The Save The Bomber Plant campaign set a goal to raise $8 million in cash, pledges, in-kind donations and pro-bono services to acquire, enclose, secure and power up 144,000 square feet of the facility. This has created a new permanent home for the Museum, its exhibits, educational programs and its flyable and static aircraft at one location. A new campaign has been launched to raise the funds to build the actual Museum and its exhibits within the Bomber Plant. The stories of the “How Detroit Saved the World” and “Rosie the Riveter” will be told on the site where they happened some 70 years ago. The Yankee Air Museum’s static aircraft and the David and Andrea Robertson Education Center will be moved inside. This will put the Museum one step closer to achieving one of its original goals, the acquisition of a Ford built B-24 Liberator. The additional space will allow the Museum to integrate STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) into its exhibits and programs to inspire young people to pursue education and career opportunities in those fields. The Bomber Plant location re-creates the original excitement of the Yankee Air Museum by bringing the flyable aircraft, exhibits, restoration and educational programs back to a single site. Various pieces of the Museum will move into the Bomber Plant as it is renovated and it is estimated the new Museum will be open by 2019.
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Irene Bokros Featured in New Teaser
Enjoy a short excerpt of our interview with Irene Bokros – original Willow Run employee hired in 1942. Irene has many interesting details of her time working at the bomber plant.
Vicki Croston, daughter of Rose “Rosie” Monroe, interviewed today!
We had the great pleasure to meet and interview Vicki Croston today. She is the daughter of Rose Will Monroe who was an employee at Willow Run during the war and can lay claim to being one of the original “Rosie the Riveter”s. Vicki shared some wonderful stories about her mother – a single mom, coming from Kentucky to work at Willow Run from 1942 to 1944, where she was discovered by actor Walter Pigeon, and eventually starred with him in several wartime films. Watch for clips of Vicki’s interview coming soon!
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Now on YouTube! Watch for new trailers and excerpts on the Willow Run YouTube channel.
Willow Run now on Twitter and Vimeo
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Principal Photography Begins
Author Charles K. Hyde to Participate in Telling Willow Run History
Charles K. Hyde, author of Arsenal of Democracy: The American Automobile Industry in World War II, has graciously agreed to lend his historical expertise to the telling of the Willow Run story. Read more about his most recent book here. He will be joined on camera by numerous local residents, former employees, automobile executives and pilots, telling this epic American story in the upcoming documentary.