Latest news with #EdselFord
Wall Street Journal
18-05-2025
- General
- Wall Street Journal
Flying in a B-24 Liberator Was Risky Business
I have always enjoyed Bob Greene's op-eds in the Journal, but I was especially attracted to 'The U.S. Once Built Airplanes Quickly' (May 14) since my father was a B-24 Liberator pilot in the South Pacific during World War II. As A.J. Baime's excellent book 'The Arsenal of Democracy' (2014) confirms, Ford Motor Co. accomplished the remarkable achievement of manufacturing B-24s at a rate of just under one per hour by the end of the war. Much credit must be given to Henry Ford's son, Edsel, for obtaining the government contract and battling internal company resistance. Yet like the B-29 Superfortresses that followed the B-24s, not all was perfect in the rush to get these complicated aircraft into combat service quickly. Many crews suffered the consequences of the hurried war-time design and production schedules undertaken. Louis Zamperini of 'Unbroken' fame experienced this firsthand on his final B-24 mission to rescue a crew that had crashed in the Pacific—only to experience and barely survive a second crash himself in the rescue effort. Crews dubbed the B-24s 'Flying Coffins' thanks to the various mechanical issues they experienced. The older and less complex B-17 Flying Fortress had been in production much longer and enjoyed a better reliability record—so much so that Eighth Air Force Gen. James Doolittle replaced B-24 squadrons with B-17s, even though the more modern B-24s had greater range and carried more bombs. Thus while the B-24s became the most produced bomber aircraft in the war, it wasn't without some bitter consequences for those who flew in them. Rod Essen La Canada, Calif.
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Grosse Pointe Shores' historic, scenic Ford House to host free Community Day this Saturday
This weekend, metro residents have a chance to see how Detroit royalty lived, on one of the region's most beautiful cultural touchstones. On Saturday, April 5, Grosse Pointe Shores' Ford House will open its grounds for a free-admission Community Appreciation Day, inviting visitors to experience the history, architecture, and natural beauty of the 87-acre estate that once belonged to Eleanor and Edsel Ford. Located on Lake St. Clair, Ford House is a National Historic Landmark that offers insight into the lives of Edsel Ford, who played a key role in shaping the Ford Motor Co., and Eleanor Ford, a community leader and philanthropist. Built in 1928, the estate features distinctive architecture, well-preserved interiors, and meticulously maintained gardens. On Community Appreciation Day, guests can choose between two experiences on the property. Grounds admission offers an opportunity to explore the beautiful gardens and lakefront paths, as well as historic auxiliary buildings and the visitor center. A house and grounds admission option offers an additional chance to tour the main residence, where the Ford family lived, as well as exploring the grounds. The Ford House's restaurant, The Continental, will be open, serving food and drink. See also: Historic home where Selma march was planned now resides in Henry Ford's Greenfield Village See also: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer visits Detroit Institute of Arts to view Tiff Massey exhibition 'You may not know this, but we actually straddle two different cities and two different counties,' said Ford House President and CEO Mark J. Heppner. 'The way the property is divided, we're in Wayne County and Macomb County. We're in Grosse Pointe Shores and St. Clair Shores. We get great benefits from both cities, both counties, great support, and one day, I said, 'I would love to do something where we could just thank everybody.' And the idea ended up being this free Community Day. 'And, let's be honest, we do it because we want to share what Eleanor and the Ford family left for the community. A lot of people still say, 'I drive past that all the time, but I didn't know it was open; I didn't know it was something you could visit. I didn't know that I was welcome.' So it's a way to just get people to come out and feel welcome, to see themselves here, to enjoy themselves here.' Heppner said when Eleanor Ford died in 1976, she stated in her will that Ford House should be preserved and open for the benefit of the community. 'I know she would be smiling to know that we're offering an opportunity for everybody in our communities to come out and have a taste of Ford House,' he said, 'and experience the beauty, the inspiration, the design, the horticulture, the history here at the museum. It is really when you step foot on the estate, when you walk around, you smell the flowers, you hear the birds, you see the water lapping, you see the history, the textiles, the collections, that you understand. 'We're very proud. At the end of the day, my goal is I want every Michigander to be proud to know that our Ford House is in our state, representing and raising arts and culture in the brand in our state, nationally and internationally.' Ford House is located at 1100 Lake Shore Rd., Grosse Pointe Shores. Admission for Community Day is free, but advance registration is encouraged. The last entry is at 7 p.m.; visitors are allowed to explore the estate until sunset. For more information and to register, visit or call (313) 884-4222. Contact Free Press arts and culture reporter Duante Beddingfield at dbeddingfield@ This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Historic, scenic Ford House to host free Community Day this weekend
Yahoo
03-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Would President Trump Have Stopped Hitler? The Answer Is Alarming.
On June 26, 1940, the head of Texaco, a man named Torkild Rieber, arranged a dinner for some corporate titans at the Waldorf Astoria. Edsel Ford was reportedly among the attendees. The guest of honor was a certain Gerhard Westrick, a German national who was in America to establish relationships between U.S. corporations and Nazi Germany. The reason for the dinner? To celebrate—yes, celebrate—the fall of France. I wouldn't say that pro-fascist sentiment dominated the American corporate landscape of 1940. But if the heads of Texaco and Ford were toasting Adolf Hitler the day after he destroyed the French Republic, then that sentiment obviously reached up to its highest levels. Other forces in American society were less overtly pro-Nazi but positioned themselves as being on Germany's side against France and England—notably the America First Committee, headed by the chairman of Sears Roebuck and represented at public events by the famed aviator Charles Lindbergh. Finally, among the American public, open pro-Nazi sentiment was rare, but clear majorities according to polls of the day opposed U.S. involvement in Europe's war. In the face of all this, what did President Roosevelt do? He fought back. He put his country firmly on the anti-fascist side. In the light of recent events, one can't help but wonder if Donald Trump, had he been president in 1940, would have done the same. The lazy answer to the question is: Yes, of course he would have; after all, Germany declared war on the United States after Pearl Harbor, and once Germany did that, any president would have fought the Nazis. That's true as far as it goes. But the crucial period here was before Pearl Harbor, as Hitler was rampaging his way across western Europe—and courting the favor of influential Americans. It was during this period that FDR steadily steered the United States firmly toward the side of democracy, eventually overcoming political headwinds at home to help to prevent the fall of Britain and prepare the United States for the war footing it would need to adopt after December 7, 1941. Let's quickly review some steps he took, because they reveal the actions of a president aware of his historical moment and committed to the course of action that moment demanded. In 1939, he secured passage of an amendment to the earlier Neutrality Acts of the 1930s that ended the blanket munitions embargo those earlier acts imposed. He increased the defense budget. He signed a law in July 1940 that vastly expanded the size of the Navy. During the Battle of Britain, he directed the United States to take up development of technology that had originated in the UK that led to great advances in radar. In December 1940, he declared the United States the 'arsenal of democracy.' That declaration was quickly followed by the crowning act, the passage of the Lend-Lease bill, which provided England—and other anti-fascist countries, including the Soviet Union—with food, oil, and war materiel for free. Yes, that's right: free. A total of around $50 billion was spent on this during the war, which would be more than $1 trillion today. Roosevelt faced strong opposition to all this, mostly from isolationist Republicans. Democrats in both houses of Congress backed the bill with large majorities. In the Senate, 17 Republicans voted against, while 10 supported; in the House, the GOP vote against Lend-Lease was a whopping 135-24. There were, in sum, two clear sides. One side that saw plainly that the world would have to unite to defeat fascism, and another side that either saw fascism as someone else's problem or outright embraced it as the future destiny of a world enfeebled by this antique obsession with 'democracy' and 'rights.' Now, let's pause to consider which side in this debate the United States would have been on if Trump had been president instead of Roosevelt. Had enough time to decide? Ukraine is an imperfect democracy, and Volodymyr Zelenskiy is a very imperfect democrat. He shut down opposition media after Russia invaded. He and the parliament delayed elections. There are some practical reasons for this—for example, voters in the war-torn east could be disenfranchised compared to those in the comparatively unscarred west. Still, no one is mistaking Zelenskiy for Nelson Mandela. But two facts tower over the rest. First, Zelenskiy is a democratically elected president. He defeated the incumbent in 2019 by a thumping 73 to 24 percent margin. Second, Russia invaded Ukraine. Period and end of story. Putin's apologists can make all the excuses for him they want. NATO expansion eastward was always, to me, a debatable proposition. But Russia didn't want a debate. And nothing excuses an all-out invasion aimed directly at a country's capital city (remember those endless lines of tanks at the beginning of the war, sights set on Kyiv). Putin is in an important sense the leader of the unfree world. One might hand that dubious crown to Xi Jinping; certainly, he has more economic and military power than Putin. But Putin has paraded his anti-freedom agenda in a way even Xi has not: his frequent comments about Western decadence, his positioning of Russia as Christian civilization's last best hope against the relativists, his detentions of enemies of the state, and all those people accidentally falling out of windows. That's the side the United States has chosen to take. Is 2025 like 1940? Not quite: Putin's expansionist dreams are at least limited to what he calls the 'near abroad'—the former republics of the USSR. So, the potential consequences of taking Putin's side aren't as far-reaching. Nevertheless, the moral choice for democratic countries is exactly the same. Which side are we on? Franklin Roosevelt knew clearly. So does Donald Trump. But tragically, he's chosen the other side. It's not the side most Americans wish to be on. But it is the side on which he, his lackeys, his media-propaganda outlets, and the invertebrates in his party have placed us, in this country that is becoming, more quickly than any of us would have dared imagine, the land of the unfree.
Yahoo
17-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
'67 Mercury Cyclone Is the Man's Car for Men Who Like Their Action Big
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." From the moment Edsel Ford introduced the world to the new Mercury brand in 1938, marketing the rival to GM's Pontiac and Chrysler's Dodge proved a challenge. Nearly every Mercury model had a cheaper yet similar-looking sibling with Ford badges, so a heavy dose of marketing was always needed to differentiate them. For the 1967 model year, the Lincoln-Mercury Division went with a "Mercury, the Man's Car" theme. Here's a magazine advertisement for the 1967 Cyclone, a sporty two-door derived from the Ford Fairlane. Did the "manly" '67 Mercuries really seem more masculine than the competition, and did this campaign even make sense during a year in which plenty of men were growing their hair long and adopting more androgynous fashions? What makes a man? And were Mercury's marketers any more successful 35 years later, when their advertising targeted "smart women?"
