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bakerocb
Joined: 15 Jan 2006
Posts: 727
Location: FAIRFAX VA
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 Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 9:51 am Post subject: Our Aeronautical Heritage |
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2/10/2007
Dear Fellow Listers, Please forgive the off topic posting.
At dinner last night the subject of the scope of wars came up and I made a
comment to a fellow diner about the scope of WW II, particularly the rate of
ship and airplane construction, and mentioned a few numbers. She scoffed at
those numbers as ridiculously high. So today I did a bit of research and
came across:
"The plant Ford built at Willow Run had an assembly line that was a mile
long. At the peak of it's production, the assembly line was producing a
Liberator an hour. Willow Run had its own airfield. It employed 30,000
workers."
I am sharing that with her, but I'd like to share the below with you:
AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD AT WILLOW RUN
"I seldom got more than a few miles, usually on foot, away from our home on
Strawberry lake. It was 1944 and no one travelled much due to the war. My
brother Bob worked at Willow Run, just a name to me. I knew that they built
the B-24 Liberator there. One day, I think a Sunday, my Brother took me to
Willow Run. The workers were at home. Now that I am 69 years old I realize,
in retrospect, the impact that magic place had on me. My brother said that
it was the biggest factory in the world under one roof at that time. We
started at the beginning of the assembly line; mountains of strange objects.
Nuts, bolts, wheels, struts, wing spars, rib sections, things I had never
seen before, tail sections, fuselage sections, wings. It seemed we would
never get to the end but we did and there sat a finished B-24. The climax! I
can still feel the awe of the workers who built such a marvel and the image
in my mind of the heroes that would take that huge plane into harms way. I
was embarrassed when I cried then from sheer emotion. "Big boys don't cry."
I'm crying now as I write but there is no embarrassment. I Think that day
might just have been the day that set me on a quest to become a fighter for
my country. My heroes have never been movie stars. My heroes have always
been, from 8 years old onward , the men like those who manned that B-24; the
knights, the soldiers who made America the strongest nation in the world!"
6/5/2005 - T/Sgt. Gary R. Downing U.S.A.F. Retired.
There is more on this subject on the below web site.
http://www.liberatorcrew.com/06_B-24_Prod.htm
OC -- The best investment we can make is to gather knowledge.
PS: It took me decades to extract the mystery of the source of my
aeronautical epiphany / obsession from my memory. I was moved by Gary R.
Downing's description of his.
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sportav8r(at)gmail.com
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| Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 1:28 pm Post subject: Our Aeronautical Heritage |
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OC-
As soon as I read that, I forwarded it to my Dad, one of those
Liberator men who flew with the 8th AAF's 453rd BG at Old Buck, was
wounded by flack, taken POW, escaped Germany and lived to tell the
tale. Now 82, Dad still hates flying, though he's been up with me 3
or 4 times in the RV, and can't bring himself to talk much about the
war. I never pass on an opportunity, though, to remind him of how
much his countrymen and family appreciate the incredible bravery and
sacrifice his generation made for the cause. I think it was Churchill
who remarked, "Dear God, where do we get such men as these?"
It is a good thought to ponder; an ironic question which begins with
its own answer.
-Bill Boyd
On 2/10/07, bakerocb(at)cox.net <bakerocb(at)cox.net> wrote:
| Quote: |
2/10/2007
Dear Fellow Listers, Please forgive the off topic posting.
At dinner last night the subject of the scope of wars came up and I made a
comment to a fellow diner about the scope of WW II, particularly the rate of
ship and airplane construction, and mentioned a few numbers. She scoffed at
those numbers as ridiculously high. So today I did a bit of research and
came across:
"The plant Ford built at Willow Run had an assembly line that was a mile
long. At the peak of it's production, the assembly line was producing a
Liberator an hour. Willow Run had its own airfield. It employed 30,000
workers."
I am sharing that with her, but I'd like to share the below with you:
AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD AT WILLOW RUN
"I seldom got more than a few miles, usually on foot, away from our home on
Strawberry lake. It was 1944 and no one travelled much due to the war. My
brother Bob worked at Willow Run, just a name to me. I knew that they built
the B-24 Liberator there. One day, I think a Sunday, my Brother took me to
Willow Run. The workers were at home. Now that I am 69 years old I realize,
in retrospect, the impact that magic place had on me. My brother said that
it was the biggest factory in the world under one roof at that time. We
started at the beginning of the assembly line; mountains of strange objects.
Nuts, bolts, wheels, struts, wing spars, rib sections, things I had never
seen before, tail sections, fuselage sections, wings. It seemed we would
never get to the end but we did and there sat a finished B-24. The climax! I
can still feel the awe of the workers who built such a marvel and the image
in my mind of the heroes that would take that huge plane into harms way. I
was embarrassed when I cried then from sheer emotion. "Big boys don't cry."
I'm crying now as I write but there is no embarrassment. I Think that day
might just have been the day that set me on a quest to become a fighter for
my country. My heroes have never been movie stars. My heroes have always
been, from 8 years old onward , the men like those who manned that B-24; the
knights, the soldiers who made America the strongest nation in the world!"
6/5/2005 - T/Sgt. Gary R. Downing U.S.A.F. Retired.
There is more on this subject on the below web site.
http://www.liberatorcrew.com/06_B-24_Prod.htm
OC -- The best investment we can make is to gather knowledge.
PS: It took me decades to extract the mystery of the source of my
aeronautical epiphany / obsession from my memory. I was moved by Gary R.
Downing's description of his.
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http://www.matronics.com/Navigator?AeroElectric-List |
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