Happy Thursday Fixers! Thanks to readers requests (here) we will be learning about the kludge city built in the Pacific Northwest during World War II. Boeing Plant 2 was built to manufacture B-17 and B-29 bombers for the US Military in World War II.
The plant consisted of four buildings that covered 36 acres and built nearly 7,000 B-17 bombers as well as 380 DB-7 bombers under license from Douglas Aircraft. Other planes built there included Boeing’s model 307 Stratoliner, the 377 Stratocruiser, and the B-50 and B-52 bombers. Also, the first four 737s were brought to near completion in Plant 2 before moving to another building.
However one of the most interesting aspects , was that the roof of the factory was covered with a fake city complete with fake mesh trees, and clapboard homes to create the illusion that the factory was not used for any sort of military activity. The effectiveness of this camouflage was never tested as no Japanese bombers ever made it near the factory.
After the war, the facility was stilled used although primarily for storage and maintenance although some manufacturing still occurred. Then on January 13th, 2010 the plant was set for demolition as part of a clean-up effort for the Duwarmish Duwamish waterway.
Information courtesy of: Boeing, Seattle Times, Yosemite.epa.gov
Images courtesy of: Taphilo
As always, if YOU have an idea for a future Historical Thursday, please email it to me at thereifixedit@gmail.com.
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In the second photo it looks like Myrna Loy is about to scratch herself while explaining to William Powell that he’s working on the wrong house.
Sadly, no color existed in the military world at that time, so all people and things at the plant were required to be various shades of gray.
So that’s how we fooled them.
actually it did. and we were using camoflauge effectively in WWI
Surveillance photography that this sort of camouflage was mean to fool was also high altitude, so buildings did not have to be to scale, and terrain did not have to be convincing. The Brits did a lot of similar work. Two more photos of the Boeing Plant #2 project may be seen at http://www.taphilo.com/history/WWII/USAAF/Boeing/index.shtml
Germans and Japanese would have figured this one out in no time since I can’t see the ice cream truck going around!
I guess the 200×300 foot wide patriotic American flag would have give it away too!
Hollywood miniature set builders go to war!
It’s Duwamish! There’s no “r”. But still a neat set of pics.
Whoops, I fixed it. Thank you.
“The effectiveness of this camouflage was never tested as no Japanese bombers ever made it near the factory.”
Seems to me like that proves it was 100% effective ….
It’s too bad some installation like this wasn’t in place at Pearl Harbor — it would have really messed with the pilots’ minds, if they torpedoed a row of toy ships.
The British also had another very nice kludge. It was called the Mosquito and it was a airplain build from plywood. This way the women and carpenters could contribute something to the war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Mosquito
and the germans hated them for it.
The Mosquito was NOT a kludge, it was built out of wood for reasons of lightness, flexibility, cost and material availability. Early Spitfires and Hurricanes were also built mostly from wood and fabric. The B-17′s pictured above were built by predominately female work crews. All three of my dad’s sisters were “Rosie the Riveters” at that very plant also pictured above. The gals used to write their names and addresses on the walls in the crew positions with grease pencils or chalk. Some of them ended up marrying guys they met that way. Sort of a kludge way to meet, huh?
The German’s were also doing a plane made almost entirely out of wood. Look up the Horten 2-29, the first ever stealth plane. It was built near the end of the war and though was flight tested, was never put into combat. It was rebuilt recently in fact.
I actually work at Boeing. I need to go up to Plant 2 and look around before they tear it down. There is actually plans of the underground tunnels and bunkers on the Boeing intranet. Unfortunately I could get fired for taking pictures on property, damn intellectual property rules…
Many of my family members work there. Little known trivia to non-Boeing-employees: the largest building in the world, by volume, is the Boeing factory in Everett. It is 472 million cubic feet, dwarfing the second-place Airbus plant in Toulouse. The tours are very much worthwhile.
and where did this illusion finally realize its dream? …DISNEYLAND!
I love historical Fridays.
Underscores why spies are important. All you need is one person on the ground to say, “Uh, dudes, there’s a big-ass factory at these coordinates that just looks like a suburb.”
wouldn’t work today. why bother the japanese never overflew continental US. Total paranoia after PH I guess.
Yeah, but “we” didn’t know “they” wouldn’t back then, and the Japanese did have several submarines (the I class) that carried a single float recon plane.
Today we’d probably build the factory underground like Cheyenne Mountain. I understand that place can take a direct hit from a nuke.
Reminds me of that one Cheech and Chong movie where they were growing pot in a swimming pool covered with a blue tarp to make it look like there was water in the pool. They even threw in some pool toys and a mannequin in a bikini sitting in a floating lounge chair.
I worked at plant 2 from 1987 to 1990. Manufacturing still existed there well into the 90′s, however assembly of aircraft ceased at plant 2 after the first few 737s. That building has a lot of history. Its a shame to see it torn down. Three generations of my family worked in that building. I still work for Boeing in Auburn Washington, and all of us here hate to see it go. Of special note, After commercial operations ended at plant 2, defense and space took over and many projects vital to our freedoms were carried out in this historic landmark. This nation owes a debt of gratitude to the people who worked in this place and built the products that kept this country free for over half a century.
Robert, I hope you will post your comments to the story on Plant 2 on Crosscut, published July 17. My family worked in the plant too, although not as much as yours. Please consider re-posting @
http://crosscut.com/2010/07/17/history/19981/Seattle-s-history-at-risk-in-plans-for-Boeing-plant-demolition—/
Very interesting. It would have been even more delightful to read were I not distracted by multiple typos throughout. A bit of a proofread next time, perhaps?
just put a sign that can be seen from the air thats says:”your not even close to your target, try again.”
that’ll convince em.
XD