. A plastic injection molding company nearby built molds and molded parts for me, and I visited them often. They employed a lady that worked as a riveter at Willow Run during WWII. And her name was actually Rosie. She was in her early 60s. Wore trousers, a blouse, and a faded, dowdy scarf on her head. She was quiet, a damn hard worker, and did everything asked of her. The molding company's owner eventually told me about her, being a riveter, and that she was the hardest working, least complaining, and best worker he'd ever seen. Every time I see a video about aircraft war production, and especially about the women in the workforce or Willow Run, I always fondly remember her. A real, true-to-life Rosie the Riveter. And I met her.

From a kid from Kalamazoo who spent 12 years in the Air Force, this video has inspired me....

When in Ypsilanti have a drink at the Tap Room in downtown, breakfast at the Bomber just down the street, dinner at Haabs..I love Ypsi always will ...

Seems Dennis Norton has a father to be proud of. And I think his father has a son he can be proud of as well. Good job guys. Thank you.

Fantastic production, impressive people. Thank you.

Bucket list visit for me. My father was brought back from Italy to the uk in 1945. He saw where the bullet holes had been repaired and went upto the cockpit to tell the pilots how to navigate to London.

My mom and dad went to willow run on the GI Bill so my dad could get an advanced degree at U of Michigan. They were quartered in wartime worker housing. Willow Run launched my family after the war was won.

Watching this I kept thinking of the B-24 raid on Ploesti where the US lost 53 bombers; so costly was this raid that the Army Air Corps never again attempted a low-level attack on those oil refineries. Output from Willow Run, however, made good those losses in 53 hours of production. Very impressive.

Visited a few years ago love the place and ypsi! Dad was a B24 crew

Very very interesting, i had tears on the border of my Eyes. Fred from France

Outstanding work by the museum staff and volunteers and the show producers to tell this story. I took my first flying lessons at Willow run in the early '80s and remember all of those huge factory buildings AND the old ammo bunkers and gun sighting range on the east side of the field. It was and still is hard to imagine that raw materials wnet in one end and finished war machines rolled out the other end. These planes and their crews went off to war as fast as the factory workers could turn out finished aircraft.

I worked there for 30 years when GM owned it. I don't know if they mentioned it but the bomber plant is long gone, the only section thats left is an area around where the old hanger doors are. That's the museum. Still better than nothing and I hope they're successful.

The Yankee Air Museum has a storied history and a promising new future, soon to be known as the National Museum of Aviation and Technology at Historic Willow Run!

When I was 7, I lived within sight of Willow Run. I remember taking flights from Detroit to Syracuse, NY and taxiing around what I believe was a bunker in the middle of the field

I'm not a vet, but thank everyone I see wearing a military cap for their service. I am the son of a vet who served in the last years of WWII in the Pacific theater. He never said anything about what he had been through, although he did talk about his interactions with Japanese civilians while he served in the police capacity after Japan surrendered. He said that there was only a few who disliked the Americans but the majority were just thankful the war was over. I'm also the father of a daughter who served in the Army as an ordnance specialist. She was stationed in Germany but spent time in Iraq, Afghanistan and a few other places she will not say as she signed a confidentiality agreement on her Honorable Discharge. After her discharge she was hired by KBR and was stationed at Bagram Airfield. Her first job was cleaning out stockpiles of weapons and ammunition left behind found at schools, hospitals and other places. She also destroyed Russian military equipment left behind by retreating Taliban and Al Qeada. Then she was transferred to logistics and handled getting supplies out to troops in the field.

What a great story, i hope things work out well for them.

Only four remain................... I think I am crying, yeah...... I am!

The 4 engine bomber is probably the single biggest tool we had to achieve air superiority and thereby bombing at will the furthest areas of the war, the B24 was the first. I’m surprised Ford Motor Company isn’t a part of this?

Paul Newman was a gunner on a bomber crew on the Bunker Hill. He came down with an ear infection just before the Kamikaze attack and was taken off the ship to recover. Most of the rest if his crew were lost among the 400 in the attack. He later said the only thing that helped him get over his survivor's guilt was meeting Joanne Woodward.

7:24 The man says "Hours after hours the women were using these heavy rivet guns to punch bolts into the frames." Rivets, not bolts!

My Grandfather worked at Kelvinator in Lansing making the propellers for the B-24. Thousands of propellers were shipped to Willow Run and installed within hours.

Willow Run Bomber Plant should be saved , brought back to producing Aerospace parts , structures Aircraft for our Armed ed Forces. It's a very Historic plant that should be kept opened and contributing to our National Defence.

I have visited the area and never knew that this existed.

Thank you

LET'S HEAR IT FOR"ROSIE THE REVITER"!!

awesome.. my mom riveted in wind shields., she never said on what air craft.

At 13:23 the Bunker Hill vet shaking hands with the Kamikaze's grandson , Peace.

one of the "sheds" of the arsenal of democraty. Nice to see they are preserving and using that historic building again!

The story of these plants is one of the best parts of the WWII experience. That being said. Like a ship that has reached the end of "its" life,we must recycle and make use of the resources. This is the natural way, not the war way. Hmm, Henry Ford. Lots to object too here. My main objection, the way Henry Ford abused his son Edsel Ford, his only child. You must keep it in mind that these WWII icons (Rosie) and all the patriotism were also things dreamed up because of the war. Be careful not to see something extreme and decided it was the norm. "Rosie" did not "punch bolts" she was part of a riveting team (most riveting involves two people per rivet) she is called "Rosie the Riveter" not Rosie the Bolt Puncher.

At 3:25, he got that count wrong. Of the B-24 & LB-30 model variants in the Liberator family, around thirteen complete examples survive today, of which two are airworthy, plus fuselage sections on display in museums and hulks in different locations around the world.

The whole metro Detroit auto industry and metro area thing is a cluster f' of monumental proportions and I'm ok with returning it to nature ...

Very Good!... #72 ✝ {5-24-2022}

Sometimes you're the windshield some times you're the cicada treadstone is a nursery rhyme. My grand father fought in the war to end all wars reading his diary I saw their we're days he was ecstatic to have a nice sloppy wet ditch to sleep in while the machine bulletts whizzed overhead and the artillery shells burst not far off the best day was when they marched twenty miles the wrong direction and disnot have to turn around and go backkk be cause they stopped at a small creek and they got to wash their socks he never got his victory bonus when he got back home the bank failed he lost his seed money and would have lost the farm and if the neighbors didn't share mule teams and sell the all the rest for deppression soup kitchens and then my dad went d the war to end all wars 2.0 they said the war was over ever weekend and it never was when it was really over nobody believed them.

Henry Ford was a pacifist??? Thats interesting since Ford supplied Hitler with Ford medium and heavy trucks before the outset of WW2. Hitler called Ford his favorite industrialist. Pretty strong words given Ferdinand Porsche was building tanks for Hitler, as a well as the VW bug.

Women have been in Manufacturing for CENTURIES,it just became a Matter of Scale!

Convert it over to make Terminator Robots.

Ford made it on his land

When did willow run be in Wayne county? Where's the border between counties?

No why did they have to tear it down the 1900s are way better than now days if I had a time machine I would go back in a jiffy.

Chuckie Schumer can use some of his $2 Trillion infrastructure slush funding to restore this historic place. My Step Mom was a Rosie the Riveter at Consolidated's plant at Carswell Field outside of Fort Worth, later to become Air Force Plant #4. She started out working on the empennage of B-24 Liberators, finishing her career up on the B-36 Peacemakers before she headed back to the Family's East Texas dairy farm.

AND ROSY THE RIVETER STOOD ON THE SHOULDERS OF THE WOMAN PIONEERS OF THE FRONTIER OF THE WILD WEST / MAY GOD BE WITH THEM FOR ALL ETERNITY

An economy based on war machines...not good. Beware the Military industrial complex... These men all.were heros... Let's pray no more wars... Shalom

seems like in the long run, Detroit lost wwii.

I can't understand why people turn a documentary into a political platform denigrating women and about the stench of the whiteman and colonialism. YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF . I ,for one , wish the museum every success for decades to come .

The problem with this...it's in Detroit.

Feminist write history! Or re-write history.

building b24s must be easy if girls can do it

Sounds like a womens lib show not how the plant produced the b24