Senator Harry S. Truman and Ford Executive Charles Sorensen with B-24 Liberator at Willow Run Bomber Plant, 1942

THF116362 / Senator Harry S. Truman and Ford Executive Charles Sorensen with B-24 Liberator at Willow Run Bomber Plant, 1942
01

Artifact Overview

Missouri Senator Harry S. Truman visited Ford Motor Company's Willow Run bomber plant in April 1942. Truman headed the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, which probed waste and profiteering in United States war production work. Ford production head Charles Sorensen was largely responsible for Willow Run's success. At its peak, the plant built one bomber every 63 minutes.

Artifact Details

Artifact

Photographic print

Subject Date

30 April 1942

Location

By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center

Object ID

84.1.1660.P.O.2176

Credit

From the Collections of The Henry Ford. Gift of Ford Motor Company.

Material

Paper (Fiber product)

Technique

Gelatin silver process

Color

Black-and-white (Colors)

Dimensions

Height: 10 in
Width: 8.25 in

02

Related Content

  • B-24 Bombers on Assembly Line at Ford Motor Company Willow Run Bomber Plant, January 1943
    Set

    Willow Run Bomber Plant

    • 33 Artifacts
    Every American automaker turned its workforce and facilities to military production during World War II. But no project captured the public's imagination like Willow Run, where Ford Motor Company built one B-24 Liberator airplane every 63 minutes. The plant was the embodiment of America's "Arsenal of Democracy" -- the enormous manufacturing capacity so vital to the Allies' victory.
  • THF208669 1939 Lincoln Presidential Limousine, "Sunshine Special" at Andrews Air Force Base, circa 1942
    article

    President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Sunshine Special”

      Learn all about the "Sunshine Special," the 1939 Lincoln limousine used first by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and then by President Harry Truman, now in Henry Ford Museum.