December 23rd, 1941. Fairfax Industrial District, Kansas City, Kansas. The temperature hovered near freezing inside a factory that hadn’t existed 13 months earlier. Workers gathered around a single aircraft. They had built it with their own hands. Every rivet, every bolt, every inch of aluminum skin. The aircraft bore a name painted across its nose in bold letters, Miss Greater Kansas City.
She was the first B25 Mitchell bomber to roll off the assembly line in the heartland of America. 18 days ahead of schedule, 16 days after Pearl Harbor changed everything. Before we go further into this remarkable story, if you appreciate documentaries that dig deep into the human side of history, please consider subscribing to this channel. These stories matter.
These people mattered, and their legacy deserves to be remembered. The story of what happened in Kansas City between 1941 and 1945 isn’t just about manufacturing. It’s about transformation. It’s about a prairie city that became an arsenal. About farmers who became engineers. About women who became welders.
About a factory built in 13 months that would produce 6,68 bombers that helped win a war. But this story begins before the first brick was laid. It begins with geography, with isolation, with fear. In December 1940, the United States wasn’t yet at war. But war was coming. Everyone knew it. German hubot prowled the Atlantic. Japanese forces carved through China.
American military planners looked at their maps and saw vulnerability everywhere. The east coast faced threats from Germany. The West Coast from Japan. Aircraft factories clustered on both coasts. concentrated targets, easy to reach, easy to destroy. The Army Airore needed a solution. They needed production capacity far from either ocean. They needed workers.
They needed rail connections. They needed flat land for runways and testing. On December 7th, 1940, exactly one year before Pearl Harbor, the announcement came. Kansas City would get a bomber plant. Not Kansas City, Missouri. Kansas City, Kansas. The smaller city across the state line. The industrial district called Fairfax.
The decision wasn’t random. Kansas City business leaders had lobbyed hard. JC Nichols, serving on the Advisory Council for National Defense, called Kansas City a sleeping industrial giant. Other leaders emphasized something else, something that sounds jarring to modern ears. They promoted Kansas City as the most American city.
They meant the demographics. High percentage of white American-born citizens. They argued this made the city resistant to sabotage, resistant to foreign influence, resistant to disloyalty. This was the thinking of 1940. This was how they sold their city. The government bought the argument. More importantly, they bought the geography.
Kansas City sat near the center of the country. It had rail lines running in every direction. It had the Missouri River for water access. It had Fairfax airport already in place. It had a population large enough to staff a major industrial operation. On March 8th, 1941, the groundbreaking ceremony took place on 75 acres adjacent to Fairfax Airport.
The plant would be massive, over 1 million square ft of factory space, unprecedented for its time. The government built it, the government owned it, but North American aviation would operate it. The company already manufactured the B-25 Mitchell at their main plant in Englewood, California. Now they would do it in Kansas.
The plant designation became N A K North American Aviation Kansas. 13 months. That’s all they had. 13 months to build a factory, train a workforce, establish supply lines, test equipment, and deliver the first aircraft. March 1941 to April 1942. Except they didn’t wait until April. The first B25D came together in November.
Parts shipped from Englewood for the first 100 aircraft. Subasssemblies components. Many arrived damaged. Many were missing entirely. The rework began immediately. Workers fixing parts before they could even start building. Three aircraft started assembly in that first batch. The race was on.
Who would finish first? December 23rd, 1941. Miss Greater Kansas City won. But she didn’t fly that day. The dedication ceremony happened. The photographs were taken. The speeches were made. 16 days after Pearl Harbor, 16 days after America officially entered the war. But Miss Greater Kansas City didn’t take to the air until January 3rd, 1942.
Her first flight, her test flight, everything worked. Who built her? That question reveals the transformation happening in Kansas City. The answer is people who had never built an aircraft before. people who had never worked in a factory before. People who needed this work desperately. The Great Depression had never really ended in America’s heartland. Jobs were still scarce.
Money was still tight. Then came the war. Then came the factory. Then came the hiring. North American aviation needed thousands of workers. They got them. Young mensigned up before they got drafted. Women applied in numbers nobody expected. Farmers came in from surrounding counties. Students left school.
Retirees came out of retirement. By the end of 1942, 10,000 people worked at NAK. By October 1943, that number reached its peak. 26,000 workers. 26,000 people building bombers. The workforce demographics tell their own story. By 1944, 40% of NAAK workers were women, not because of progressive hiring policies because of necessity.
An estimated 40,000 Kansas City men joined the military and left the area. The factory needed workers. Women filled the gap. They riveted. They welded. They assembled. They inspected. They did every job men did. They did them on the same production line for less pay. Always for less pay. They called them Rosie the Riveters, the iconic image of women in bandanas and workclo.
The propaganda posters made it look patriotic and temporary. The reality was harder. The work was physically demanding. The hours were long. The conditions were harsh. The factory floor was loud. Metal on metal, rivet guns hammering, engines testing. The noise never stopped. Neither did the pressure. The military needed bombers.
The soldiers needed bombers. The war needed bombers. Every delay cost lives. Everyone knew it. The production line moved like a mechanical heartbeat. Assembly began in subasssembly areas. Wings built separately from fuselage. Engines prepared in their own section. Each component moved through stations. Each station added something.
A bracket, a wire bundle, a hydraulic line, a control surface. Precision mattered. A loose rivet could cause a failure. A misaligned component could doom a crew. Inspectors checked everything. Then they checked again. The final assembly area was where it all came together, where the wings met the fuselage, where the engines were mounted, where the aircraft started looking like something that could fly.
The work required coordination. Dozens of workers on a single aircraft, everyone working simultaneously, everyone depending on everyone else. The fuselage couldn’t be closed until all internal systems were installed. The engines couldn’t be mounted until the Nissels were complete. The control surfaces couldn’t be attached until the linkages were tested.
Everything in sequence, everything on schedule. The B-25D model came first. 2,290 aircraft built between December 1941 and March 1944. The D model differed from the C model only in one way, location of manufacturer. C models came from Englewood. D models came from Kansas City. Otherwise, identical.
Same airframe, same engines, same weapons, same capabilities. Two right R2600-13 radial engines producing 1,700 horsepower each. Cruising speed 230 mph. Range 1,200 m with full bomb load. Crew of six. Pilot co-pilot navigator bombader engineer gunner radio operator tail gunner. 3,000 lbs of bombs or eight 5-in rockets, defensive armament of 12 50 caliber machine guns, but the D model was just the beginning.
In December 1943, the first B-25J rolled out. This was the final production variant. This was the model that defined the Mitchell’s legacy. 4,318J models would come from Kansas City, more heavily armed than any previous version. Solid nose configurations with 14 forwardfiring 50 caliber machine guns. Strafer variants that turned the medium bomber into a gunship.
Glass-nose variants for traditional bombing missions. Interchangeable components that allowed field conversions between roles. The J model reflected lessons learned in the Pacific theater. Skip bombing required different tactics, different weapons, different approaches. The aircraft needed to come in low, below 100 ft, fast, 230 knots, release bombs 500 yd from target.
The bombs would skip across water like thrown stones. once, twice, then slam into the hull below the water line. Devastating. But it required flying through walls of anti-aircraft fire. It required suppressing enemy defenses with forward firing guns. Lots of guns. The B-25J delivered. Production numbers tell part of the story.
6,68 aircraft from Kansas City. But numbers alone don’t capture the human dimension. Don’t capture what it meant to work there. What it cost to work there. The factory operated 24 hours a day, three shifts, 8 hours each. Workers rotated through shifts on a fixed schedule. Dayshift, swing shift, night shift.
Your body never fully adjusted. Your sleep patterns never stabilized. You showed up tired. You worked tired. You went home tired. Then you did it again and again and again for years. The safety record was good by national standards, better than average for wartime production. But good didn’t mean perfect. Accidents happened.
Metal edges cut skin. Heavy components crushed fingers. Moving equipment caught clothing. Falls from scaffolding broke bones, sometimes worse. Every worker knew someone who had been injured. Everyone accepted the risk. The alternative was worse. The alternative was soldiers dying because they didn’thave the equipment they needed.
The pay made it bearable. Not generous, never generous, but steady, reliable, better than most jobs available to women. better than farm work, better than retail, better than nothing. Women earned less than men doing identical work. This was accepted practice, legal practice, expected practice. Some women were a sole breadwinners for their families, husbands overseas, brothers overseas, fathers too old to work.
The factory wages kept families housed and fed. The social dynamics inside the plant reflected the tensions of the time. Integration was limited. Black workers faced discrimination in hiring. When they were hired, they were often assigned to the most menial or dangerous positions. Segregation wasn’t official policy. It didn’t need to be.
Social pressure enforced it. White workers resisted working alongside black workers. Management avoided conflicts by limiting opportunities. The war needed workers, but not all workers were welcome equally. These contradictions existed everywhere in wartime America. Women could build bombers, but couldn’t vote in some jurisdictions.
Black workers could manufacture weapons, but faced Jim Crow segregation. The war demanded equality of sacrifice while maintaining inequality of status. Kansas City was no different from anywhere else. No better, no worse, just American. By mid 1942, a modification center opened adjacent to the main plant.
B-25s from Englewood flew to Kansas City for alterations. Field modifications tested in combat were incorporated into factory production. Gun packages changed. Armor placement changed. Fuel tank configurations changed. Every improvement came from someone’s experience, usually someone’s death. The modification center allowed rapid implementation without stopping the production line.
The factory rhythm accelerated through 1943. 100 aircraft per month, then 150, then 200. January 1945 set the record. 315 aircraft accepted by the Army Air Forces in a single month. 10 aircraft per day, one every 2.4 hours. The production line had become a machine within a machine. Human hands guided by mechanical precision, guided by military urgency.
But even as production peaked, the end approached. By early 1945, the war in Europe was collapsing. Germany couldn’t hold. Everyone knew it. The question wasn’t if, but when. The Pacific War continued, but even there the tide had turned. American forces moved inexorably toward Japan. The need for medium bombers began declining.
Heavy bombers, B-29 superfortresses, those were the future. Those would firebomb Japanese cities. Those would carry the atomic bombs, not B-25s. In February 1945, Lockheed representatives visited NAK. They discussed converting the plant to P80 Shooting Star production, America’s first operational jet fighter, the future of aviation.
Preparation began. Jigs were built. Space was cleared in the high bay expansion. The B-25 line was shortened, then shortened again. May 25th, 1945. Germany had surrendered 2 weeks earlier. The telegram arrived at NAK. P80 contract cancelled. The first layoffs began immediately. Not enough. Not nearly enough.
The plant kept producing B-25s, but everyone knew. Everyone waited. August 14th, 1945. VJ day. Japan surrendered. The war ended. The next day, another telegram. Stop all work immediately. Cease production. Shut down the line. August 18th, B25 contract officially cancelled. August 20th, 5,700 employees received termination notices.
The remaining 2,300 stayed. Their job was dismantling, completing the last 72 aircraft, closing down the plant, preparing for whatever came next. October 31st, 1945, Jack Fickner, security guard, turned off the lights for the final time. Four years after Miss Greater Kansas City, four years after the first celebration, the factory went dark.
What did those 6,68 aircraft accomplish? That question requires understanding what the B-25 Mitchell meant to the war effort, what it did in combat, how it evolved from medium bomber to ship killer to gunship. The story of the aircraft is inseparable from the story of its use. The dittle raid put the B-25 in headlines.
April 18th, 1942. 16 B-25Bs launched from the carrier USS Hornet, 650 mi from Japan. An impossible mission. Medium bombers weren’t designed for carrier operations, but desperation demanded innovation. Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle led the raid. They bombed Tokyo and other cities. Material damage was minimal.
Psychological impact was enormous. America could strike back. Japan’s home islands were vulnerable. The raid forced Japan to commit resources to home defense. More importantly, it forced Japan to attempt seizing Midway at that attempt led to the Battle of Midway. That battle changed the Pacific War. Were any of Doolittle’s aircraft built in Kansas City? No. The raid happened too early.
Miss Greater Kansas City hadn’t even flown yet. But the raid defined what the B-25 could do. It proved adaptability. It proved potential beyond originaldesign parameters. The real B-25 war happened in the Pacific, New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Philippines, Burma. Everywhere, American forces fought Japanese forces. The B-25 was there.
Initially used for medium alitude level bombing. That didn’t work. Hitting moving ships from 10,000 ft was nearly impossible. The Nordon bomb site couldn’t compensate for ship maneuvers. Most bombs missed. Most missions failed. Then came the innovators. Major Paul gun. Field modifications. Extra machine guns. Armor removed.
Bombader equipment removed. Replace glass nose with solid nose. Mounting eight 50 caliber machine guns. Come in low. Suppress defensive fire with forward guns. Skip bombs into ship holes. It worked devastatingly well. Battle of Bismar Sea. March 2nd through 4th, 1943. Allied aircraft attacked Japanese convoy attempting to reinforce Lei.
Eight transports sunk. Four destroyers sunk. Four more destroyers damaged. 50 to 60 zero fighters shot down. B-25s played a major role. Skip bombing, strafing. The convoy was annihilated. Japanese never attempted another major reinforcement by sea in that region. Simpson harbor raid. November 2nd, 1943. 75 B-25s from three bombardment groups penetrated Rabul’s harbor defenses.
One of the most heavily defended ports in the Pacific. The aircraft came in at mast head height through anti-aircraft fire through fighter attacks. They sank ships. They damaged more. The third bombardment group alone claimed 50,000 tons of shipping destroyed. The 38th group claimed 40,000 tons, more tonnage than Midway, more than Bismar C.
These numbers represented cumulative achievements by all B-25s, not just Kansas City built aircraft. Tracking which specific aircraft accomplished what became impossible in the chaos of combat. Serial numbers weren’t recorded in battle reports. Mission logs listed squadrons and groups, not individual airframes, but statistical analysis suggests Kansas City built B-25s, representing 67% of total Mitchell production likely participated in 60 to 70% of B-25 combat operations.
They were there. They fought. They sank ships. They supported ground forces. They won battles. The human cost was measured differently. 26 Mitchells lost to enemy fire in Marine Corps operations alone. Each loss meant six crew members dead, missing, captured. Multiply that across all services, all theaters, all years.
The numbers become staggering. The B-25 had a reputation for survivability. It could absorb tremendous damage and keep flying. But absorbing damage meant someone got hit first. Meant anti-aircraft shells tearing through aluminum meant fighter bullets finding crew members. Meant fire in fuel tanks meant engines failing over hostile territory.
Major Raymond Wilkins flew his 87th mission against Rabau. His B-25 was named Fifi, built in Englewood, not Kansas City. But that distinction meant nothing to the man flying her. He went down attacking a destroyer. His aircraft was hit repeatedly. He never pulled up, never broke off. He sank the destroyer.
He won the Medal of Honor postumously. His sacrifice opened the path for other aircraft in his group. They completed their mission. They survived because he didn’t. Multiply that story by thousands. Young men 20, 22, 25 years old, flying missions every day, knowing each one might be their last, knowing someone wouldn’t come back, never knowing if it would be them.
The psychological weight was crushing. Combat fatigue they called it then. Post-traumatic stress disorder we call it now. Same symptoms, same nightmares, same inability to forget. The women who flew B-25s faced different dangers but equal risks. Women’s Air Force service pilots, Wasps, civilian pilots under military direction.
They fied completed aircraft from factories to bases, from bases to ports, from ports to forward areas. They flew every aircraft type, including B-25s, including Kansas Citybuilt B-25s. They flew through weather. They flew through mechanical failures. They flew without combat training, without military benefits, without recognition.
38 wasps died during the war. The government didn’t pay for their funerals, didn’t acknowledge their service, didn’t give them veteran status until 1977, 32 years after the war ended. This brings us back to Kansas City, back to the factory, back to the workers who built the aircraft. What did they know about how their work was used? What did they understand about the war they were supporting? Some information came through official channels, company newsletters, production updates, congratulatory messages from military
commanders. These communications emphasized success, emphasized victory, emphasized the importance of continued effort. They didn’t mention losses, didn’t mention casualties, didn’t mention failure. that would hurt morale, that would slow production. Other information came through personal connections, letters from sons overseas, brothers, husbands, cousins, friends.
These letters sometimes mentioned theaircraft, sometimes mentioned missions, sometimes mentioned fear. Usually the sensors cut those parts out, left holes in the paper where truth had been. But even the holes communicated something, communicated danger, communicated uncertainty, communicated mortality.
The factory community developed its own rituals of remembrance. Gold star banners for families who lost someone. Moment of silence before shifts. These weren’t official policies. They emerged organically from shared grief, from shared purpose, from the understanding that their work mattered because the people flying their aircraft mattered because the soldiers depending on their aircraft mattered because winning the war mattered more than any individual comfort or convenience.
October 6th, 1944, NAK received the Army Navy E award for production excellence. The E stood for excellence. It recognized sustained superior performance. It recognized quality. It recognized quantity. It recognized the accomplishment of building thousands of complex aircraft to exacting standards under tremendous pressure.
The award ceremony was formal, dignified. Workers wore their Sunday best. Management gave speeches. Military officers gave speeches. Politicians gave speeches. Everyone thanked everyone. Everyone felt pride. Earned pride. Justified pride. The safety record earned separate recognition. Exceeding national averages despite the pace, despite the pressure, despite the constant push for more production.
This achievement reflected training, reflected supervision, reflected workers looking out for each other. The factory floor could be deadly, but it didn’t have to be. Attention prevented accidents. Caution prevented injuries. Care prevented deaths. Efficiency improved dramatically over the production run.
Early aircraft required thousands of labor hours. Later aircraft required far fewer. The learning curve worked. Experience accumulated. Techniques improved. Tools improved. Organization improved. By 1945, NAK produced better aircraft faster with fewer people at lower cost than when production started. This was industrial maturity.
This was what American manufacturing could achieve when properly motivated. The motivation was victory. nothing else. Not profit, not prestige, not personal advancement, victory over fascism, victory over militarism, victory over tyranny. That motivation united people who otherwise had nothing in common. United farmers and city workers, united young and old, united women and men, united them in common purpose, common sacrifice, common determination to finish the job.
And they did finish 6,68 aircraft, 2300 B-25Ds, 4,300 B-25JS, plus 152 Navy PBJ variants. Each aircraft representing hundreds of thousands of individual actions, individual decisions, individual moments of care and attention from individual workers who understood their work had consequences measured in lives saved or lost.
The facto’s post-war fate was transformation. General Motors leased the facility in 1945, converted it to automobile production. The first car rolled off the line in 1946. The same building, the same roof, the same floor, different purpose, different product, different era. GM operated there until 1987, May 8th, 42 years after VE Day.
Then they closed it, raised it. January 19th, 1989. Built the Fairfax assembly plant, modern facility, billiondoll investment. Nothing remained of the bomber plant. Nothing visible, no physical trace, but memory remained, veterans remembered, workers remembered, families remembered. In 1998, Wandot County Museum erected a small monument dedicated to the men and women who built 6,68 B25 bombers.
Simple, dignified, necessary because those people deserved recognition. because what they accomplished mattered. Because their contribution to victory was real and measurable and should never be forgotten. The B-25 Mitchell continued flying long after the war ended. Military service continued into the 1950s. Various air forces worldwide flew them.
Some remained operational into the 1960s. The last operational B-25 retired from US Air Force inventory in January 1959, 14 years after the war ended, 17 years after Miss Greater Kansas City first flew. Some survived as warirds, restored, maintained, flown at air shows, museum displays, educational programs. These surviving aircraft carry serial numbers.
Some of those numbers trace back to Kansas City. Built at NAK, delivered to the Army Air Forces, fought in the war, survived, returned home, preserved, flying memorials to what came before. One such aircraft is in the mood. Built in Kansas City on August 29th, 1944, served as a trainer, survived the war, became surplus, worked as a spray tanker, eventually restored, now flies at air shows, has appeared in films, Pearl Harbor, others.
The only B-25 to take off from a carrier in dry dock, a living connection to the past. to the workers, to the war, to the sacrifices made by people whose names we’ll neverknow. We want to hear your connection to this story. If you have family members who worked at the plant, who flew B-25s, who served in the Pacific, please share their stories in the comments.
And if you found this documentary valuable, please subscribe. This channel exists to preserve these stories, to honor these people, to remember what they accomplished and what it cost them to accomplish it. The legacy of NAK isn’t measured only in aircraft produced. It’s measured in lives lived differently because the factory existed.
Women who discovered capabilities they didn’t know they had, who continued working after the war, who raised daughters who didn’t question whether women could do technical work. who raised sons, who accepted women as colleagues and equals. It’s measured in men who stayed home during the war, who built aircraft instead of flying them, who felt conflicted about that choice for decades afterward, who wondered if they had done enough, who needed to be told repeatedly that producing the weapons was as important as using them, that both roles mattered,
that both were necessary for victory. It’s measured in communities transformed. Kansas City grew during the war. Population increased. Infrastructure expanded. Industrial base diversified. Remington Arms near Independence. Pratt and Whitney at Banister and Trust. Darby Corporation shipyards at the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas rivers.
All war industries. All employing thousands. All contributing to victory. all changing Kansas City permanently. It’s measured in technology advancement techniques developed for B-25 production applied to post-war manufacturing, assembly line innovations, quality control procedures, training methodologies. These didn’t disappear when the war ended.
They migrated into civilian industry. Improved efficiency, improved reliability, improved outcomes across multiple sectors. It’s measured in international impact. Allied nations flew B-25s. Soviet Union received 866 through land lease. Britain received over 700. Netherlands, Australia, China, Brazil, Canada, France, all flew Mitchells.
All benefited from Kansas City production. All contributed to victory through coordinated effort and shared resources. It’s measured in strategic consequences. The B-25 success in the Pacific validated medium bomber doctrine, proved the value of versatile aircraft that could adapt to multiple roles. skip bombing, ground attack, maritime patrol, tactical bombing, one airframe, multiple missions.
This flexibility became standard requirement for postwar aircraft development. Every modern multi-roll aircraft traces conceptual lineage back to lessons learned with the Mitchell. It’s measured in memory preserved. every documentary, every museum exhibit, every restored aircraft, every veteran interview, every family story shared across generations.
These are acts of remembrance, acts of respect, acts of ensuring that what happened matters not just historically, but humanly, that the people involved were real, that their choices had weight, that their contributions deserve recognition. The number 6,68 represents aircraft. But behind each aircraft were thousands of people, design engineers in California, supply chain managers coordinating components from hundreds of vendors, railway workers moving materials and finished products.
Truck drivers delivering parts. Maintenance workers keeping equipment operational. Administrative staff managing paperwork. Security guards protecting the facility. Cafeteria workers feeding everyone. Medical staff treating injuries. Each role essential. Each person contributing. Each individual part of something larger than themselves.
This was American industrial mobilization at its peak. This was what happened when an entire nation committed to victory regardless of cost. When sacrifice became expected rather than exceptional. when individual comfort mattered less than collective success. When the question wasn’t whether something could be done, but how quickly it could be done.
The workers at NAK didn’t win the war alone. Nobody won the war alone. But they did their part. They did it well. They did it despite hardship, despite exhaustion, despite uncertainty about whether it would matter. They built aircraft. They built them right. They built them fast. They built them in numbers that overwhelmed the enemy’s ability to respond.
And when the war ended, they went home. Back to farms, back to families, back to lives interrupted by four years of crisis. Most didn’t talk much about what they had done. It seemed normal to them. Seemed like what anyone would have done. Seemed unremarkable. just work, just duty, just what the times required.
But it wasn’t unremarkable. It was extraordinary. It was the foundation of victory. It was proof that ordinary people could accomplish extraordinary things when properly motivated and organized and supported. That democracy could mobilize as effectively as dictatorship withoutsacrificing democratic values. that free people fighting for freedom were stronger than enslaved people fighting for conquest.
The factory is gone. The workers are mostly gone. The aircraft are mostly gone. But the story remains. The example remains. The lesson remains. When faced with existential threat, when confronted with evil that cannot be negotiated with or appeased, when forced to choose between comfortable surrender and costly victory, America chose victory.
People like those who built B25s in Kansas City chose victory. They didn’t make that choice once. They made it every day. Every shift, every aircraft, every rivet, every decision to do the work right, even when doing it wrong, would have been easier. That’s the real story of NAK. Not the statistics, not the production numbers, not the technical specifications.
The story is commitment. The story is sacrifice. The story is ordinary people rising to meet extraordinary demands and succeeding beyond anyone’s expectations, including their own. Miss Greater Kansas City flew on January 3rd, 1942. She was the first. 6,67 more followed. Each one built by hands that trembled with exhaustion, but never wavered in purpose.
Each one carrying the hopes of workers who would never see combat but understood combat depended on them. Each one representing belief that their work mattered, that their effort counted, that they were contributing to something larger and more important than any individual life or comfort or safety. They were right.
Their work did matter. Their effort did count. They did contribute to victory. And 75 years later, we remember. We honor. We recognize that freedom wasn’t free. That victory came at cost. That the people who paid that cost, whether with lives or labor, deserve our gratitude, deserve our respect, deserve to have their stories told truly and completely, and without forgetting the human dimension of what they accomplished.
This is their memorial. These words, this remembering, this refusal to let their sacrifices fade into comfortable historical abstraction. They were real. They mattered. They changed the world. And the world they changed owes them recognition that their work was not in vain. that what they built, both aircraft and example, continues to resonate across generations, continues to inspire, continues to remind us what people can accomplish when united in purpose and committed to something greater than themselves. 6,68
aircraft. 26,000 workers, 4 years of production. Countless stories of individual courage and collective determination. This is what happened in Kansas City. This is what ordinary Americans accomplished during extraordinary times. This is why we remember. This is why their story matters. This is why it deserves to be
