Group hopes to locate a B-24 as symbol of Ypsilanti's past
Group hopes to locate a B-24 as symbol of Ypsilanti’s past
By David Crowell
NEWS SPECIAL WRITER
During the Second World War, some 8,700 B-24 Bombers were built by the aviation division of Ford Motor Co. at its Willow Run Plant outside Ypsilanti.
Henry Ford’s Bomber Factory has since changed hands, and General Motors now builds transmissions and “X-cars” there. The airfield Ford built, has become the Willow Run Airport, servicing private pilots and air freight companies. Aviators say of all the B-24s built, only one remains in the air. It is in private hands, and carries a price tag of some $300,000.
A group of local pilots and aviation buffs has organized in Ypsilanti, hoping to find and restore a B-24, making the plane airworthy once more.
THE GROUP, calling itself the “Yankee Air Force,” filed the necessary paperwork to become a non-profit corporation with the State of Michigan last month.
Dennis Norton, Yankee Air Force president, says the group wants to restore a B-24 because of the important role the bomber played in the development of the Ypsilanti area.
“The B-24s were built here at Willow Run,” he says, “The airport is here because of the B-24.”
The Willow Run plant covered 67 acres and contained final assembly lines more than a mile in length. Defying conventional theory, the plant proved that airplanes could be built on an assembly line.
FROM THE TIME the facility opened until production stopped June 28,1945, 8,685 “Liberators,” as the planes were called, were built. At its peak, the plant employed 42,331 workers and turned out a bomber every 63 minutes.
The planes flew 300 miles an hour, carried four tons of bombs and fought in every theater of war.
Industrialists in the Detroit area began to call their region the “Arsenal of Democracy” because of the bomber output.
Norton says the impact of the bomber factory is still being felt. He says the descendants of thousands of people who came from across the country to work in the original bomber plant still reside in the Ypsilanti area.
ACCORDING TO NORTON, the biggest challenge facing the Yankee Air Force will net be restoring a B-24 to flying condition, but finding a B-24 to restore.
“At the present time we know of only one true B-24 that’s flying in the entire world, and that’s out in California. So it’s an extremely rare airplane, and we’re hunting all over the world,” he says.
“We think there’s one on a glacier up in Alaska which went down in 1947,” he said. “One of our members may fly up and look for it.”
“We’ve got contacts, and we’re talking to people all over the world. Our best contacts are in Bolivia... and over in India.
“IF WE CAN FIND one, we’re going to get it back and rebuild it and fly it,” he says.
The Yankee Air Force is conducting the search through a loosely knit network of commercial pilots in its membership. Norton says they have already checked with the U.S. Air Force in their search.
If the Yankee Air Force is unable to find one of the now rare bombers for restoration, Norton says the group will attempt to purchase the B-24 currently flying in California.
IN EITHER EVENT, Norton says, a tremendous amount of money will be needed. To raise funds and increase its membership, the Yankee Air Force will be holding an open house in and around the Butler Aviation hangers at Willow Run Airport.
Norton says several aircraft will be flown in for the open house this Sunday. He says the aircraft will be on display between noon and 3 p.m.
“If you don’t latch on to these things and start working on them now, there’s just not going to be any left. And you’ve lost a very important part of the history of the country by losing these airplanes,” says Norton.
Nearly 8,700 B-24 bombers were made at Willow Run