Willow Run: Colossus of American Industry

A definitive history of the world's largest industrial factory, built by Ford Motor Company in the 1940's to manufacture B-24 bombers. Willow Run is what Albert Kahn, its world renowned architect, described as "the largest room in the history of mankind." The WILLOW RUN story describes how Charles Sorensen, Ford's Director of Production, conceived the idea of manufacturing the giant B-24 at the unbelievable rate of one an hour; & how the men & women from Willow Run, challenged by the opportunity, made his vision come true. WILLOW RUN features: the unpublished daily logs of its first four dynamic years & fifty unpublished pages of reference material (both are rare historical discoveries). It also includes inside stories from Charles Lindbergh's journal. Eighty photographs, drawings, & charts illustrate airport & factory construction, engineering, world class production equipment, bomber assembly, employee housing & more. W.B. Kidder was the last person to live at Willow Run. He saw the bulldozers destroy his father's farm & his parents evicted from their home, months before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. He saw the first structural steel rising above the horizon, & saw the first airplane land on unfinished runways. Years later he worked at Willow Run as production engineering superintendent. W. B. Kidder, 3617 Christine Dr., Lansing, MI 48911. Phone: 517-887-4224.Kidder, Warren B. is the author of 'Willow Run: Colossus of American Industry', published 1995 under ISBN 9780964720534 and ISBN 0964720531.