WW2 rosie the riveters

[MP Sarge]

MY mom was one. she did the corsair, lightning, and the b26 bomber during the war. Here is a story about the plant we had here in Bristol PA  out of our newspaper

Respect for Rosies

By LAURI SHEIBLEY
Burlington County Times

VIDEO
At 18 years old, Rosalie Cutitta crawled around inside airplane wings, lugging a heavy metal bar. Another young woman riveted the wing from the outside, and Cutitta used her bar to “buck up” the rivet from the inside.

Cutitta, now 83, said she still recalls the sound as the gun hit the metal and echoed in the aluminum wing.

“You can't imagine what it sounds like,” she said. “Boom, boom, boom.”

The job was loud, difficult and exhausting at the aircraft manufacturing plant in Bristol. But Cutitta said she enjoyed every minute.

“If they asked me to work 50 to 60 hours a week, I'd love it,” she said. “At the end of the day, you felt you were doing something for the boys out there. That's why we were all there working. ... You had to feel patriotic. You just had to feel like you were part of that war.”

Cutitta, of Delran in Burlington County, was one of thousands of women — known as “Rosie the Riveters” — who joined the workforce during World War II. After the men left for the war, the woman replaced them in defense plants, producing airplanes, boats, radios and other war supplies.

Burlington County will honor these women and female military veterans at an event at the Burlington County Library in Westampton Saturday. The free event, which will run from 10 a.m. until noon, is sponsored by the library and American Legion Post 79 in Burlington City.

Carl Wooden, chaplain of American Legion Post 79, said each woman who served in the military during a war or worked at a defense plant will receive a pin.

There will be several speakers, including officers from the New Jersey National Guard, McGuire Air Force Base, and Fort Dix. Wooden said there will be an all-girl color guard from Burlington City High School.

The American Legion and the library will display memorabilia and show several DVDs about Rosie the Riveters.

“They did their job, just like the women in the military,” Wooden said of the women who worked in defense plants during World War II. “These women had to step up, and they did it.”

JOBS IN BRISTOL

Many women in Burlington County found jobs at Fleetwings, an airplane parts maker on Radcliffe Street in the northeast Harriman section of Bristol. At the time, the borough was a pioneer in the aircraft industry as the former home of the Hull Aluminum Aircraft Corporation and Keystone Aluminum Corp., which made aircraft parts.

According to newspaper reports, more than 6,000 people worked at Fleetwings during the war — many of them women.

Cutitta said she worked at the Fleetwings plant, later a division of the Henry J. Kaiser Co., riveting bomber planes like the B-17 Flying Fortress and the Grumman Avenger. “Somebody had to do it,” she said. “The boys weren't here, so the girls had to do it.”

Cutitta said her hearing was damaged after years of working at the factory. “Back then, we did not wear earmuffs or covers. We did not realize that we were going to cause damage to our ears,” she said.

Despite her hearing loss, Cutitta said she'd be happy to pick up her air gun and get back to work.

 
“I'd live my life all over again if I had the chance,” she said. “I'd get right back in that airplane and rivet again.”

Cutitta's sister, Theresa Bernotas of Delran, also worked at Fleetwings. Bernotas said she used a machine to “dimple” holes in long sheets of metal, to prepare the holes for rivets. Her starting salary was $29 a week, with bonus pay awarded for extra productivity.

“I guess it was adventurous to me,” Bernotas said. “I enjoyed the people. I enjoyed the job, enjoyed the money too.”

Bernotas said some men who remained at Fleetwings welcomed the help, but others were uneasy about having women in the workplace. Bernotas said her supervisors asked her to be the “lead lady,” and take charge of her production team. Several men opposed that promotion.

“Some of them could be nasty,” Bernotas said. “They weren't going to take orders from any women.”

Bernotas said she declined the job, and her supervisors gave it to a man.

When the war ended, most women left the defense-related jobs and returned to their homes or took other jobs.

Cutitta said she was eager to step aside and let a man take her job at Fleetwings.

“I said, "Gladly. Give them my spot,' ” Cutitta said. “I was grateful all my brothers got back safe and sound.”

Bucks County's place in aviation history

The Fleetwings factory in Bristol was the first to mass-produce stainless steel wings for airplanes.


In the mid-1920s, Bristol was ideal for airplane production because it boasted a skilled work force, existing factories, stops on the Pennsylvania Railroad and access from the Delaware River. In 1924, the Army awarded the New York-based Huff-Daland Co. a contract to build a “bombing plane,” according to a 1930 article from the publication Tradewind. The project required the company to expand operations, and Bristol was ideal. Huff-Daland moved into the old Harriman Shipbuilding Co. factory on the river in Bristol. The company turned out the XLB bomber in 1925 and soon renamed itself the Keystone Aircraft Corp.


In 1934, Long Island-based Fleetwings took over the Keystone facilities. Owner Carl deGanahl brought the innovation of attaching stainless steel wings to the wooden hull of an airplane. Wood and canvas wore out too fast and limited how high and fast a plane could travel.


In 1940, Kaiser Industries bought Fleetwings. By 1942, the Bristol factory was turning out the vertical fins of B-17 Flying Fortress bombers for World War II.


At least 33 types of planes were partially or entirely constructed by the Lower Bucks County aviation industry centered in Bristol, Newtown and Warminster between 1926 and 1962.


After the war, military contracts waned. The Fleetwings plant produced some consumer products before closing in 1962.
Source: Courier Times archives

[daddog]

So was mine. She worked at the Lockheed plant in Los Angles helping to build the P-38's. That is also where she met my dad.

Thanks for the post Sarge.

[MP Sarge]

VFW Member News:
VFW Member Awarded Silver Star;
First Female Recipient Since WWII

For the first time since World War II, a woman soldier has been awarded the Silver Star Medal for her heroic actions in Iraq. Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester of the 617th Military Police Company, a National Guard unit out of Richmond, Ky., joined the VFW last year.

Award

Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester fought her way through an enemy ambush south of Baghdad, killing three insurgents with her M-4 rifle to save fellow soldiers' lives — and yesterday became the first woman since World War II to win the Silver Star medal for valor in combat.

The 23-year-old retail store manager from Bowling Green, Ky., won the award for skillfully leading her team of military police soldiers in a counterattack after about 50 insurgents ambushed a supply convoy they were guarding near Salman Pak on March 20.

The medal, rare for any soldier, underscores the growing role in combat of U.S. female troops in Iraq's guerrilla war, where tens of thousands of American women have served, 36 have been killed and 285 wounded, according to Pentagon figures.

After insurgents hit the convoy with a barrage of fire from machine guns, AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, Hester "maneuvered her team through the kill zone into a flanking position where she assaulted a trench line with grenades and M203 rounds," according to the Army citation accompanying the Silver Star.

"She then cleared two trenches with her squad leader where she engaged and eliminated three AIF [anti-Iraqi forces] with her M4 rifle. Her actions saved the lives of numerous convoy members," the citation stated.

Hester, a varsity softball and basketball player in high school, joined the Army in 2001 and was assigned to the Kentucky National Guard's 617th Military Police Company, based in Richmond, Ky.

A female driver with the unit, Spec. Ashley J. Pullen of Danville, Ky., won the Bronze Star for her bravery. Pullen laid down fire to suppress insurgents and then "exposed herself to heavy AIF fires in order to provide medical assistance to her critically injured comrades," saving several lives, her citation said.

Six other soldiers with Hester's unit won awards for defeating the ambush, leaving 27 insurgents dead, six wounded and one captured. They include Hester's squad leader, Staff. Sgt. Timothy F. Nein, who also won the Silver Star.