Worker Sitting Beside Airplane Wing at the Fisher Body Plant, November 4, 1918

When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, the country had a shortage of combat-ready aircraft. U.S. officials contracted with several manufacturers to build a variant of the British de Havilland DH-4 bomber. Fisher Body Corporation produced 1,600 of these "Liberty Planes." The DH-4 was the only American-built airplane flown in combat during the war.