Willow Run

A Legacy of Private Aviation

Willow Run originated as a farm (its name derived from a stream that flowed between the pastureland and woods), and Henry Ford purchased the ground in 1931. He used it for nearly a decade as a “social engineering” experiment whereby inner-city boys were brought in to learn about nature, farming, and rural life. The boys planted, tended, and harvested crops while running a maple syrup operation, and these products were sold at the farm market, which was also on the property. Thus, the boys could benefit from fresh air (which was not available where they had lived previously) while also learning self-discipline and the value of hard work. By 1940, the possibility of the U.S. joining WWII appeared inevitable, despite its neutrality. Certain government officials began preparing for the possibility, and Henry Ford (an isolationist himself) was persuaded to accept a contract to build B-24 Liberator heavy bombers for the Army Air Forces (under a license from Consolidated Aircraft, the plane’s designer). As his building site, he chose Willow Run and had a massive industrial plant built known as the Willow Run manufacturing complex. The main structure comprised 3.5 million square feet of factory space, with an assembly line over a mile long (thought to be the largest factory under one roof in the world). As part of the Liberator Production Pool Program of 1941 (which Ford joined shortly after the program’s creation), Ford was assigned to provide components for the B-24 (as the final assembly was to take place at the Consolidated plant in Fort Worth, Texas or at the Douglas plant in Tulsa, Oklahoma - Douglas was also a licensee). By October 1941, Ford received permission to assemble complete Liberators at Willow Run - it would still take a year before the completed aircraft left its facility. The plant itself was massive, covering 65 acres and almost 0.25 miles wide and 0.5 miles long (the production line had a 90-degree turn, which some contend was to avoid the airfield’s taxiways and others to keep the plant and equipment out of Wayne County, where property taxes were higher). In September 1942, the first Liberators built by Ford were completed, designated B-24E. These were mostly used for training. There were growing pains due largely to the technical and mental differences between assembling automobiles and aircraft, the latter requiring great precision. Furthermore, there were labor issues, including high employee turnover and a particularly high absentee rate. This was largely due to the hour commute from Detroit, as well as the imposition of wartime gasoline and tire rationing. Ford’s anti-union stance also proved unhelpful; at one point, they experienced a serious strike. In June 1943, Willow Run transitioned to building the B-24H model, and these were the first Liberators created at the plant to see combat in numbers. A year later (by which point Willow Run was building the B-24J) the Army decided that Willow Run and the Consolidated plant in San Diego could sufficiently produce enough Liberators to meet future needs (as the Boeing B-29 Superfortress was taking over the long-range bombing mission in the Pacific). By the fall of 1944, Willow Run was building the B-24 M (transitioning from the B-24L) - the last Liberator built in large numbers. In May 1945, production of the Liberator was discontinued, as the war in Europe had ended. All in all, Willow Run had built 6,972 Liberators and 1,893 sets of knock-down parts for a total of 8,685 aircraft. Production at Ford was decentralized (at the request of the federal government), with parts assembled at other Ford plants, while Willow Run focused on the final assembly of aircraft. Ford managers coordinated activities with an Army Air Forces support unit. Despite the initial issues in production, by 1944, Ford was completing a Liberator at Willow Run every 63 minutes (24 hours a day, seven days a week). 1st Concentration Command (1st CC) would then deliver the aircraft to the squadrons. They were in charge of completing the organization and equipment of tactical and bombardment units prior to their deployment overseas, as well as making final inspections of the aircraft and making any necessary final changes, including the installation of long-range fuel tanks, the removal of unnecessary equipment, and the final test flight. One issue faced was difficulty making modifications once production began in a timely fashion. As such, Air Technical Service Command modification centers were established for the incorporation of the necessary changes (based on the theater of war) into Liberators after their manufacture and assignments. Henry Ford insisted on building the plant without government financing. Therefore, Ford built the factory, then sold it to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation’s Defense Plant Corporation (RFC-DPC), which in turn leased it back to Ford for the duration of the war. The airfield appears to have been built on Henry Ford’s private land, and in July 1944 he transferred it to Ford, then sold it to the RFC-DPC. After the war, Wayne County officials began expanding Detroit-Wayne Major Airport, which was 10 miles closer to the city than Willow Run. Willow Run’s isolation meant that new approaches to passenger transportation had to be tried, and in 1946 Warren Avis founded Avis Airlines Rent a Car Systems at Willow Run, the first car rental at an airport. In 1947, Willow Run was sold to the University of Michigan for $1.00. Terms of the sale dictated that the university operate the airport as a research facility and that the Michigan Aeronautical Research Center took over some of the airport’s buildings (those not needed for commercial aviation). Many of the buildings at Willow Run were therefore used by university physicists and engineers in research for national defense. Some included early work in antiballistic missile defense and remote sensing (in 1972, this facility became known as the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan after its separation from the university). Furthermore, the bomber plant was leased (and later sold) to the Kaiser-Frazer automobile company around the same time the airfield was sold to the university. Later on, the factory came into the ownership of General Motors, and it ceased operations at Willow Run in 2010. In 1951, the U.S. Air Force established the Willow Run Air Force Station (as they had a right of return), but the station was closed in 1959. Up until 1958, nearly all the scheduled airline flights used Willow Run. In 1957, the airport was served by Capital Airlines, American Airlines, Northwest Orient, United Airlines, North Central Airlines, TWA, Delta Air Lines, Allegheny Airlines, and Mohawk Airlines. However, the use of jets necessitated the use of Detroit-Wayne, which was renamed the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport that year (as it had a new terminal designed for jets, a newly expanded runway layout, and approach controls). By 1966, airline flights at Willow Run ended. In 1981, the Yankee Air Museum opened on airport grounds. Unfortunately, an October 2004 fire destroyed the building and its artifacts, but the static display aircraft (too big for the building) were undamaged. In 2005 the museum moved to the other side of the airport, where they began to rebuild their collection and gather more WWII artifacts. Runway 9R/27L was converted to Taxiway H in 2009, which allowed for the redesign of Runway 5R to reduce the possibility of encroachment by taxiing aircraft. In December 2017, an autonomous vehicle proving ground, Technology Park (by the American Center for Mobility), opened at the airport, utilizing a vacated 2.5-mile portion of the former Willow Run Expressway.