An interesting video released 6 months before Pearl Harbor.

Enjoy

Press Maxwell, who started me flying very young, flew 50 missions out of N Africa and Italy in those.

I flew out of Hangar 2 in Ypsi for a while. We were based right next to the old Ford assembly line and would park on the same ramp the '24s would be before and after their shakedown flights. Lots of history, and it still looks a lot the same... except for all the Zantop DC-8's that were scattered around the field.

I had a family friend, now gone, that worked repair on the B 24 line. A tall skinny kid at that time he was part of a very small crew that replaced poorly done rivets found after the planes were completed. He told me that like most young men at that time he wanted to get into the military and it had taken him three tries at enlisting to make it in. The first two times the company blocked it as the job he was doing was to important to the war effort let him go.

I spent some time at YIP also. The wooden run up hangar on the southwest corner was impressive. The back wall and the long gone doors were built as louvers so that they could run the airplanes up in the hangar with the doors closed without the prying eyes of "spies". Unfortunately it burned down several years ago. I don't know about now, but 20 years ago the revetment where they test fired the guns was still on the southeast corner.

The owner of the company that was the first flying job I had, told me as a 16 year he old had driven trucks hauling B 24 fuselages from Willow Run to Kansas City, if I remember correctly, for final assembly. The plant had the capacity to produce more fuselages than they could assemble so they had special made trucks and trailers.

Lots of history in the area.

Tim

Small government and big effort worked so much better than big government and little effort. The small government even had an effective Senator Harry Truman's Committee catching businesses that were gouging the government. When the Senators asked Harry if they should prosecute the gougers he answered, "Hell no! Renegotiate their contracts." Now the government doesn't worry about saving money. It just prints more.

A great time. When America was full of vigor, pride and purpose.