Across the Pond

With auto makers retooling plants to combat Covid-19, Evans looks back at a similar milestone example, during the dark days of the Second World War...

D esperate times often call for desperate measures. The rapid spread of Covid-19 across the globe has had a profound impact on national economies like never before, as governments introduce social isolation measures and business shutdowns in an effort to contain the spread. As I type, here in North America, the disease continues to spread and some hard-hit areas, such as New York, are having a tough time coping. Part of the issue is down to not enough resources, such as masks and ventilators.

As many of you are probably aware, the situation has become so bad that President Trump asked Detroit automakers to step in and start manufacturing ventilators to help beleaguered healthcare professionals and ensure that those most in need receive the medical attention required. This mobilisation of the auto sector has inevitably led to comparisons being drawn with the 'Arsenal of Democracy', a term by which the entire motor industry was galvanised into war production during the dark years of the Second World War to provide tanks, aircraft, munitions and other materiel crucial to containing the conquest ambitions of the Axis powers.

While the current crisis is very different in terms of scope and the ventilators and masks are being manufactured at smaller, more specialised facilities, as opposed to vehicle assembly plants, retooling manufacturing facilities is no mean feat. Back in the Second World War, it was unprecedented. In his popular book, The Arsenal of Democracy, AJ Baime chronicles one of the most ambitious projects of the war, how the Ford Motor Company - already recognised as a leader in the field of mass production due to its successwith likes of the Model T and Model A - was tasked with building an enormous factory to manufacture Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber aircraft.

The Consolidated B-24, which first flew in 1939, was, alongside the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, one of two principal heavy bombers available to the USArmy Air Corps at the start of the war. The B-24 was a much more advanced design than the B-17, boasting a much larger bomb capacity, tricycle landing gear and a very high aspect ratio, with shoulder-mounted wings among its many features. Consolidated's base of operations in San Diego was simply not able to build these complex aircraft in sufficient numbers to cope with demand, so a solution had to be found.

Given Ford's expertise in mass production, the War Department turned to the family-run automaker and by 1941, a plan was under way. Some 975 acres of farmland in south-eastern Michigan was acquired, along with an adjacent airfield. On this site a 3.5 million square feet manufacturing complex was created - the now famous Willow Run site. The architect of the whole B-24 Willow Run plant was Charles Sorenson, head of production at Ford Motor Company. Experience in turning Ford's Model T Highland Park factory to mass production and later designing the massive Rouge complex gave him an intricate understanding on what was required to manufacture on such a huge scale.

To give you an idea of just how ambitious the Ford B-24 programme was, a typical car in 1941 weighed around 3000Ib and incorporated 15,000 different components. A B-24 Liberator, by contrast, had 450,000 parts and weighed close to 18 tons. To make mass production of B-24s work, Sorenson knew that the key was to use standardised and interchangeable parts and a sequential assembly process with an orderly flow. This allowed sub-sections of each aircraft to be assembled and joined together for final assembly, much in the same way as passenger cars and light trucks.

B-24s started rolling off the assembly line at

Willow Run in 1942 and at peak capacity one completed bomber rolled out the door every hour. In total, Ford built 8645 B-24 Liberators at the Willow Run plant, versus a total of 9808 collectively manufactured at the other facilities operated by Consolidated, Douglas Aircraft and North American Aviation. The sheer numbers of B-24s produced led the aircraft to achieving the status of being the most mass-produced airplane of the war, with 18,453 examples delivered before production ceased and serving in every single theatre of operations during the war.

Liberators flew bombing sorties over Europe, the Mediterranean and in the Far East, they patrolled shipping lanes and helped curtail the U-Boat menace in the Atlantic; they served as troop, cargo as well as VIP transports (Winston Churchill used one as his personal transport aircraft). Without these aircraft, and those that manufactured, flew and maintained them, it's doubtful the Allies would have been able to turn the tide as successfully as they did and without their efforts, the war could have endured several more years.

In the postwar period, Willow Run gained a new lease of life, first as a manufacturing base for the Kaiser-Frazercorporation, which manufactured cars there from 1947-53, and subsequently General Motors, which used to produce transmissions and later complete cars, including the Chevrolet Corvair and Nova. By the time of the Great Recessionin 2008-09, Willow Run had largely fallen silent. With GM's bankruptcy and subsequent restructuring, plans were made to dispose of the facility and Willow Run was demolished in 2014. Yet even today its legacy lives on. And once the lockdowns are lifted and people can start to travel again, visiting the nearby Yankee Air Museum might provide a new perspective on how difficult times can often

* result in remarkable feats of achievement.