Willow Run Air Force Station is a former

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part ...

station that operated to the east of

Willow Run Airport Willow Run Airport is an airport in Van Buren Charter Township and Ypsilanti Township, near Ypsilanti, Michigan, United States that serves freight, corporate, and general aviation. Due to its very close proximity to Detroit Metropolitan Ai ...

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

History

In 1951, the

exercised a right of return to

Willow Run Willow Run, also known as Air Force Plant 31, was a manufacturing complex in Michigan, United States, located between Ypsilanti Township and Belleville, built by the Ford Motor Company to manufacture aircraft, especially the B-24 Liberator hea ...

and established Willow Run Air Force Station to the east of the airport runway. On 7 April 1952 the site became operational with the establishment of Headquarters,

30th Air Division The 30th Air Division (30th AD) is an inactive United States Air Force organization. Its last assignment was with Air Defense Command, assigned to Tenth Air Force, being stationed at Sioux City Municipal Airport, Iowa. It was inactivated on ...

at the site, which was designated P-23 by ADC. In addition to the headquarters facility, Air Defense Command established a Manual Air-Defense Control Center (ADCC) at Willow Run AFS, for the tracking and control of aircraft as part of ADC's mission in the United States. Willow Run AFS operated until April 1959, when the 30th AD was reassigned to Truax Field, Wisconsin. The facility was then sold to the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. Many of the former Air Force buildings still exist on the site and are used by various organizations.Winkler, David F. & Webster, Julie L., ''Searching the Skies'', The Legacy of the United States Cold War Defense Radar Program

US Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratories, Champaign, IL (1997).

References

{{Aerospace Defense Command Installations of the United States Air Force in Michigan Military installations closed in 1959 University of Michigan Willow Run Airport 1951 establishments in Michigan 1959 disestablishments in Michigan Military installations established in 1951