The Willow Run Bomber Plant near Ypsilanti was the largest factory in the world under a single roof in the 1940s. The plant’s 42,000 workers produced more than 8,600 B-24 bombers for the war effort. At its peak, the plant produced one bomber every hour. Following the war, Michigan State Normal College (now EMU) temporarily housed a large influx of students in the plant’s former housing quarters.


now faced a crisis of unprecedented proportions—one that eventually threatened its very existence. Several civilian defense classes for students were started


H


in January 1942. Women were offered instruction in sewing and kniting, with the Red Cross supplying the yarn, while both men and women could take courses in first aid and home nursing. “My friends were leaving all the time,” says Urquhart.


“When we entered the war, a lot of men disappeared. As far as activities went, there were dances and things like that, but it was rather subdued.” Enlistments, the draſt and civilian defense work took a toll


on enrollment, which fell from 1,900 in the spring of 1941 to 700 two years later, a drop of 63%. Athletic teams scrambled to fill their rosters. “Tat was one of the reasons I played foot- ball,” says Urquhart. “I was a second- or third-string tackle, even though I never had any high school football experience because I had a paper route.” Zemper really was an athlete, and a good one: an All- American in track and field, he had qualified for the 1940 U.S.


16 Eastern | SUMMER 2011


aving enjoyed steady growth in both size and reputa- tion throughout its history, the Normal (as it was familiarly known), along with the rest of the country,


Olympic team, but the games were cancelled because of the war. While waiting for his service assignment aſter graduating in the spring of 1942, he went back to Flint, his hometown, to work as a metallurgist in an aluminum foundry that made bomber engines. “I had always sworn I would never go back to Flint,” he says,


“but they needed an engineer there, so I did.” Fear of an atack on the mainland was widespread for the


rest of the war. Two students in each class were designated and trained by the College as air raid marshals. Signs all over campus directed students to the nearest shelter. Geography proved to be a double-edged sword for Nor-


mal. Its location in the middle of the country made it less vulnerable to atack than coastal areas, but the nation’s prin- cipal location for manufacturing bombers was a gargantuan plant built for that purpose in nearby Willow Run. Half of the 18,000 B-24 Liberator aircraſt produced during the war were made there, in what was at the time the largest space in the world under one roof. Employment at the plant peaked at 42,351 in June 1943.


Housing so many workers was an enormous problem, one that Henry Ford, who built the factory, had apparently—and oddly—failed to consider. Resistance was high to erecting


Above photo courtesy Ypsilanti’s The Bomber Restaurant


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