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    Kansas City B-25 Factory
    Kansas City B-25 Factory
    Kansas City B-25 Factory
    Ebook193 pages1 hour

    Kansas City B-25 Factory

    By John Fredrickson and John Roper

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    An industrial miracle took place at the Fairfax Airport, on the shores of the Missouri River, between 1941 and 1945. A massive factory was quickly built and a large modification center was soon added. At its peak, over 24,000 greater Kansas City area residents were employed by North American Aviation, Inc. Their goal was to build as many twin-engine B-25 Mitchell medium bombers for wartime service as possible. Their success was the construction of an unprecedented 6,608 aircraft. The B-25 Mitchell served with distinction in every theater of World War II, and significant numbers of them were provided to Allied nations. Many B-25s have been preserved, and some of them remain airworthy today. They can be seen on static display or in flight at air shows all across America.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateMay 5, 2014
    ISBN9781439645017
    Kansas City B-25 Factory
    Author

    John Fredrickson

    John Fredrickson retired as a senior manager of the Boeing Company in 2011 after 36 years of service. He has 21 years combined reserve and active-duty service with the US Air Force and is a Vietnam War veteran. John Roper is an entrepreneur and a licensed pilot with over 4,000 hours of flying time. He is a certified flight instructor, a certified aircraft mechanic, holds multiple degrees in engineering and aviation management, and is the vice president of the National Airline History Museum at the Kansas City Downtown Airport, less a mile from the original Fairfax assembly plant.

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      Book preview

      Kansas City B-25 Factory - John Fredrickson

      permission.

      INTRODUCTION

      The span of the 1920s and 1930s was the period between the wars—an era of rapid innovation within the still adolescent business of aviation. Improved technology made its way back and forth between civil and military designs. Airframe materials shifted from wood and cloth to metal, cantilevered wings were introduced, engines became more powerful as reliability improved, communication by radio was refined, airborne navigation was evolving, and civil air transportation had grown beyond mail and into passengers. The Douglas DC-3 helped bring the airline business to maturity. It was one of the first designs that was not obsolete within a very few years.

      The late 1930s found American war production ramping up well before the Pearl Harbor attack because of exports to war-torn Europe. Historians have long agreed that the American miracle of World War II was the incredible increase in production of war matériel. These items ranged from food and clothing to ships, tanks, jeeps, guns, and airplanes.

      Newer, bigger, and faster warplanes were being designed. Building them required organization to bring together parts from suppliers, which were located in nearly every state and required transit by railroad. A host of components including tires, wheels, brakes, landing gear, gun turrets, life rafts, instruments, windows, and radios were purchased. Other parts were fabricated in back shops at the plant. They all came together in a process known as final assembly. Assembly line methods were borrowed from the auto industry. The finished products were towed to the flight ramp while awaiting any last-minute missing parts. After a minimum of two test flights, airplanes were ferried to their next destination.

      Manufacturers faced an acute labor shortage when boatloads of workers marched off to war at the same time demand for warplanes skyrocketed. The solution was to woo women and people from other groups previously seldom found in aviation manufacturing. The strategy worked. New workers poured in from all walks of life. Some arrived fresh from school. Others came from agriculture, homemaking, retailing, service industries, and many other lines of work. They were drawn to the higher wages and better benefits, but the work could be difficult and dangerous.

      With the deafening noise of constant riveting in many areas, an airplane factory can be a daunting, dangerous, and bewildering place for a new employee. Engines were test run and tuned before each aircraft was flight-tested. Flashing red lights warned of gunfire, which frequently crackled as heavy-caliber aircraft machine guns were boresighted and then test-fired into earthen pits. The need for expanded medical departments combined with enhanced employee-assistance programs evolved because long hours at work, combined with the stress of family members absent and gone to war, could push a person to tears.

      Multiple off-site training facilities were established in the Greater Kansas City area even before the Fairfax buildings were completed. New employees were paid hourly rate as they were trained on aviation manufacturing skills while also being oriented on the rigors of factory work. The nationwide North American Aviation, Inc., wartime workforce swelled to 91,000 employees at peak and then plummeted to 5,000 in 1946 before stabilizing with the rapid development of jets for the Korean and Cold Wars.

      The B-25 Mitchell quickly gained fame after Lt. Col. James Jimmy Doolittle led an audacious raid upon Tokyo when 16 Inglewood-built early versions (designated B-25B) of the medium bomber were launched on April 16, 1942, from the aircraft carrier Hornet then underway in the Pacific Ocean just east of Japan. The raid did little physical damage to Tokyo; however, it greatly boosted American morale and forced the Japanese to devote more of their military resources to defending their island nation. Most of the Doolittle raiders landed in China and survived. Doolittle was a hero, and annual reunions of the surviving raiders were a tradition that endured for seven decades.

      Fighting a war is expensive. Treasury secretary and famed financier Henry Morgenthau was called upon to raise funds to fight World War II. Americans were encouraged to invest their excess money in war bonds. Another tool was for communities and other groups to raise funds to buy a bomber. Larger donations purchased a heavy four-engine aircraft; lesser donations purchased something smaller—like a B-25. The Air Force Museum estimates that a B-25 cost $109,670 in 1943. At the start of the program, airplanes were adorned with the name of the contributing group painted onto the nose. The exigencies of war caused deception to creep into the program. At North American of Kansas, the ruse was carried out in the photographic department. A master photograph of a B-25 was prepared. Often, there was no serial number or other identifying marks. A calligrapher then inked the name of the contributing group onto paper. The image was photographed so the group name was then overlaid onto the generic negative. The resulting 8-by-10-inch photograph implied that there was an actual B-25 with white paint decorating the nose in celebration of the monetary contribution. Every group received a photograph of one of a few airplanes, and nobody at the factory bothered to dab a brush into a can of paint. Many people have attempted to research the combat fate of their bomber, only to be frustrated when told that no such airplane ever existed.

      The B-25 Mitchell, small by today’s standards, was the largest aircraft of North American Aviation, Inc., design in wartime mass production. The company left development of larger aircraft to others like Douglas, Consolidated, or Boeing. Fairfax produced two-thirds of the total of 9,884 B-25s that were built. Production figures include Navy PBJ-1s and all exported models. The initial Kansas City order was for 1,200 airplanes designated B-25D. As engineering improvements were made, production was converted to B-25J models. All other Mitchells

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