WW2 HISTORY Qantas B-24 turrets
When, spurred by Charles Lindbergh, the US Army Air Forces wanted to boost the fi repower of its B-24D Liberators operating in the south-west Pacifi c, it turned to Australian airline Qantas and a facility in Queensland that became a legend in its own right
Charles Lindbergh was struggling to stay awake as the sun rose, reminding him of his epic 1927 flight from New York to Paris.At least this time he could stop and get out of his Mercury sedan beside the highway west of Cleveland, Ohio to run short distances and flght off his overwhelming desire for sleep. Since leaving his house on Martha’s Vineyard at 05.00hrs the previous day, he had driven west for 24 hours, stopping only for fuel and sandwiches. After a journey of 968 miles Lindbergh reached his destination by mid-morning on 2 April 1942 in time to take up a role as production technical consultant at Henry Ford’s vast new B-24 Liberator factory at Willow Run, Michigan.
With his fall from grace after supporting the America First movement prior to Pearl Harbor, Lindbergh was motivated by the challenge of working at Willow Run, “a sort of Grand Canyon of a mechanised world”. He started his new job without rest, meeti…
