WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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-All right, so it still might be
loading for you guys,

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but you should hopefully see --
I'm going to start

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my webcam here.

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Let's see.

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You should see me
in just 1 second.

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Hello, everyone.

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So you see me, and hopefully
you hear me now, too.

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You can also hear that I'm maybe
a little stuffed up today,

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so I apologize
if you maybe hear me

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hopefully not sneezing
or coughing too much,

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but with the crazy change in
temperatures here in New Orleans

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and everywhere you guys are,
you know,

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I'm sure there's a lot of people
that have the sniffles today,

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so please bear with me.

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But today we have
a really awesome program.

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We here at the World War II Museum in New
Orleans

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there's me, Chrissy, and then,
Megan, do you want

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to pop in and wave?

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-Hi!

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-Megan will be managing
that Q&A pod you see below me.

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We really encourage you guys
to type in questions

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throughout the presentation.

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We'll try to answer what we can.

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We're going to have
a Q&A session with both us

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and the Yankee Air Museum
at the end.

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And if we don't
get to your question,

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feel free to include your e-mail
as well when you type

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in a question.

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We're happy to answer
it later, as well.

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So that is for you guys to input
any sorts of questions,

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you know, about this topic,
and Megan will be

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kind of looking at that
and managing it

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throughout the session.

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Also joining us in a little bit
are the folks

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in the Yankee Air Museum.

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We have Randy, who is
the historian on Willow Run,

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and Rachel, who is
the director of education

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at the Yankee Air Museum
in Belleville, Michigan.

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The cool thing about
this sort of technology

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is that we can connect with
all of you guys

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from many different places,
but also have

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this really neat opportunity
to have two different museums

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present to you on this topic,
so as I said, I'm really,

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as you can tell,
like, really excited today

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that we're able to do this.

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So the first 20 minutes
or so will be me,

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and then Randy and Rachel
will take over

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at the Yankee Air Museum,
so what we're going to do today,

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though,
to kind of start you guys off,

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start your brains, you know,
working and all

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that sort of stuff,
is that I'm going to

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ask you guys
a question in a poll question.

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For some of you folks
that have done this before,

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this might look familiar,
but for some of you newbies,

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this might be different and new.

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You can see here I'm opening up
a poll in Adobe Connect,

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and I want you guys
to answer this question

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to start off today.

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After what event did
the United States

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officially enter World War II?

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And you can make your selection
in there as you can see.

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Germany invaded Poland,
Japan invaded China,

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Germany attacked England,
in the Battle of Britain,

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or Japan attacked
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii?

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I'll give you a second.

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It looks like,
oh, you guys are super smart.

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You know your stuff.

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I'm going to broadcast it so
you can see how smart you are.

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You guys are exactly right,
and maybe you know this

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because you're studying
World War II right now,

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but also because the anniversary
of the attack on Pearl Harbor

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is quickly approaching here,
100% saying, yes,

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it's that fourth choice there.

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Japan attacked
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii,

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and this is really
where our story starts today,

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so that's why
I asked you this question.

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There'll be
a few more poll questions

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throughout the presentation
here, so that happened

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December 7th of 1941,
and then this very famous speech

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happened the day after I think.

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-Yesterday, December 7th, 1941,
a date which will live

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in infamy,
the United States of America

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were suddenly
and deliberately attacked

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by naval and air forces
of the Empire of Japan.

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-...can hear me.

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Okay, now you can hear me.

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So you know that is
a very famous speech

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by a very famous individual --
Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

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That was the day after
the attack on Pearl Harbor

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on December 8th of 1941.

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He is addressing Congress to ask
them to declare war on Japan,

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which does happen.

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Three days after that,
Germany declares war

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on the United States,
so within the matter

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of this very devastating,
very tragic event

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and with the matter
of the days after,

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the United States is at war,
and we talk about this a lot,

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of course, at our museum,
how war changes the lives

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of almost every single American.

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Our military is tiny
at this point,

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but very soon, you know,
within World War II,

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we have 16 million Americans
serving in uniform,

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men and women,
so in addition to that,

00:05:02.550 --> 00:05:05.520
though, we have people here
working on the home front,

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and that's what
we're really focusing on today,

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and it actually leads me
to my second poll question

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in just 1 second.

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So you guys know that we need
people serving overseas,

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but we also need people who are
working in factories here,

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building all these products,
building all these materials

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we need to win a war.

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And that's actually the next
poll question for you guys.

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This one is a little bit
different here.

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This is where you type
in your answer.

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So I want to know from you all,
what sort of materials

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and equipment
do you need to win a war?

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And you can be kind of broad,
or you can be very specific,

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so I'm going to let you guys
type in for a second.

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Then I'm going to broadcast
some of those results.

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What kind of materials
do you need to win a war

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or at least fight in a war?

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Okay, I'm going to start
broadcasting these results

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so you guys can see them.

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Someone said, "Everything."

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I think that's
a really good response.

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Food, raw materials, steel,
airplanes, ships, ammunitions.

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Yeah, you guys are creating this
huge, long list as you should

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because you need a lot
of different materials to win

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or, you know, at least
to participate in a war.

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And the United States, you know,
had to be ready for this,

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not only the people
who were serving

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but also people here on
the home front who were building

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these very, very
critical materials,

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and we usually think
of, like, the big stuff.

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People are mentioning, you know,
bombs, Jeeps, you know, planes,

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tanks, you know,
that sort of thing,

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but even these factories and
these plants that are building

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the smallest things,
they matter, too.

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What I'm going to show you now,
I'm going to

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close out this poll.

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We're going to see our first
video today, first video clip,

00:07:03.479 --> 00:07:07.030
and what I'm going to do
is pause my video and audio,

00:07:07.030 --> 00:07:08.069
and hopefully this
will play nice

00:07:08.069 --> 00:07:10.990
and smoothly for you all,
but this is a newsreel.

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People would see
little short clips like this,

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little news stories
before they would go to see

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a show in a movie theater.

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Remember, there's no television
or no Internet back then,

00:07:20.639 --> 00:07:22.509
so this was one
of the, you know,

00:07:22.509 --> 00:07:26.160
ways you could get news,
and you'd see these kind of

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short little fast-paced clips.

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This one is
all about production,

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and I think it brings up
some really important points.

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So I'm going to bring that up.

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I'm going to close out the poll.

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You guys were
really good at that.

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I'm going to bring up
this clip right now.

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As I said, I'm going to pause
myself, but I'll be coming back.

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-American industry has met
the challenge of war.

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American factories have
achieved the impossible.

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American mass production
is delivering the goods.

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Going first to the great
automobile assembly lines

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capable of churning out
4 million trucks

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and passenger cars a year,
United States engineers

00:09:07.590 --> 00:09:37.820
harness the skill,
mobilize the resources

00:09:37.820 --> 00:09:38.820
of the most efficient
manufacturing system

00:09:38.820 --> 00:09:39.820
in the world.

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Peacetime construction
was halted.

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Overnight, tons of machinery
and hundreds of plants

00:09:41.820 --> 00:09:42.820
were hauled away
for the duration by workmen

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converting to war.

00:09:43.820 --> 00:09:44.820
Armed guards took over.

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The nation's key factories,
already charted

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for just such an emergency,
were equipped and made ready.

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In hundreds of peaceful towns,
the Main Streets of America,

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thousands of small industries
were fitted into the national war production

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plan.

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Performing manufacturing miracles,
workmen in Denver, Colorado,

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for example,
make parts and fashion tools

00:09:51.820 --> 00:09:52.820
that may help build a battleship
in a Navy yard

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1,000 miles away.

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Small stuff, the billions
of bits and pieces,

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100,000 different parts
in a single Flying Fortress

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and every possible plant
that could be retooled

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is churning them out,
feeding them to the big

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assembly lines night and day.

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-Okay, so hopefully
that played for everyone.

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Just so you know, you know,
some of you have some

00:10:00.820 --> 00:10:01.820
Wi-Fi connections that might
not be working totally right.

00:10:01.820 --> 00:10:02.820
Those clips, you know,
we're recording this program,

00:10:02.820 --> 00:10:03.820
so you'll be able
to watch those full clips,

00:10:03.820 --> 00:10:04.820
you know, later as well, so if
it's not playing for you right.

00:10:04.820 --> 00:10:05.820
But that clip there
just brought up

00:10:05.820 --> 00:10:06.820
a lot of important ideas
about production

00:10:06.820 --> 00:10:07.820
here in the United States
during World War II.

00:10:07.820 --> 00:10:08.820
First off, factories in cities
and towns across this country

00:10:08.820 --> 00:10:09.820
were converting for war.

00:10:09.820 --> 00:10:10.820
I bet you there was
a factory not too far

00:10:10.820 --> 00:10:11.820
from where you guys
are right now

00:10:11.820 --> 00:10:13.650
that was producing something
for World War II.

00:10:13.650 --> 00:10:15.960
It may not exist today anymore,
but if you did

00:10:15.960 --> 00:10:18.770
a little research on your,
you know, local town or city,

00:10:18.770 --> 00:10:20.720
I bet you could find that.

00:10:20.720 --> 00:10:24.330
They were converting for war,
which means they were, you know,

00:10:24.330 --> 00:10:26.570
let's say a factory
was making refrigerators

00:10:26.570 --> 00:10:27.930
before World War II.

00:10:27.930 --> 00:10:30.190
Well, now they're making
airplane parts now

00:10:30.190 --> 00:10:32.810
that the country is at war.

00:10:32.810 --> 00:10:34.900
You also saw, too, that
in that clip that, you know,

00:10:34.900 --> 00:10:37.110
these factories that were
making the tiniest of parts,

00:10:37.110 --> 00:10:41.710
the little billions of bits
and pieces that narrator said,

00:10:41.710 --> 00:10:43.110
you know,
they were just as important

00:10:43.110 --> 00:10:44.760
as these huge assembly lines.

00:10:44.760 --> 00:10:47.320
Later, as we connect with
the Yankee Air Museum,

00:10:47.320 --> 00:10:49.920
we're going to talk about
the largest assembly line

00:10:49.920 --> 00:10:53.250
at Willow Run,
and then everyone,

00:10:53.250 --> 00:10:55.900
every single person had a role
to play in these factories,

00:10:55.900 --> 00:10:57.290
whether they had
a specific step

00:10:57.290 --> 00:10:59.670
on the assembly line
or as you saw,

00:10:59.670 --> 00:11:02.180
making these little
teeny tiny parts,

00:11:02.180 --> 00:11:06.920
everybody was important
to this production machine.

00:11:06.920 --> 00:11:11.810
So our main presentation today
here at the museum is,

00:11:11.810 --> 00:11:16.560
we're talking about what was
going on here in New Orleans,

00:11:16.560 --> 00:11:18.540
but let's --
Before we really focus on that,

00:11:18.540 --> 00:11:19.990
I'm going to show you
some amazing,

00:11:19.990 --> 00:11:21.610
staggering production numbers.

00:11:21.610 --> 00:11:23.520
So check it out what we built
here in the United States

00:11:23.520 --> 00:11:28.060
in about 3 1/2 years of war --
27 aircraft carriers,

00:11:28.060 --> 00:11:32.410
352 destroyers,
that's a type of large ship,

00:11:32.410 --> 00:11:38.261
88,000 tanks, wow.
300,000 airplanes --

00:11:38.261 --> 00:11:43.200
just gets bigger from here --
26 million machine guns

00:11:43.200 --> 00:11:47.220
and 41 billion-with-a-B bullets,
so pretty crazy.

00:11:47.220 --> 00:11:49.150
Think of all the other stuff
you came up with,

00:11:49.150 --> 00:11:50.670
you know, what we need for war.

00:11:50.670 --> 00:11:53.450
Think of the huge quantities
of those things.

00:11:53.450 --> 00:11:54.450
All right.

00:11:54.450 --> 00:11:57.600
So as I said, we're focusing
on New Orleans today,

00:11:57.600 --> 00:12:00.160
but we're focusing on
this specific problem here,

00:12:00.160 --> 00:12:04.130
so sometimes there are problems
that our men and women

00:12:04.130 --> 00:12:06.510
in the military faced,
and they needed, you know,

00:12:06.510 --> 00:12:08.020
something to fix that problem.

00:12:08.020 --> 00:12:09.770
They needed
some sort of equipment,

00:12:09.770 --> 00:12:12.560
some sort of machinery
to fix that problem,

00:12:12.560 --> 00:12:16.960
so here's one of the problems --
It's difficult, you know,

00:12:16.960 --> 00:12:21.160
during World War II,
to invade port cities

00:12:21.160 --> 00:12:24.990
because they are usually
heavily defended by an enemy.

00:12:24.990 --> 00:12:29.620
You know, how do you land
millions and millions of troops

00:12:29.620 --> 00:12:32.300
in these overrun continents
across the world

00:12:32.300 --> 00:12:36.040
where these harbors
are in enemy hands?

00:12:36.040 --> 00:12:37.450
So you can't bring
your big ships

00:12:37.450 --> 00:12:38.850
and all of your
equipment to a harbor.

00:12:38.850 --> 00:12:40.860
It's hard to attack a port.

00:12:40.860 --> 00:12:44.120
So someone here, actually in
New Orleans, has a solution.

00:12:44.120 --> 00:12:45.680
His name is Andrew Higgins.

00:12:45.680 --> 00:12:49.630
He's a New Orleans boat builder,
and he created

00:12:49.630 --> 00:12:54.430
these small amphibious craft
that were able

00:12:54.430 --> 00:12:57.480
to actually land,
not, you know,

00:12:57.480 --> 00:12:58.840
in these big harbors,
but they could actually

00:12:58.840 --> 00:13:01.210
even land on beached.

00:13:01.210 --> 00:13:03.470
You guys see a map
behind me of the Pacific,

00:13:03.470 --> 00:13:04.880
but also think of World War II.

00:13:04.880 --> 00:13:07.710
You know, the war occurred
in many different

00:13:07.710 --> 00:13:10.340
places all across this world,
many that had beaches

00:13:10.340 --> 00:13:14.630
and coastlines,
and we could land potentially

00:13:14.630 --> 00:13:16.130
anything on these coastlines.

00:13:16.130 --> 00:13:18.800
That's what
Andrew Higgins thought.

00:13:18.800 --> 00:13:20.120
So I'm going to show you
a little clip

00:13:20.120 --> 00:13:23.140
in just a second
about Andrew Higgins,

00:13:23.140 --> 00:13:25.690
but I'm going to bring up --
I used the word earlier,

00:13:25.690 --> 00:13:27.170
this word amphibious earlier.

00:13:27.170 --> 00:13:29.740
A lot of students, you know,
like, "What does that mean?"

00:13:29.740 --> 00:13:31.930
So I'm going to have
you guys vote on this.

00:13:31.930 --> 00:13:33.450
What does that word
amphibious mean?

00:13:33.450 --> 00:13:38.730
And I'm going to broadcast it
in just 1 second.

00:13:38.730 --> 00:13:45.460
All right, looks like
most of you are voting.

00:13:45.460 --> 00:13:46.730
Let me show it to you now.

00:13:46.730 --> 00:13:50.460
Yeah, as most of you said,
it's something that's suited

00:13:50.460 --> 00:13:52.010
to both land and water.

00:13:52.010 --> 00:13:55.600
You probably heard that word
amphibian before, like a frog,

00:13:55.600 --> 00:13:58.880
something that could, you know,
these amphibious craft,

00:13:58.880 --> 00:14:01.960
these landing craft that Higgins eventually
creates,

00:14:01.960 --> 00:14:05.100
they could bring anything
from tanks to troops,

00:14:05.100 --> 00:14:07.760
from a big open ship
out in open water

00:14:07.760 --> 00:14:10.590
all the way to a beach,
and they were really,

00:14:10.590 --> 00:14:13.620
you know, revolutionized
how we invaded these places

00:14:13.620 --> 00:14:17.640
that were surrounded by water,
had some sort of coastline.

00:14:17.640 --> 00:14:19.100
But instead of me
describing that,

00:14:19.100 --> 00:14:22.880
I'm actually going to have --
There's one of these landing craft designs

00:14:22.880 --> 00:14:24.880
right here,
but I'm going to actually

00:14:24.880 --> 00:14:27.800
show you a video
about that right here

00:14:27.800 --> 00:14:34.330
about Higgins.

00:14:34.330 --> 00:14:42.830
-It starts in the bayous
of Louisiana.

00:14:42.830 --> 00:14:47.350
During the 1930s, oil companies
and trappers need boats

00:14:47.350 --> 00:14:50.820
that can navigate
the shallow waters.

00:14:50.820 --> 00:14:53.290
In New Orleans,
Andrew Jackson Higgins

00:14:53.290 --> 00:14:56.610
begins a small shipbuilding
company to build those boats.

00:14:56.610 --> 00:15:02.090
One of his designs, the Eureka,
was to be the forerunner

00:15:02.090 --> 00:15:05.800
of a whole series
of amphibious craft,

00:15:05.800 --> 00:15:09.820
craft that would play a critical
role in the coming war.

00:15:09.820 --> 00:15:15.810
-Beginning of World War II,
the United States had

00:15:15.810 --> 00:15:20.670
no capability
for amphibious landing, period,

00:15:20.670 --> 00:15:23.160
and Andrew Higgins had an idea.

00:15:23.160 --> 00:15:25.830
-Throughout military history,
it had been nearly unthinkable

00:15:25.830 --> 00:15:30.570
to attack a heavily
defended coastline from the sea,

00:15:30.570 --> 00:15:33.340
but Higgins believed his craft
could do the job.

00:15:33.340 --> 00:15:38.100
First, however, he had to get
the attention of the Navy.

00:15:38.100 --> 00:15:40.680
To the Bureau of Ships,
Higgins was just a small

00:15:40.680 --> 00:15:44.520
boat dealer from the Deep South,
but Higgins was shrewd

00:15:44.520 --> 00:15:45.800
and persistent.

00:15:45.800 --> 00:15:49.150
Finally he got
the Navy's attention.

00:15:49.150 --> 00:15:53.870
-We got the contract
by force of his aggressive

00:15:53.870 --> 00:16:00.600
Irish personality in part,
but also because the Higgins boat was the

00:16:00.600 --> 00:16:03.810
best boat
ever designed for that purpose.

00:16:03.810 --> 00:16:06.610
-Soon, he was designing
and building boats

00:16:06.610 --> 00:16:11.670
that could land anything
from tanks to troops.

00:16:11.670 --> 00:16:14.450
With the addition of a ramp,
these landing craft proved

00:16:14.450 --> 00:16:19.520
far superior to anything
the Bureau of Ships had seen.

00:16:19.520 --> 00:16:22.660
Massive orders
started pouring in.

00:16:22.660 --> 00:16:26.450
Long assembly lines churned out
boats 24 hours a day,

00:16:26.450 --> 00:16:40.790
7 days a week,
700 boats a month.

00:16:40.790 --> 00:16:44.440
Over 25,000 workers including
women and African-Americans,

00:16:44.440 --> 00:16:48.200
Higgins Industries
touched every neighborhood,

00:16:48.200 --> 00:16:51.991
every street and every
family in New Orleans.

00:16:51.991 --> 00:17:03.020
-It was really a team effort,
you know, a company-wide,

00:17:03.020 --> 00:17:14.530
from-top-to-bottom effort,
and everybody could put

00:17:14.530 --> 00:17:22.200
their 2 cents in.

00:17:22.200 --> 00:17:26.040
-All right.

00:17:26.040 --> 00:17:29.420
So there's a little bit
of Higgins history for you.

00:17:29.420 --> 00:17:31.100
Now Higgins,
as you heard in that video,

00:17:31.100 --> 00:17:33.500
he initially had a hard time
getting the attention

00:17:33.500 --> 00:17:36.080
of the military,
but with persistence,

00:17:36.080 --> 00:17:37.860
with this superior product
that you could hear

00:17:37.860 --> 00:17:41.600
the narrator, Harry Connick, Jr.
say, could land anything

00:17:41.600 --> 00:17:42.930
from tanks to troops.

00:17:42.930 --> 00:17:44.890
You know, he had
the superior product

00:17:44.890 --> 00:17:46.600
that could get the job done.

00:17:46.600 --> 00:17:48.200
He was soon competing
with the more

00:17:48.200 --> 00:17:51.720
established shipyards
in the Northeast,

00:17:51.720 --> 00:17:55.110
and Higgins' designs won him
these huge government contracts,

00:17:55.110 --> 00:17:57.080
and his tiny business
that only had,

00:17:57.080 --> 00:17:59.810
you know, a few people working
in it before World War II,

00:17:59.810 --> 00:18:03.670
a handful, now had potentially
now thousands of workers

00:18:03.670 --> 00:18:06.990
here in New Orleans mobilized,
and there's some really

00:18:06.990 --> 00:18:09.960
interesting stories behind
Higgins, too.

00:18:09.960 --> 00:18:12.380
This is one of
the big ones here.

00:18:12.380 --> 00:18:14.640
Now, these Higgins craft
were used

00:18:14.640 --> 00:18:17.490
in every major amphibious
landing during World War II,

00:18:17.490 --> 00:18:22.940
so North Africa,
the Mediterranean, the Pacific,

00:18:22.940 --> 00:18:26.850
but also of course
most famously during D-Day,

00:18:26.850 --> 00:18:29.110
and this is --
You guys have maybe seen

00:18:29.110 --> 00:18:30.640
this picture before
if you've talked about D-Day,

00:18:30.640 --> 00:18:33.660
the largest amphibious
invasion in history.

00:18:33.660 --> 00:18:35.680
There was a question.

00:18:35.680 --> 00:18:37.830
Someone asked,
"Wasn't it difficult

00:18:37.830 --> 00:18:39.250
to land things on the beach?"

00:18:39.250 --> 00:18:41.900
And that answer is,
yes, it definitely was,

00:18:41.900 --> 00:18:44.350
and you can even see that
illustrated in this picture.

00:18:44.350 --> 00:18:46.140
Sometimes they couldn't get
quite all the way to the beach,

00:18:46.140 --> 00:18:49.510
and these troops are wading
through this kind of knee-deep,

00:18:49.510 --> 00:18:53.020
waist-deep water to get
to the beaches of Normandy.

00:18:53.020 --> 00:18:55.330
But these craft played
a critical role,

00:18:55.330 --> 00:18:57.380
especially in this invasion.

00:18:57.380 --> 00:19:00.370
D-Day opened up
a second front in Europe,

00:19:00.370 --> 00:19:02.780
and eventually these troops
would make their way from France

00:19:02.780 --> 00:19:08.220
into Belgium, into Germany,
and, you know,, within months,

00:19:08.220 --> 00:19:10.610
the war would be over,
11 months after opening

00:19:10.610 --> 00:19:13.170
the second front here,
as I said, the largest

00:19:13.170 --> 00:19:16.940
amphibious invasion in history,
taking over 175,000

00:19:16.940 --> 00:19:21.370
people mobilized,
and 150,000 of those landing

00:19:21.370 --> 00:19:23.130
on these beaches here.

00:19:23.130 --> 00:19:25.360
So that's why, you know,
this craft is so important

00:19:25.360 --> 00:19:27.350
to the story of World War II
and to the story

00:19:27.350 --> 00:19:29.640
of our museum here.

00:19:29.640 --> 00:19:32.020
So this is probably
my favorite image

00:19:32.020 --> 00:19:33.910
of Higgins Industries, though.

00:19:33.910 --> 00:19:36.710
This is, you know,
those Higgins boats.

00:19:36.710 --> 00:19:40.580
Their technical name is LCVP,
landing craft

00:19:40.580 --> 00:19:43.260
for vehicles and personnel,
being pushed out

00:19:43.260 --> 00:19:46.590
of the factories here,
and I love that slogan

00:19:46.590 --> 00:19:47.870
at the top there.

00:19:47.870 --> 00:19:52.010
The guy who wrote,
"Relaxes is helping the Axis,"

00:19:52.010 --> 00:19:55.610
as, you know, pushing everybody
to work as they possibly

00:19:55.610 --> 00:20:00.390
can to produce
these amazing numbers

00:20:00.390 --> 00:20:02.020
of all these
different materials.

00:20:02.020 --> 00:20:04.910
It was this common viewpoint
shared by many people

00:20:04.910 --> 00:20:07.780
working in these
factories at the time.

00:20:07.780 --> 00:20:09.130
And this is an
interesting story, too.

00:20:09.130 --> 00:20:12.940
This is kind of a makeshift
assembly line on the street.

00:20:12.940 --> 00:20:16.560
Higgins won this contract
to build these tank gliders,

00:20:16.560 --> 00:20:19.550
and he was supposed
to deliver 50 of them

00:20:19.550 --> 00:20:21.500
to the military within 2 weeks.

00:20:21.500 --> 00:20:25.270
That was kind of a difficult
thing to, you know, achieve,

00:20:25.270 --> 00:20:28.160
and actually at this one point,
they even had to bring

00:20:28.160 --> 00:20:30.280
the assembly line
out onto the streets --

00:20:30.280 --> 00:20:32.950
This is a New Orleans street --
to get it done.

00:20:32.950 --> 00:20:35.130
So sometimes even innovative
and interesting ways

00:20:35.130 --> 00:20:38.810
of getting these
materials produced.

00:20:38.810 --> 00:20:40.270
Now I'm just going to
briefly talk about this

00:20:40.270 --> 00:20:42.130
because I know
the folks at Willow Run

00:20:42.130 --> 00:20:44.120
at Yankee Air Museum
will talk about this more,

00:20:44.120 --> 00:20:47.490
but of course all
of these factory jobs,

00:20:47.490 --> 00:20:50.000
this demand for workers
and people to, you know,

00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:52.180
work in these factories
24 hours a day,

00:20:52.180 --> 00:20:55.780
7 days a week meant potentially
new workers coming into,

00:20:55.780 --> 00:20:59.390
you know, the field
for the first time.

00:20:59.390 --> 00:21:02.590
And of course one of
those groups were women.

00:21:02.590 --> 00:21:03.920
You heard
the "Rosie the Riveter"

00:21:03.920 --> 00:21:05.350
song over and over again.

00:21:05.350 --> 00:21:08.210
There's that very famous
poster of Rosie,

00:21:08.210 --> 00:21:09.610
and actually
the women back there

00:21:09.610 --> 00:21:13.660
are welders from
Delta Shipbuilding Company,

00:21:13.660 --> 00:21:17.961
so, you know, there were over
I think 6 million women

00:21:17.961 --> 00:21:20.940
who went to work,
you know, in these defense jobs

00:21:20.940 --> 00:21:24.372
during World War II
doing kind of some of this

00:21:24.372 --> 00:21:27.950
really hard labor sort of stuff,
and the next clip

00:21:27.950 --> 00:21:30.870
I wanted to show you --
I think that's what's next --

00:21:30.870 --> 00:21:33.550
it's actually women at Higgins.

00:21:33.550 --> 00:21:35.450
Specifically this woman's
name is Edna Donnelly.

00:21:35.450 --> 00:21:38.570
This is one of my favorite
oral histories from the museum.

00:21:38.570 --> 00:21:40.410
She talks about
her first day at Higgins.

00:21:40.410 --> 00:21:41.730
She and her mom were welders.

00:21:41.730 --> 00:21:43.770
It was a little bit
overwhelming,

00:21:43.770 --> 00:21:47.310
but they eventually got used --
-Women didn't work

00:21:47.310 --> 00:21:50.070
much at that time.

00:21:50.070 --> 00:21:51.990
You didn't hear of too many
women going out to work,

00:21:51.990 --> 00:21:53.860
but we did because
they didn't have

00:21:53.860 --> 00:21:57.540
enough men to do all the work,
so in the shipyard,

00:21:57.540 --> 00:21:59.080
and they had to hire women, too.

00:21:59.080 --> 00:22:01.980
My mom decided that she and I
were going to go

00:22:01.980 --> 00:22:04.990
and go to work at Higgins,
so we went and see

00:22:04.990 --> 00:22:07.090
what we could do,
and the first day

00:22:07.090 --> 00:22:10.380
I walked in the shipyard,
I'll never forget that

00:22:10.380 --> 00:22:13.500
because it was
so frightening all the noise.

00:22:13.500 --> 00:22:15.590
I went to work in
a fabrication department

00:22:15.590 --> 00:22:17.510
where they put
the bulkheads together.

00:22:17.510 --> 00:22:20.840
They had all these riggers
rigging all this metal

00:22:20.840 --> 00:22:22.830
over your head, you know,
as you was walking under

00:22:22.830 --> 00:22:26.560
along all this big sheets
of metal passing over your head.

00:22:26.560 --> 00:22:29.720
I'll never forget that first day
they put that shield on my head.

00:22:29.720 --> 00:22:32.050
They didn't tell me what I had
to do or anything,

00:22:32.050 --> 00:22:34.260
and I put the thing down,
and I couldn't see anything.

00:22:34.260 --> 00:22:35.260
It was black.

00:22:35.260 --> 00:22:38.020
I said, "Well, how am I
going to do anything

00:22:38.020 --> 00:22:39.020
if I can't see nothing?"

00:22:39.020 --> 00:22:40.080
I didn't think I'd make it.

00:22:40.080 --> 00:22:43.530
I said, "Oh, I doubt
if I'll stay here a whole day,"

00:22:43.530 --> 00:22:45.020
and then I did.

00:22:45.020 --> 00:22:47.190
And then I stayed a week,
and I stayed longer and longer

00:22:47.190 --> 00:22:50.360
and then finally,
well, we were at it.

00:22:50.360 --> 00:22:52.250
Mama, she liked it.

00:22:52.250 --> 00:22:55.270
She really did, and Mama,
she stayed,

00:22:55.270 --> 00:23:00.300
and eventually she got
to be a certified welder,

00:23:00.300 --> 00:23:01.440
and that's her
biggest story now

00:23:01.440 --> 00:23:12.110
is to tell everybody
how she was a welder.

00:23:12.110 --> 00:23:21.060
-All right.

00:23:21.060 --> 00:23:22.780
You guys have lots
of wonderful questions

00:23:22.780 --> 00:23:25.220
that Megan is answering
right now, but, yeah, as I said,

00:23:25.220 --> 00:23:28.660
that's one of my favorite clips
from our museum of Edna.

00:23:28.660 --> 00:23:33.810
And, you know, her story is like
many women who went to war.

00:23:33.810 --> 00:23:38.440
Now, at Higgins, in 1938,
he operated a single boatyard,

00:23:38.440 --> 00:23:40.770
less then 75 workers.

00:23:40.770 --> 00:23:43.940
Then by late 1943,
there were seven plants,

00:23:43.940 --> 00:23:47.260
employed more than
25,000 workers.

00:23:47.260 --> 00:23:49.640
The first plant to be
racially integrated

00:23:49.640 --> 00:23:53.500
including whites,
blacks, women, seniors,

00:23:53.500 --> 00:23:56.090
people with disabilities,
and even though women

00:23:56.090 --> 00:23:58.650
were in the workforce
before World War II,

00:23:58.650 --> 00:24:02.430
more than 6 million of them
engaged in industrial work,

00:24:02.430 --> 00:24:06.350
though as we'll see as we study
later history

00:24:06.350 --> 00:24:10.500
post-War, female workers,
many of them were forced

00:24:10.500 --> 00:24:13.330
to leave their jobs
as men returned home

00:24:13.330 --> 00:24:14.960
from the war.

00:24:14.960 --> 00:24:18.180
They kind of became
the model of, you know,

00:24:18.180 --> 00:24:20.050
and Rosie the Riveter
became the model

00:24:20.050 --> 00:24:21.490
for the women's
liberation movement

00:24:21.490 --> 00:24:24.760
which would happen later,
you know, in our

00:24:24.760 --> 00:24:27.300
American history,
and they became

00:24:27.300 --> 00:24:29.111
the model of, you know,
these tough women

00:24:29.111 --> 00:24:30.290
who went to work
and, you know,

00:24:30.290 --> 00:24:31.630
who deserved equal opportunity.

00:24:31.630 --> 00:24:36.220
Similar, you know,
story here in some ways

00:24:36.220 --> 00:24:37.220
with African-Americans.

00:24:37.220 --> 00:24:39.990
Now, as I said,
there's a tremendous demand

00:24:39.990 --> 00:24:45.360
now to have skilled labor
in these factories,

00:24:45.360 --> 00:24:47.600
and because of that
racial inequality,

00:24:47.600 --> 00:24:49.620
other aspects of life
on the home front

00:24:49.620 --> 00:24:52.820
came to light during these times
while trying to recruit a labor

00:24:52.820 --> 00:24:55.770
force for this industry.

00:24:55.770 --> 00:24:59.230
Factory work
could be segregated,

00:24:59.230 --> 00:25:01.050
and women and minorities
in some cases,

00:25:01.050 --> 00:25:04.220
in many cases, actually,
received unequal pay

00:25:04.220 --> 00:25:08.380
for equal work,
and as I said,

00:25:08.380 --> 00:25:11.050
these men and women
who worked in these factories,

00:25:11.050 --> 00:25:14.050
they, you know,
in some ways paved the way

00:25:14.050 --> 00:25:15.980
for these future
changes in labor,

00:25:15.980 --> 00:25:17.930
and they were models
for necessity

00:25:17.930 --> 00:25:21.810
for equal opportunity for women,
for African-Americans,

00:25:21.810 --> 00:25:25.800
you know, leading, you know,
to the civil rights movement

00:25:25.800 --> 00:25:27.510
and, as I said earlier,
to the women's liberation

00:25:27.510 --> 00:25:32.450
movement from the 1950s
or so to 1970s.

00:25:32.450 --> 00:25:36.220
But factory work, as I said,
was sometimes segregated,

00:25:36.220 --> 00:25:39.880
but many African-Americans
were provided new opportunities

00:25:39.880 --> 00:25:43.260
as President Roosevelt
signed Executive Order 8802,

00:25:43.260 --> 00:25:47.610
which prohibited
discrimination in factories

00:25:47.610 --> 00:25:50.340
that were awarded
defense contracts.

00:25:50.340 --> 00:25:52.809
So it eased some of this,
but there was still some

00:25:52.809 --> 00:25:56.800
discrimination of course there,
potentially even race rioting,

00:25:56.800 --> 00:26:00.100
as well,
and still unequal pay

00:26:00.100 --> 00:26:02.970
for very, very equal work,
but as I said, these folks

00:26:02.970 --> 00:26:05.280
that were in these factories,
you know, paved the way

00:26:05.280 --> 00:26:06.940
for these future movements
that we study

00:26:06.940 --> 00:26:07.940
in American history.

00:26:07.940 --> 00:26:10.000
As I said, I'm just touching
on that right now,

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:12.360
but that's something you'll talk
about in your class later,

00:26:12.360 --> 00:26:14.850
but getting back
to Higgins, though,

00:26:14.850 --> 00:26:17.580
Higgins along
with some other industries

00:26:17.580 --> 00:26:19.860
here in the United States,
some other companies,

00:26:19.860 --> 00:26:23.110
were awarded
the E for Excellence Award

00:26:23.110 --> 00:26:24.850
by the U.S. government.

00:26:24.850 --> 00:26:26.840
And that's what actually
we see in this picture here.

00:26:26.840 --> 00:26:28.330
They're celebrating that.

00:26:28.330 --> 00:26:31.290
Behind them is the 10,000th
Higgins boat,

00:26:31.290 --> 00:26:35.740
so there's a big ceremony,
and Higgins Industries here

00:26:35.740 --> 00:26:38.000
during World War II in total,
they constructed

00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:40.880
20,000 vessels
and close to 12,000 of those

00:26:40.880 --> 00:26:44.460
LCVPs, what we call
Higgins boats.

00:26:44.460 --> 00:26:47.940
Eisenhower, who was a general
during World War II,

00:26:47.940 --> 00:26:53.040
later in life, he said that
Higgins won the war for us.

00:26:53.040 --> 00:26:55.670
But, you know, in some ways,
actually, everyone,

00:26:55.670 --> 00:26:57.380
this story although
important to New Orleans

00:26:57.380 --> 00:27:00.200
and important to our history,
important to World War II,

00:27:00.200 --> 00:27:01.200
is not unique.

00:27:01.200 --> 00:27:03.320
There were things like this
happening all across the country

00:27:03.320 --> 00:27:06.520
during World War II,
and that's actually where I turn

00:27:06.520 --> 00:27:09.550
and toss it over now
to our friends

00:27:09.550 --> 00:27:10.680
at the Yankee Air Museum.

00:27:10.680 --> 00:27:16.090
We'll have Randy and Rachel
come on in just 1 second,

00:27:16.090 --> 00:27:19.570
and they're going to talk about
the amazing feats of production

00:27:19.570 --> 00:27:25.000
at Willow Run,
and this assembly line,

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:27.080
this over-mile-long
assembly line,

00:27:27.080 --> 00:27:30.770
where they produced
B-24 bomber planes,

00:27:30.770 --> 00:27:33.010
employing thousands
and thousands of people,

00:27:33.010 --> 00:27:37.040
and at one point,
they could produce one bomber

00:27:37.040 --> 00:27:41.100
I think per hour,
and the bomber had

00:27:41.100 --> 00:27:45.460
I think over
1.5 million different parts,

00:27:45.460 --> 00:27:47.750
and so there are people
working on this long,

00:27:47.750 --> 00:27:50.150
long assembly line,
being able to churn out

00:27:50.150 --> 00:27:53.690
one of these humongous planes,
one of the largest aircraft

00:27:53.690 --> 00:27:55.540
that were built
during World War II,

00:27:55.540 --> 00:27:58.910
you know, within an hour,
so a tremendous feat

00:27:58.910 --> 00:28:02.520
of production at Willow Run.

00:28:02.520 --> 00:28:05.179
And so I'm going to turn it
over to them right now.

00:28:05.179 --> 00:28:07.300
Let's see
if they're all connected.

00:28:07.300 --> 00:28:08.300
-Hello!

00:28:08.300 --> 00:28:09.650
-So Randy and Rachel.

00:28:09.650 --> 00:28:10.650
-Good.

00:28:10.650 --> 00:28:12.600
-Is the mike on?

00:28:12.600 --> 00:28:14.950
-Turn it over to you guys.

00:28:14.950 --> 00:28:16.030
-Talk about Willow Run.

00:28:16.030 --> 00:28:17.030
-Hey, there, Randy.

00:28:17.030 --> 00:28:18.030
How you doing?

00:28:18.030 --> 00:28:19.030
-Take it away.

00:28:19.030 --> 00:28:20.030
-Good.

00:28:20.030 --> 00:28:25.820
Well, as I said, I'm going
to turn it over to you

00:28:25.820 --> 00:28:28.480
to talk about Willow Run.

00:28:28.480 --> 00:28:33.640
I'm going to --
-You see a poster here.

00:28:33.640 --> 00:28:37.320
It says, "Watch The Fords
Go By!" an old marketing slogan,

00:28:37.320 --> 00:28:39.560
but you don't see any cars
in that picture.

00:28:39.560 --> 00:28:41.800
You see this big
four-engine bomber.

00:28:41.800 --> 00:28:44.500
Next slide.

00:28:44.500 --> 00:28:46.600
World War II would be
a bomber war.

00:28:46.600 --> 00:28:48.480
Bombers would be the way
the United States would fight

00:28:48.480 --> 00:28:50.740
World War II,
and the United States

00:28:50.740 --> 00:28:56.740
elected to mass-produce bombers.

00:28:56.740 --> 00:28:58.700
The bombers ultimately
would probably

00:28:58.700 --> 00:29:01.840
save hundreds of thousands
of U.S. lives

00:29:01.840 --> 00:29:04.810
by destroying our enemies.

00:29:04.810 --> 00:29:06.250
Airplane production
and bomber production

00:29:06.250 --> 00:29:11.030
would be the biggest problems
the U.S. faced in World War II,

00:29:11.030 --> 00:29:13.440
and only the auto companies
had the ability

00:29:13.440 --> 00:29:14.480
to build those airplanes.

00:29:14.480 --> 00:29:15.770
Next slide.

00:29:15.770 --> 00:29:20.900
Did she hear me?

00:29:20.900 --> 00:29:27.130
Next slide.

00:29:27.130 --> 00:29:30.290
Detroit is where the masters
at GM and Ford

00:29:30.290 --> 00:29:35.660
had perfected mass production,
and they did this

00:29:35.660 --> 00:29:39.390
by the ability
to produce huge volumes

00:29:39.390 --> 00:29:43.380
of standardized precision parts,
and this allowed a potential

00:29:43.380 --> 00:29:47.250
rapid buildup of production,
and one of the side stories

00:29:47.250 --> 00:29:51.340
that's not widely known,
85% of the cars in the world

00:29:51.340 --> 00:29:53.890
were registered
in the United States in 1940.

00:29:53.890 --> 00:29:57.320
The farm boys and
the high school hot rodders

00:29:57.320 --> 00:29:59.340
knew how to fix things.

00:29:59.340 --> 00:30:03.179
The U.S. was mechanically
literate, and that gave the U.S.

00:30:03.179 --> 00:30:06.050
a tremendous advantage
in the field.

00:30:06.050 --> 00:30:10.880
Next slide.

00:30:10.880 --> 00:30:13.630
Just after midnight
on May 10, 1940,

00:30:13.630 --> 00:30:15.220
President Roosevelt
received a phone call

00:30:15.220 --> 00:30:17.220
from the ambassador to Belgium.

00:30:17.220 --> 00:30:19.220
The ambassador reported
that the German Army

00:30:19.220 --> 00:30:23.160
had crossed the borders
in France, Belgium, and Holland.

00:30:23.160 --> 00:30:28.490
In 10 days, the German Blitzkrieg had defeated
the combined armies of France,

00:30:28.490 --> 00:30:31.429
England, Belgium, and Holland.

00:30:31.429 --> 00:30:33.870
The war in Europe
had taken on a new urgency,

00:30:33.870 --> 00:30:38.880
and although the U.S. did not
want to become involved,

00:30:38.880 --> 00:30:40.610
it could not be avoided.

00:30:40.610 --> 00:30:44.210
At this time, the U.S. had neither an army
or an air force

00:30:44.210 --> 00:30:47.080
that ranked
in the top 10 worldwide.

00:30:47.080 --> 00:30:49.850
Next slide.

00:30:49.850 --> 00:30:52.330
General George Marshall,
Army Chief of Staff,

00:30:52.330 --> 00:30:55.640
visits Roosevelt and tells him,
"There is no longer time

00:30:55.640 --> 00:30:56.800
to waste.

00:30:56.800 --> 00:30:59.750
The way we've been
doing things will not work.

00:30:59.750 --> 00:31:01.380
We must act now.

00:31:01.380 --> 00:31:02.880
You must bring
the industrialists

00:31:02.880 --> 00:31:06.570
into this mobilization,"
and FDR knew that

00:31:06.570 --> 00:31:08.620
it was no ordinary time.

00:31:08.620 --> 00:31:10.440
It was time for bold action.

00:31:10.440 --> 00:31:14.840
He needed to mobilize the U.S.,
so he went to Congress

00:31:14.840 --> 00:31:18.710
and called for production
of 50,000 airplanes.

00:31:18.710 --> 00:31:20.590
This was a number
beyond comprehension.

00:31:20.590 --> 00:31:24.910
When Hermann Goering,
head of the German Luftwaffe,

00:31:24.910 --> 00:31:28.160
heard this, he laughed and said,
"That's pure propaganda.

00:31:28.160 --> 00:31:30.760
No one
can build 50,000 airplanes."

00:31:30.760 --> 00:31:35.370
Four years later, the U.S.
would build 100,000 airplanes.

00:31:35.370 --> 00:31:38.400
President Roosevelt was about to
turn to Detroit's industrialists

00:31:38.400 --> 00:31:42.179
to solve the nation's
mobilization emergency.

00:31:42.179 --> 00:31:45.970
Next slide.

00:31:45.970 --> 00:31:48.220
Detroit was about to be
asked to save the world.

00:31:48.220 --> 00:31:50.990
FDR asked a close friend,
Bernard Baruch,

00:31:50.990 --> 00:31:52.720
"Who would be
the best person to head up

00:31:52.720 --> 00:31:54.490
the mobilization
of the United States?"

00:31:54.490 --> 00:31:57.540
Baruch said, "There's only
one man who knows what to do

00:31:57.540 --> 00:32:00.650
and how to do it,
and that's William Knudsen,

00:32:00.650 --> 00:32:02.360
president of General Motors."

00:32:02.360 --> 00:32:07.270
18 months prior to Pearl Harbor,
the president of General Motors

00:32:07.270 --> 00:32:09.470
was about to be asked
to come to Washington

00:32:09.470 --> 00:32:11.380
to mobilize the United States.

00:32:11.380 --> 00:32:14.090
William Knudsen,
a Danish immigrant

00:32:14.090 --> 00:32:15.930
who came to the U.S. in 1900.

00:32:15.930 --> 00:32:20.280
He had worked his way up the auto industry
at Ford and GM.

00:32:20.280 --> 00:32:24.010
He was known by and respected
by almost everyone

00:32:24.010 --> 00:32:25.660
in the auto industry.

00:32:25.660 --> 00:32:28.580
Next slide.

00:32:28.580 --> 00:32:30.610
Knudsen knows
it's going to take 18 months

00:32:30.610 --> 00:32:32.630
to have the machine tools
in place.

00:32:32.630 --> 00:32:35.880
It'll take another 18 months
for production to peak.

00:32:35.880 --> 00:32:38.440
This means the U.S. will be
on the defensive for 3 years,

00:32:38.440 --> 00:32:40.980
and it will be
the summer of '43

00:32:40.980 --> 00:32:43.450
before the U.S. might
can be seen in the field.

00:32:43.450 --> 00:32:45.330
He knows that aircraft
and engine tooling

00:32:45.330 --> 00:32:47.580
would be the biggest
problems they face,

00:32:47.580 --> 00:32:49.580
and he knows
that only the auto companies

00:32:49.580 --> 00:32:51.750
have the ability to do this.

00:32:51.750 --> 00:32:53.800
Next slide.

00:32:53.800 --> 00:32:58.700
Summer of 1940, orders go out
for tens of thousands

00:32:58.700 --> 00:32:59.850
of airplanes.

00:32:59.850 --> 00:33:01.070
Congress says,
"Oh, those companies

00:33:01.070 --> 00:33:02.160
will make too much money.

00:33:02.160 --> 00:33:03.559
We'll slash the profits."

00:33:03.559 --> 00:33:06.170
Well, the auto companies
and the aircraft companies go,

00:33:06.170 --> 00:33:07.850
"Oh, well,
we won't build anything then

00:33:07.850 --> 00:33:10.130
because we're selling
everything we have overseas,"

00:33:10.130 --> 00:33:12.850
and the Army really doesn't want
the auto companies involved,

00:33:12.850 --> 00:33:15.780
and the aircraft companies don't
want the auto companies involved

00:33:15.780 --> 00:33:18.350
because they're afraid
of postwar competition.

00:33:18.350 --> 00:33:19.890
Next slide.

00:33:19.890 --> 00:33:27.510
On October 15, 1940,
Knudsen goes to the auto show

00:33:27.510 --> 00:33:29.980
in New York City
at Madison Square Garden.

00:33:29.980 --> 00:33:33.590
As the dinner ended, he stood up
and asked the attendees

00:33:33.590 --> 00:33:34.790
to bear with him.

00:33:34.790 --> 00:33:37.420
He had a request to make,
and he said in his

00:33:37.420 --> 00:33:40.990
broken Danish accent,
"We need more bombers

00:33:40.990 --> 00:33:42.580
than we can hope to get.

00:33:42.580 --> 00:33:44.790
We need them sooner
than we can hope to get them.

00:33:44.790 --> 00:33:46.880
Will you help me get them?

00:33:46.880 --> 00:33:50.250
I want to meet with you soon
in Detroit."

00:33:50.250 --> 00:33:53.760
Next slide.

00:33:53.760 --> 00:33:55.330
The auto men gathered
2 weeks later

00:33:55.330 --> 00:33:58.510
at the New Center Building
in Detroit.

00:33:58.510 --> 00:34:00.580
Everyone who has anyone in the auto industry
was there --

00:34:00.580 --> 00:34:07.010
Ford, GM, Briggs, Fisher Body,
Budd, Studebaker, to name a few.

00:34:07.010 --> 00:34:09.790
Once inside the building,
the auto men met a panel

00:34:09.790 --> 00:34:11.480
that Knudsen had assembled.

00:34:11.480 --> 00:34:13.679
It was composed
of Army Air Corps officers

00:34:13.679 --> 00:34:16.560
and aviation executives
and engineers.

00:34:16.560 --> 00:34:18.639
Detroit was about
to be turned loose

00:34:18.639 --> 00:34:21.659
to solve the
bomber-production bottleneck.

00:34:21.659 --> 00:34:23.230
This project
was not the brainchild

00:34:23.230 --> 00:34:25.630
of some theorist politician
or educator,

00:34:25.630 --> 00:34:28.659
but a proposal from Knudsen,
someone who truly

00:34:28.659 --> 00:34:31.419
understood the capabilities
and limitations

00:34:31.419 --> 00:34:36.530
of the automakers,
and he was a true patriot.

00:34:36.530 --> 00:34:38.690
Next slide.

00:34:38.690 --> 00:34:40.850
Next slide.

00:34:40.850 --> 00:34:41.929
Okay.

00:34:41.929 --> 00:34:45.490
Major Jimmy Doolittle,
famed for his daring Tokyo raid,

00:34:45.490 --> 00:34:47.280
led the Army Air Corps men.

00:34:47.280 --> 00:34:51.770
He held a PhD in aeronautical
engineering from MIT.

00:34:51.770 --> 00:34:53.629
He'd been recalled
to active duty in July

00:34:53.629 --> 00:34:57.129
as an act of Congress,
but he was assigned to Detroit

00:34:57.129 --> 00:34:59.070
as a technical advisor
to the auto industry.

00:34:59.070 --> 00:35:02.180
In his words, he was
to perform a shotgun marriage

00:35:02.180 --> 00:35:05.700
between the auto industry
and the aircraft industry.

00:35:05.700 --> 00:35:07.140
Doolittle had
laid out blueprints

00:35:07.140 --> 00:35:09.000
and a series of engine
and airframe parts

00:35:09.000 --> 00:35:12.620
at the nearby Graham-Paige Factory in Western
Detroit.

00:35:12.620 --> 00:35:14.450
He took the automakers
there and said,

00:35:14.450 --> 00:35:15.920
"Here are the parts we need.

00:35:15.920 --> 00:35:18.250
Pick out the ones
you can build.

00:35:18.250 --> 00:35:21.820
I will get you a contract,"
and these contracts

00:35:21.820 --> 00:35:24.590
drifted down to the small shops,
who made the small parts

00:35:24.590 --> 00:35:28.510
to make the bigger parts.

00:35:28.510 --> 00:35:29.730
Next slide.

00:35:29.730 --> 00:35:35.640
The B-24 was the biggest
problem that the Army faced.

00:35:35.640 --> 00:35:37.060
It was slow production.

00:35:37.060 --> 00:35:38.680
It was an advanced airplane.

00:35:38.680 --> 00:35:43.330
In December, Doolittle
visited Henry Ford in Dearborn.

00:35:43.330 --> 00:35:45.380
Doolittle was hoping
Ford could build parts

00:35:45.380 --> 00:35:48.460
and be the answer to the B-24
production bottleneck

00:35:48.460 --> 00:35:52.460
and speed up production
of the B-24.

00:35:52.460 --> 00:35:55.390
Consolidated was only producing one bomber
a day.

00:35:55.390 --> 00:35:58.310
The B-24 was the most
problematic airplane

00:35:58.310 --> 00:36:00.560
that the Army had at that time.

00:36:00.560 --> 00:36:08.990
Next slide.

00:36:08.990 --> 00:36:12.750
They were hoping that Ford could
break that bottleneck

00:36:12.750 --> 00:36:16.500
because Ford had
the largest centralized

00:36:16.500 --> 00:36:19.300
manufacturing facility
in the world,

00:36:19.300 --> 00:36:21.580
a place where raw materials
came in on a truck

00:36:21.580 --> 00:36:25.270
at one end and cars
drove out the other end.

00:36:25.270 --> 00:36:26.620
Ford could be the answer.

00:36:26.620 --> 00:36:31.720
Next slide.

00:36:31.720 --> 00:36:33.260
The next month,
Charles Sorensen,

00:36:33.260 --> 00:36:37.550
head of Ford Production,
would visit Reuben Fleet's Consolidated B-24

00:36:37.550 --> 00:36:40.450
factory
in San Diego.

00:36:40.450 --> 00:36:41.920
Sorensen wanted to determine
the feasibility

00:36:41.920 --> 00:36:45.160
of producing parts for B-24s.

00:36:45.160 --> 00:36:49.160
What Sorensen observed
was a disappointment.

00:36:49.160 --> 00:36:52.060
He viewed the major aspects
of Consolidated's

00:36:52.060 --> 00:36:53.359
production with disdain.

00:36:53.359 --> 00:36:56.500
It was obvious to everyone
except the Consolidated people

00:36:56.500 --> 00:37:01.100
that Ford's precision parts
with 2,000/10,000 of an inch would never fit

00:37:01.100 --> 00:37:04.280
with Consolidated's
handcrafted parts.

00:37:04.280 --> 00:37:05.930
Sorensen told Consolidated
he neither liked

00:37:05.930 --> 00:37:08.160
what he saw or what he heard.

00:37:08.160 --> 00:37:11.450
He said, "All this is
pretty discouraging."

00:37:11.450 --> 00:37:13.950
Fleet and his engineers
looked at Sorensen, said,

00:37:13.950 --> 00:37:16.060
"So how would you do it?"

00:37:16.060 --> 00:37:17.540
Sorensen loved a challenge
and answered,

00:37:17.540 --> 00:37:21.359
"I don't know, but I'll have an
answer for you in the morning."

00:37:21.359 --> 00:37:28.369
Next slide.

00:37:28.369 --> 00:37:31.340
Sorensen went back to his room,
and the nation

00:37:31.340 --> 00:37:34.060
was about to be shocked
by Mr. Sorensen's proposal.

00:37:34.060 --> 00:37:38.270
In his imagination, there would
be no mere parts factory.

00:37:38.270 --> 00:37:43.640
It would become the vortex
of President Roosevelt's

00:37:43.640 --> 00:37:45.280
arsenal of democracy.

00:37:45.280 --> 00:37:48.670
Back up one slide.

00:37:48.670 --> 00:37:51.380
He went to his room at the
Coronado Hotel on North Island.

00:37:51.380 --> 00:37:53.350
He was too restless to sleep.

00:37:53.350 --> 00:37:56.310
Using his notes from the day
and his 35 years

00:37:56.310 --> 00:37:58.970
of manufacturing experience,
he broke the B-24 bomber

00:37:58.970 --> 00:38:01.400
down into subassemblies,
section by section.

00:38:01.400 --> 00:38:03.620
He figured out
average job performance,

00:38:03.620 --> 00:38:05.580
time flow and overhead cost.

00:38:05.580 --> 00:38:08.700
There were stacks of papers
in lines all over his room.

00:38:08.700 --> 00:38:12.160
By 4:00 a.m., he had
the proper sequence down,

00:38:12.160 --> 00:38:13.180
production time allotted.

00:38:13.180 --> 00:38:16.710
Then, he sketched out
the floor plan of a bomber plant

00:38:16.710 --> 00:38:20.030
that would produce
one B-24 bomber in an hour.

00:38:20.030 --> 00:38:22.260
The floor plan
showed an assembly line

00:38:22.260 --> 00:38:26.180
a mile long and 1/4 mile wide.

00:38:26.180 --> 00:38:33.050
Next slide.

00:38:33.050 --> 00:38:35.040
Sorensen went back the next
morning to Fleet's office

00:38:35.040 --> 00:38:36.550
with his papers under his arms.

00:38:36.550 --> 00:38:40.720
He said to Fleet, "Ford could
build a B-24 bomber in an hour

00:38:40.720 --> 00:38:42.990
on an automotive-style
assembly line."

00:38:42.990 --> 00:38:46.500
Fleet was somewhat dazed by
the scale of Sorensen's proposal

00:38:46.500 --> 00:38:48.000
and said, "You're crazy.

00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:49.410
No one can do that."

00:38:49.410 --> 00:38:51.790
Sorensen's jaw set,
and he responded,

00:38:51.790 --> 00:38:54.170
"We're not interested
in subassemblies.

00:38:54.170 --> 00:38:56.680
We'll make a complete
airplane or nothing."

00:38:56.680 --> 00:39:00.370
The world was about to discover
what Detroit could do.

00:39:00.370 --> 00:39:03.220
Next slide.

00:39:03.220 --> 00:39:05.450
Sorensen had just taken on
the biggest project of his life

00:39:05.450 --> 00:39:06.990
when he committed
Ford Motor Company

00:39:06.990 --> 00:39:10.350
to build a four-engine
bomber an hour.

00:39:10.350 --> 00:39:13.580
On the basis of pencil
drawings on hotel stationery,

00:39:13.580 --> 00:39:15.700
the Army was so desperate
for airplanes

00:39:15.700 --> 00:39:18.311
that they awarded
a $200 million contract

00:39:18.311 --> 00:39:20.680
to build the bombers
and the bomber plant.

00:39:20.680 --> 00:39:22.280
It was the largest
single contract

00:39:22.280 --> 00:39:27.350
ever awarded in that time of the history of
the United States.

00:39:27.350 --> 00:39:29.170
Sorensen was in a hurry
to find 4 square miles

00:39:29.170 --> 00:39:32.620
of flat land near Detroit,
and he picked a piece of flat

00:39:32.620 --> 00:39:35.780
land near Ypsilanti, Michigan,
by a sleepy little creek

00:39:35.780 --> 00:39:37.340
known as the Willow Run.

00:39:37.340 --> 00:39:41.820
In April of 1941, ground was
broken on a bomber plant

00:39:41.820 --> 00:39:44.540
that would be called
the Willow Run Bomber Plant.

00:39:44.540 --> 00:39:49.960
Next slide.

00:39:49.960 --> 00:39:51.609
People were evicted
from their land here

00:39:51.609 --> 00:39:55.090
to make sure that
this plant could be built.

00:39:55.090 --> 00:39:58.570
Next slide.

00:39:58.570 --> 00:40:02.050
Next slide.

00:40:02.050 --> 00:40:06.859
The factory was built
on Washtenaw County

00:40:06.859 --> 00:40:09.119
west of Detroit,
and it would have extended

00:40:09.119 --> 00:40:10.119
into Wayne County.

00:40:10.119 --> 00:40:12.520
Henry Ford didn't want that,
so the famous thing is,

00:40:12.520 --> 00:40:14.390
there's a 90-degree turn
in the assembly line

00:40:14.390 --> 00:40:17.020
to keep the factory
in Washtenaw County

00:40:17.020 --> 00:40:19.030
so he could build trucks,
tractors or cars

00:40:19.030 --> 00:40:21.750
and not have to cross
a county line after the war.

00:40:21.750 --> 00:40:23.310
Next slide.

00:40:23.310 --> 00:40:27.260
The plant was under
construction.

00:40:27.260 --> 00:40:28.550
Six months after
they broke ground,

00:40:28.550 --> 00:40:31.100
they were already
producing parts in here.

00:40:31.100 --> 00:40:35.130
Next slide.

00:40:35.130 --> 00:40:40.480
By November 1941, 18 months
after Knudsen came to Detroit,

00:40:40.480 --> 00:40:42.700
before Pearl Harbor,
all the major weapons

00:40:42.700 --> 00:40:45.980
to be used in World War II
were identified, plants being

00:40:45.980 --> 00:40:48.210
built and under production.

00:40:48.210 --> 00:40:54.650
In 18 months, this avalanche of
material would crush the Axis.

00:40:54.650 --> 00:40:57.250
Next slide.

00:40:57.250 --> 00:41:01.750
1941, December, the Japanese attack Pearl
Harbor.

00:41:01.750 --> 00:41:05.490
If the U.S. had waited until the
Pearl Harbor attack to mobilize,

00:41:05.490 --> 00:41:07.320
we might not have been
able to respond

00:41:07.320 --> 00:41:10.119
until the winter of '45
or the summer of '46

00:41:10.119 --> 00:41:12.760
to this attack,
and history could have

00:41:12.760 --> 00:41:15.200
a much different line
than it does today.

00:41:15.200 --> 00:41:17.349
Next slide.

00:41:17.349 --> 00:41:21.560
Called the Battle of Detroit
in Time magazine,

00:41:21.560 --> 00:41:24.180
they quoted saying
that this was something

00:41:24.180 --> 00:41:26.150
Hitler did not understand --
the miracle of

00:41:26.150 --> 00:41:27.710
American production.

00:41:27.710 --> 00:41:30.810
He fully understood the miracle
of American production.

00:41:30.810 --> 00:41:33.490
He feared it, but based
on the German experience,

00:41:33.490 --> 00:41:37.270
he thought it would be 4 years
before we could respond.

00:41:37.270 --> 00:41:40.410
Next slide.

00:41:40.410 --> 00:41:41.430
Big problems came out.

00:41:41.430 --> 00:41:44.420
When Ford got the B-24 contract,
they asked Consolidated

00:41:44.420 --> 00:41:47.290
for the blueprints,
and Consolidated said,

00:41:47.290 --> 00:41:48.930
"We don't have any blueprints.

00:41:48.930 --> 00:41:50.890
We've got drawings,
sketches, et cetera,"

00:41:50.890 --> 00:41:53.470
and Ford had to do
30,000 engineering drawings.

00:41:53.470 --> 00:41:56.500
That put them about
6 months behind.

00:41:56.500 --> 00:41:57.500
Now the war comes.

00:41:57.500 --> 00:41:58.500
Men are being drafted.

00:41:58.500 --> 00:42:00.170
Men are volunteering
for the service,

00:42:00.170 --> 00:42:03.220
and they start hiring women
off the street.

00:42:03.220 --> 00:42:04.490
Women don't leave
like the men do

00:42:04.490 --> 00:42:06.070
because they're not
being drafted,

00:42:06.070 --> 00:42:09.710
and slowly the women
in the workforce build up.

00:42:09.710 --> 00:42:14.080
Next slide.

00:42:14.080 --> 00:42:16.850
Production is stalled because
of the tooling and the man power

00:42:16.850 --> 00:42:20.090
and other problems coming up,
so the bomber plant

00:42:20.090 --> 00:42:22.480
is renamed "Will It Run?"

00:42:22.480 --> 00:42:25.090
Then, the Truman Committee
looking for fraud

00:42:25.090 --> 00:42:27.510
in manufacturing
comes into Detroit.

00:42:27.510 --> 00:42:31.849
Next slide.

00:42:31.849 --> 00:42:34.410
And they look at
what's going on at Willow Run,

00:42:34.410 --> 00:42:36.530
and there's
high employee turnover.

00:42:36.530 --> 00:42:37.730
The male workers are leaving.

00:42:37.730 --> 00:42:39.060
There's no housing.

00:42:39.060 --> 00:42:42.680
It's a subassembly plant being
directed through a hierarchy.

00:42:42.680 --> 00:42:45.520
Nobody will freeze the designs,
and because

00:42:45.520 --> 00:42:49.160
they change the design,
they can't get production going.

00:42:49.160 --> 00:42:51.980
Next slide.

00:42:51.980 --> 00:42:54.780
Truman Committee gives Ford
a clean bill of health and says,

00:42:54.780 --> 00:42:56.170
"Nobody could run a factory.

00:42:56.170 --> 00:42:59.470
What you need to do is get
a dictator in this factory,"

00:42:59.470 --> 00:43:01.050
and they appointed
a plant manager

00:43:01.050 --> 00:43:03.660
who had the ability
to farm out manufacturing,

00:43:03.660 --> 00:43:09.150
hire more women, freeze designs,
and B-24 production takes off.

00:43:09.150 --> 00:43:12.080
Next slide.

00:43:12.080 --> 00:43:16.900
Employment peaks in 1943
at 42,000, and as I said,

00:43:16.900 --> 00:43:19.790
because of the lower
turnover of women to men,

00:43:19.790 --> 00:43:22.090
the women increase
in the bomber factory.

00:43:22.090 --> 00:43:24.240
They make up 40% of the war.

00:43:24.240 --> 00:43:26.480
They move into
supervisory roles,

00:43:26.480 --> 00:43:30.150
and these women were motivated
by much more than the pay.

00:43:30.150 --> 00:43:32.300
The women were motivated
by a bigger calling

00:43:32.300 --> 00:43:35.080
because they all had
brothers, sons,

00:43:35.080 --> 00:43:38.950
boyfriends, husbands overseas,
and we had an interview

00:43:38.950 --> 00:43:41.680
with one Rosie,
and she talked about

00:43:41.680 --> 00:43:45.030
she came in early in 1942,
and she was a riveter

00:43:45.030 --> 00:43:48.750
on cockpit.

00:43:48.750 --> 00:44:02.470
[ Audio cuts out ]
-Uh-oh.

00:44:02.470 --> 00:44:08.160
It looks like
we lost Randy's audio.

00:44:08.160 --> 00:44:09.160
Oh.

00:44:09.160 --> 00:44:10.160
Uh-oh.

00:44:10.160 --> 00:44:11.160
And webcam.

00:44:11.160 --> 00:44:12.160
We're going to give them
a second to start back up

00:44:12.160 --> 00:44:15.500
so they can start
talking about Willow Run

00:44:15.500 --> 00:44:19.510
and the employment of
all these Rosie the Riveters.

00:44:19.510 --> 00:44:22.020
You know, as they're
getting this started up,

00:44:22.020 --> 00:44:26.150
probably this plant is
the most famous for, you know,

00:44:26.150 --> 00:44:28.700
those women who went
to work at the war,

00:44:28.700 --> 00:44:30.970
so I'm going to let them
get back signed in,

00:44:30.970 --> 00:44:32.690
and they can talk
about it a little more.

00:44:32.690 --> 00:44:36.420
I want to tell you all,
just as a side note,

00:44:36.420 --> 00:44:39.859
you are providing
so many wonderful questions,

00:44:39.859 --> 00:44:44.380
and Megan and Rachel there are,
you know, doing their best

00:44:44.380 --> 00:44:48.530
to answer all of them,
so this is really, really

00:44:48.530 --> 00:44:50.990
great that you guys are --
You know, I think it's the most

00:44:50.990 --> 00:44:53.150
questions that we have ever had.

00:44:53.150 --> 00:44:54.609
So you'll see Megan.

00:44:54.609 --> 00:44:56.520
It says me technically,
but you'll see

00:44:56.520 --> 00:44:58.480
Megan responding to them
but also of course

00:44:58.480 --> 00:45:01.990
Rachel, as well,
if you see her

00:45:01.990 --> 00:45:04.849
chiming in, as well,
the director of education

00:45:04.849 --> 00:45:05.940
at the Yankee Air Museum.

00:45:05.940 --> 00:45:08.060
We're just going to give them
another second

00:45:08.060 --> 00:45:10.150
to get connected again.

00:45:10.150 --> 00:45:12.180
Let's see here,
and I'm going to --

00:45:12.180 --> 00:45:14.330
Looks like they're back on now,
and I'm going to

00:45:14.330 --> 00:45:18.230
give them a second
to get connected

00:45:18.230 --> 00:45:22.070
one more time to get the story.

00:45:22.070 --> 00:45:23.280
All right.

00:45:23.280 --> 00:45:25.109
Here we go.

00:45:25.109 --> 00:45:26.109
Back again.

00:45:26.109 --> 00:45:27.109
Here we go.

00:45:27.109 --> 00:45:28.109
Back again.

00:45:28.109 --> 00:45:29.109
-I don't know how
much you missed,

00:45:29.109 --> 00:45:30.109
but I'm going to go back
to the interview

00:45:30.109 --> 00:45:31.109
we had with one of the Rosies
we interviewed here.

00:45:31.109 --> 00:45:32.109
-Sure.

00:45:32.109 --> 00:45:33.109
-She came to work --
-Sure.

00:45:33.109 --> 00:45:34.109
-Did you get that?

00:45:34.109 --> 00:45:35.109
-Yeah, that will be great.

00:45:35.109 --> 00:45:36.109
-You already heard that story.

00:45:36.109 --> 00:45:37.109
Okay.

00:45:37.109 --> 00:45:38.109
-No, we did not hear that story.

00:45:38.109 --> 00:45:39.109
No, we did not hear that story.

00:45:39.109 --> 00:45:41.180
-What happened was a woman
came to work here in early 1942,

00:45:41.180 --> 00:45:44.090
and she was riveting the cockpit floor for
the pilots,

00:45:44.090 --> 00:45:47.070
and after about 6 months,
she was doing a good job.

00:45:47.070 --> 00:45:50.670
They appointed her supervisor,
and they gave her a metal die,

00:45:50.670 --> 00:45:53.190
and no cockpit floor
was to leave her department

00:45:53.190 --> 00:45:55.170
unless she put
her initials on it,

00:45:55.170 --> 00:45:59.990
and 50 years later,
she still had that die.

00:45:59.990 --> 00:46:03.630
She was so proud of her role,
and she said,

00:46:03.630 --> 00:46:07.580
"No floor left my department
unless it was perfect.

00:46:07.580 --> 00:46:11.540
I had to do my part
for the boys overseas

00:46:11.540 --> 00:46:15.020
because they were our husbands,
our boyfriends, our brothers,"

00:46:15.020 --> 00:46:18.510
and another thing, Ford paid men
and women the same from day one.

00:46:18.510 --> 00:46:21.310
That was just one
of his equal opportunity things.

00:46:21.310 --> 00:46:22.310
Next slide.

00:46:22.310 --> 00:46:24.820
I'm going to go through
these next series of slides,

00:46:24.820 --> 00:46:26.850
and you'll see
the enormity of this factory

00:46:26.850 --> 00:46:29.380
and all of the jigs
and production tools.

00:46:29.380 --> 00:46:30.510
Next slide.

00:46:30.510 --> 00:46:33.880
And you see the prefabricated
parts all going together.

00:46:33.880 --> 00:46:35.050
They're all identical.

00:46:35.050 --> 00:46:36.050
They're prefit.

00:46:36.050 --> 00:46:39.060
They snap together
like a set of LEGOs.

00:46:39.060 --> 00:46:40.060
Next slide.

00:46:40.060 --> 00:46:41.980
You see the rows
of the riveters here

00:46:41.980 --> 00:46:45.170
actually driving the rivets
to put this wing together,

00:46:45.170 --> 00:46:48.000
and a good riveter could do
six rivets a minute,

00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:52.400
and they were driving them
by that rate millions per day.

00:46:52.400 --> 00:46:53.400
Next.

00:46:53.400 --> 00:46:56.680
And you see the center wing now
going on the assembly line.

00:46:56.680 --> 00:46:58.530
They start adding
all the parts to it.

00:46:58.530 --> 00:46:59.790
Next slide.

00:46:59.790 --> 00:47:02.410
The cockpits
with all the wiring,

00:47:02.410 --> 00:47:04.130
all the tubing
are being put together.

00:47:04.130 --> 00:47:05.130
Next slide.

00:47:05.130 --> 00:47:07.090
And you can see
the women putting

00:47:07.090 --> 00:47:08.880
the prefabricated parts
on the wings

00:47:08.880 --> 00:47:11.230
as the airplane comes down
the assembly line.

00:47:11.230 --> 00:47:12.359
This airplane
you're looking at right

00:47:12.359 --> 00:47:15.190
there will be
flying in 5 days.

00:47:15.190 --> 00:47:16.190
Next slide.

00:47:16.190 --> 00:47:18.790
And you see them coming
to the 90-degree turn.

00:47:18.790 --> 00:47:20.780
Now, go through
these really quick,

00:47:20.780 --> 00:47:23.339
and you'll see there's
two parallel assembly lines

00:47:23.339 --> 00:47:27.070
with 90 airplanes under production at any
one time,

00:47:27.070 --> 00:47:28.070
and they're all moving.

00:47:28.070 --> 00:47:30.050
Every 2 hours, these airplanes
will move forward

00:47:30.050 --> 00:47:32.950
to keep that bomber-an-hour
production rate.

00:47:32.950 --> 00:47:34.110
Next slide.

00:47:34.110 --> 00:47:35.270
Next slide.

00:47:35.270 --> 00:47:36.270
Next slide.

00:47:36.270 --> 00:47:37.690
You see them going into
the paint booth

00:47:37.690 --> 00:47:39.650
and coming out the door
once an hour.

00:47:39.650 --> 00:47:41.910
Incidentally, this is
the part of the factory

00:47:41.910 --> 00:47:43.430
that the museum
here has saved,

00:47:43.430 --> 00:47:45.440
and this is going
to be our future home.

00:47:45.440 --> 00:47:47.210
The Willow Run Bomber Plant
will now be open

00:47:47.210 --> 00:47:49.130
to the public in about 4 years.

00:47:49.130 --> 00:47:51.130
Next slide.

00:47:51.130 --> 00:47:53.780
You can see they build the first
airplane in October of '42.

00:47:53.780 --> 00:47:56.360
A year later, they were
doing 365 a month.

00:47:56.360 --> 00:47:59.280
They could have gone to 650,
but the Army literally said,

00:47:59.280 --> 00:48:01.119
"We have no place
to park them.

00:48:01.119 --> 00:48:02.119
Slow down."

00:48:02.119 --> 00:48:03.280
Next slide.

00:48:03.280 --> 00:48:07.960
By 1944,
50% of the bomber weight

00:48:07.960 --> 00:48:12.420
and 75% of the bomber engines
are coming from Detroit.

00:48:12.420 --> 00:48:14.550
Next slide.

00:48:14.550 --> 00:48:18.830
Next slide.

00:48:18.830 --> 00:48:20.570
Women make up 40%
of the workforce.

00:48:20.570 --> 00:48:21.849
They would not have
been able to build

00:48:21.849 --> 00:48:23.440
the bombers without the women.

00:48:23.440 --> 00:48:26.220
There was such a shortage
of man power in this country

00:48:26.220 --> 00:48:29.290
that women were brought in,
not for equal opportunity,

00:48:29.290 --> 00:48:32.760
not because they needed to, but
because they could do the job,

00:48:32.760 --> 00:48:34.490
and they got these bombers.

00:48:34.490 --> 00:48:36.240
There would have not
have been the bomber force

00:48:36.240 --> 00:48:37.700
without the women.

00:48:37.700 --> 00:48:41.180
Next slide.

00:48:41.180 --> 00:48:45.030
Last bomber comes off
the assembly line June of 1945,

00:48:45.030 --> 00:48:47.380
and we say farewell here
at Willow Run to the bomber.

00:48:47.380 --> 00:48:48.920
Next slide.

00:48:48.920 --> 00:48:52.089
There, you see
the last airplane built there

00:48:52.089 --> 00:48:54.310
with the single tail
coming off the assembly line.

00:48:54.310 --> 00:48:55.440
It wasn't actually the last one.

00:48:55.440 --> 00:48:57.550
It was going to be
the last model they build,

00:48:57.550 --> 00:48:59.790
and that became
the major airport in Detroit,

00:48:59.790 --> 00:49:02.780
and that road at the bottom
became Interstate 94

00:49:02.780 --> 00:49:05.620
when Eisenhower
did the Interstate Act.

00:49:05.620 --> 00:49:08.720
Next slide.

00:49:08.720 --> 00:49:10.020
Was Willow Run a success?

00:49:10.020 --> 00:49:12.589
Well, yes and no.

00:49:12.589 --> 00:49:15.580
Production peaked after the war
had basically been won,

00:49:15.580 --> 00:49:19.789
but if the war had gone badly,
had '44 been like '42 or '43,

00:49:19.789 --> 00:49:22.070
they would have desperately
needed the production.

00:49:22.070 --> 00:49:24.220
Willow Run was making
a pound of airframe

00:49:24.220 --> 00:49:26.859
in half the time
of the industry standard.

00:49:26.859 --> 00:49:28.619
Next slide.

00:49:28.619 --> 00:49:30.380
Next slide.

00:49:30.380 --> 00:49:35.640
Following World War II, the Army
evaluated the auto industry

00:49:35.640 --> 00:49:37.230
contribution
to production and said,

00:49:37.230 --> 00:49:39.250
"The question of whether
the auto industry

00:49:39.250 --> 00:49:40.830
could be converted
to production aircraft

00:49:40.830 --> 00:49:42.930
was settled beyond debate
during the war."

00:49:42.930 --> 00:49:45.280
The success left no room
for argument,

00:49:45.280 --> 00:49:47.860
and given the limited capacity
of the aircraft industry

00:49:47.860 --> 00:49:51.760
and the enormous pressure
for airplanes after May of 1940,

00:49:51.760 --> 00:49:53.740
it's fair to conclude
the Army Air Force

00:49:53.740 --> 00:49:57.000
was justified in underwriting
the Ford experiment.

00:49:57.000 --> 00:49:59.540
Willow Run was a manifestation
of the miracle

00:49:59.540 --> 00:50:02.550
of Detroit's
manufacturing mastery.

00:50:02.550 --> 00:50:05.110
Next slide.

00:50:05.110 --> 00:50:06.290
This is what the factory
looked like.

00:50:06.290 --> 00:50:08.440
The little red square
there on the right

00:50:08.440 --> 00:50:11.260
is the part we have saved
for our future museum.

00:50:11.260 --> 00:50:12.260
Next slide.

00:50:12.260 --> 00:50:15.210
And this is what
it looks like today.

00:50:15.210 --> 00:50:17.630
You can see our part there
at the end of the assembly line.

00:50:17.630 --> 00:50:18.990
I thank you very much
for letting me make

00:50:18.990 --> 00:50:20.310
this presentation.

00:50:20.310 --> 00:50:22.800
Open to Q&A.

00:50:22.800 --> 00:50:25.200
-Thank you so much, Randy.

00:50:25.200 --> 00:50:29.170
I'm going to pop back on, too,
and I know we have

00:50:29.170 --> 00:50:32.920
a little bit of a delay,
everyone, so bear with us.

00:50:32.920 --> 00:50:35.460
So we've had some
wonderful questions,

00:50:35.460 --> 00:50:39.560
probably the most that
we've ever had in one webinar,

00:50:39.560 --> 00:50:41.210
which is crazy.

00:50:41.210 --> 00:50:46.700
What would you say, Megan,
like, 40 questions at least?

00:50:46.700 --> 00:50:48.950
-It's probably the most
that we've ever had.

00:50:48.950 --> 00:50:50.790
-So we've been interacting privately with
you all.

00:50:50.790 --> 00:50:52.040
-I actually have
a couple questions

00:50:52.040 --> 00:50:53.849
I thought it would be great
if you could answer as a group.

00:50:53.849 --> 00:50:55.089
-A lot of people, yeah,
were curious.

00:50:55.089 --> 00:50:58.240
You talked about
a little bit the state

00:50:58.240 --> 00:51:00.220
of Willow Run after 1945.

00:51:00.220 --> 00:51:01.810
What happened to it?

00:51:01.810 --> 00:51:06.710
Is the rest of it
going to be demolished?

00:51:06.710 --> 00:51:11.810
What's the story
there after 1945?

00:51:11.810 --> 00:51:18.610
[ Audio cutting out ]
Is the rest of it

00:51:18.610 --> 00:51:22.010
going to be demolished?

00:51:22.010 --> 00:51:25.839
What's the story
there after 1945?

00:51:25.839 --> 00:51:27.630
-What happened to the factory
after 1945?

00:51:27.630 --> 00:51:32.720
It was given to
the University of Michigan,

00:51:32.720 --> 00:51:37.190
and the University of Michigan then sold it
to Kaiser-Frazer Corporation

00:51:37.190 --> 00:51:42.070
to build cars there,
and they built cars until 1953,

00:51:42.070 --> 00:51:44.270
and then General Motors'
transmission factory

00:51:44.270 --> 00:51:45.680
burned down,
and General Motors

00:51:45.680 --> 00:51:47.950
bought the bomber plant
and built transmissions

00:51:47.950 --> 00:51:49.020
there until 2010...

00:51:49.020 --> 00:51:50.020
-Wow.

00:51:50.020 --> 00:51:51.349
So you guys --
-...when, as part

00:51:51.349 --> 00:51:53.080
of the bankruptcy,
they eliminated this from

00:51:53.080 --> 00:51:54.080
their production facilities.

00:51:54.080 --> 00:51:55.080
-That's really,
really amazing.

00:51:55.080 --> 00:51:56.080
So when will
Yankee Air Museum be open?

00:51:56.080 --> 00:51:57.080
So you guys --
Yeah, that part of --

00:51:57.080 --> 00:51:58.080
So that's really, really amazing, so when
will

00:51:58.080 --> 00:52:06.190
Yankee Air Museum be open?

00:52:06.190 --> 00:52:10.190
-It looks like --
Oh, your volume --

00:52:10.190 --> 00:52:11.210
-I noticed that.

00:52:11.210 --> 00:52:12.920
Is it --
-Yeah, I know.

00:52:12.920 --> 00:52:19.200
[ Indistinct chatter ]
It looks like your volume.

00:52:19.200 --> 00:52:22.560
-You're breaking up.

00:52:22.560 --> 00:52:28.160
-I'm actually --
Yeah, I know.

00:52:28.160 --> 00:52:31.310
-So if you could turn
your speaker volume --

00:52:31.310 --> 00:52:32.310
-All right.

00:52:32.310 --> 00:52:33.740
That should be better.

00:52:33.740 --> 00:52:35.770
-You think down or up?

00:52:35.770 --> 00:52:36.770
-All right.

00:52:36.770 --> 00:52:38.200
That should be better.

00:52:38.200 --> 00:52:40.930
-So when will you guys be
in that facility?

00:52:40.930 --> 00:52:44.339
-That was loud and clear.

00:52:44.339 --> 00:52:50.480
-So when will you guys
be in that facility?

00:52:50.480 --> 00:52:52.760
-We plan to open part of it
to the public

00:52:52.760 --> 00:52:54.000
in the spring of 2017.

00:52:54.000 --> 00:52:55.000
-Wow.

00:52:55.000 --> 00:52:56.280
And you'll have
a new name, right?

00:52:56.280 --> 00:52:59.670
-And that's our goal and to
have it up and running by 2018.

00:52:59.670 --> 00:53:00.670
-Wow.

00:53:00.670 --> 00:53:06.089
And you'll have
a new name, right?

00:53:06.089 --> 00:53:11.170
-Yes, we do, and it's the
National Museum of Aviation...

00:53:11.170 --> 00:53:12.220
-Well, that is just great.

00:53:12.220 --> 00:53:13.220
-...and Technology Located
at Historic Willow Run.

00:53:13.220 --> 00:53:14.350
-I just want to thank everyone.

00:53:14.350 --> 00:53:17.710
We're running
a little low on time,

00:53:17.710 --> 00:53:22.950
so I just want to thank everyone
for spending time with us today.

00:53:22.950 --> 00:53:24.550
Randy and Rachel,
any final, you know,

00:53:24.550 --> 00:53:26.750
things you want to say
to the audience?

00:53:26.750 --> 00:53:27.750
Uh-oh.

00:53:27.750 --> 00:53:30.450
It looks like you're on mute.

00:53:30.450 --> 00:53:32.380
I'm sorry about that.

00:53:32.380 --> 00:53:37.500
Rachel, if you wouldn't mind
connecting that one more time.

00:53:37.500 --> 00:53:41.960
Ah, technology.

00:53:41.960 --> 00:53:44.190
-Okay.

00:53:44.190 --> 00:53:56.670
All I can say is, if you're
in the area, come visit us.

00:53:56.670 --> 00:54:00.260
We've got a lot of fantastic
things to show here and --

00:54:00.260 --> 00:54:03.519
-Thank you.

00:54:03.519 --> 00:54:06.650
Thank you very much, you guys,
for participating today,

00:54:06.650 --> 00:54:07.650
such a neat story.

00:54:07.650 --> 00:54:09.170
I learned so much
about Willow Run.

00:54:09.170 --> 00:54:13.220
I had no idea about Consolidated
not even having blueprints

00:54:13.220 --> 00:54:15.450
or all that sort of stuff,
the crazy things

00:54:15.450 --> 00:54:18.000
and amazing feats
that happened at this place,

00:54:18.000 --> 00:54:21.100
so hopefully, as I said,
I can get up there one day, too,

00:54:21.100 --> 00:54:22.700
and see you guys at the museum.

00:54:22.700 --> 00:54:25.010
I'm going to transition
into another area

00:54:25.010 --> 00:54:27.310
right now to close it all out.

00:54:27.310 --> 00:54:29.890
You guys have been a wonderful,
super-awesome audience,

00:54:29.890 --> 00:54:32.000
as I said, most questions
we've ever gotten.

00:54:32.000 --> 00:54:37.260
Like, it's crazy, and, you know,
the participation

00:54:37.260 --> 00:54:38.530
was at its max.

00:54:38.530 --> 00:54:42.640
If we haven't answered
all of your questions,

00:54:42.640 --> 00:54:44.130
you know, feel free
to submit your e-mail,

00:54:44.130 --> 00:54:46.660
and we can try to answer them
after the webinar, as well,

00:54:46.660 --> 00:54:48.640
so we can answer them that way.

00:54:48.640 --> 00:54:51.900
A couple things to remind
you of here in this area,

00:54:51.900 --> 00:54:54.609
first off, on that slide,
you see that Pearl Harbor

00:54:54.609 --> 00:54:59.300
is about 2 weeks or so from now,
and we don't have a special

00:54:59.300 --> 00:55:02.490
webinar on it this year
because we did this one,

00:55:02.490 --> 00:55:04.680
but I want to remind you
all that we did

00:55:04.680 --> 00:55:07.590
a really cool one last year
with author Graham Salisbury.

00:55:07.590 --> 00:55:09.380
He wrote the book
"Under the Blood Red Sun."

00:55:09.380 --> 00:55:11.589
It was actually
just turned into a film

00:55:11.589 --> 00:55:15.839
if you guys are interested,
and it's a really great

00:55:15.839 --> 00:55:17.990
Q&A with him
and a great overview

00:55:17.990 --> 00:55:21.000
of the attack on Pearl Harbor,
so there's the link there.

00:55:21.000 --> 00:55:24.160
We've got lesson plans
and fact sheets on it,

00:55:24.160 --> 00:55:25.760
and also, a few years ago,
we had a special

00:55:25.760 --> 00:55:28.470
exhibit about it,
so you can see artifacts

00:55:28.470 --> 00:55:31.920
from that special exhibit,
so that's what's on that slide.

00:55:31.920 --> 00:55:34.170
Now, resources related to
the things that we've been

00:55:34.170 --> 00:55:37.329
talking about today,
so you see resources

00:55:37.329 --> 00:55:41.190
for teachers below that,
so that's a lesson plan,

00:55:41.190 --> 00:55:43.420
an activity and a fact sheet
that, actually, my coworker

00:55:43.420 --> 00:55:45.869
Megan, who's been
answering your questions,

00:55:45.869 --> 00:55:49.400
that she put together related
to our special exhibit

00:55:49.400 --> 00:55:52.770
that is currently up called
"Manufacturing Victory:

00:55:52.770 --> 00:55:54.750
The Arsenal of Democracy,"
so a lot of the things that

00:55:54.750 --> 00:55:56.880
you saw today were from that.

00:55:56.880 --> 00:56:00.270
Also, related to that
are really important links,

00:56:00.270 --> 00:56:04.540
so the special exhibit website,
which is the top there,

00:56:04.540 --> 00:56:07.210
the "Manufacturing Victory" one,
our educational resources

00:56:07.210 --> 00:56:11.570
at the museum,
of course the Yankee Air Museum,

00:56:11.570 --> 00:56:14.150
and some of you might have been
asking numbers about production,

00:56:14.150 --> 00:56:16.339
like, "How many of this
sort of thing did we make?

00:56:16.339 --> 00:56:18.100
How many of that sort of thing?"

00:56:18.100 --> 00:56:20.700
That "World War II by
the Numbers" is a great,

00:56:20.700 --> 00:56:24.060
you know, answers a lot
of those questions,

00:56:24.060 --> 00:56:26.329
and then last but not least,
I am always curious.

00:56:26.329 --> 00:56:28.089
We are planning to do
more of these webinars.

00:56:28.089 --> 00:56:30.650
We do try to do four of them
per school year,

00:56:30.650 --> 00:56:33.680
so, teachers, see that
little poll at the end there.

00:56:33.680 --> 00:56:36.530
Select which webinar you'd be
most interested in watching.

00:56:36.530 --> 00:56:39.790
Hopefully, I mean, as a little
hint to you guys watching live,

00:56:39.790 --> 00:56:43.530
I plan to do all of these.

00:56:43.530 --> 00:56:45.410
You know, we're still working
out the details for some,

00:56:45.410 --> 00:56:46.750
but I would really like
to see what you

00:56:46.750 --> 00:56:50.500
all would be most interested
in participating in,

00:56:50.500 --> 00:56:54.839
in the future,
and, as I said, you know,

00:56:54.839 --> 00:56:56.800
we'll also continue
to answer your questions.

00:56:56.800 --> 00:57:00.280
We'll try to via e-mail, any of
those that didn't get answered.

00:57:00.280 --> 00:57:04.329
Big shout-out, big thank-you
to Rachel and Randy

00:57:04.329 --> 00:57:06.000
from the Yankee Air Museum.

00:57:06.000 --> 00:57:09.120
As I said, we learned
so much from you guys,

00:57:09.120 --> 00:57:11.270
and I hope everybody
has a wonderful Friday,

00:57:11.270 --> 00:57:14.770
a wonderful weekend
and a wonderful Thanksgiving.

00:57:14.770 --> 00:57:17.540
From Megan and Chrissy at
the National World War II Museum

00:57:17.540 --> 00:57:17.820
in New Orleans --