Great aunts Rosie the Riveter story

my great aunt was a electrican in the Seattle ship yard wiring up destroyers
she gave me a ball pein hammer she made in the shop and a small vernier caliper she carried in her overall pocket

Tell her I send my thanks.

Looks to be a 37mm anti-aircraft cannon shell casing.
But the photo is to dark to tell for sure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/37_mm_Gun_M1#Ammunition

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1155782

rc

ColtPythonElite said:

Tell her I send my thanks.

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Here!

My M-I-L and her sister worked at the North American plant in Dallas.

Looks to me most certainly a 37x223mmR round from an M1 anti-aircraft gun.

Thanks to your aunt for her service!

Both my parents worked as machinists at Mare Island Naval Shipyard during the war. Mom ran a turret lathe and Dad ran some kind of gigantic boring mill. I'd really like to know, for every man in a combat role, just how many other military and civilians there were behind him in supporting roles!

Pretty much everyone in the country was doing something to support the war effort in some way. Even if they were just barbers, they were cutting the hair of people in all kinds of war effort roles. Not that much is said about the efforts on the home front that affected some aspect of the war efforts. Even the crates that millions of things were shipped in, somebody had to cut down the trees.....

My Grandmother worked at the Twin Cities army ammunition plant during WWII. She really enjoyed it, helping with the war effort plus the chance to work out of the house, which was very rare in those days. My Grandfather was rejected from service since he had been crippled by polio, so he did guard duty at several local factories.
I wonder how the country would react to those circumstances today? Food and fuel rationing, blackouts, etc.

WK, very cool. I do not know the answer to your question, but I think your great aunt and what she is holding is priceless!!! My grandmother was a riveter during WWII, and worked for McDonnell-Douglas in San Diego. I've inherited her steel tool box M-D gave "all the girls" when they got to San Diego. Will be following this thread....

Was 7 years old and in grade school when, Pearl Harbor happened. We would bring a quarter every week to school and would put it into a coin folder, when the folder was full we had $5 and bought a war bond with it. We also brought all of nour tin cans to school and DONATED the cans and scrap steel and copper wire yto the war effotrt. In the fall of the year the whole school took a day off of classes and we went out and picked milkweed pods and turned them in. They were used for life vests. Regardless of age all the people supported and made sacrifices for the war effort.
My uncle was killed in WW II. He was killed in Panama fighting Germans. He was manning a machine gun nest on the canal. He was billed in 1942 and my Granparents weren't notified until the war was over. The whole time there was only a couple letters that came, and they were all cut up and pasted to a piece of paper. The government. Did want the citizens to know that we were fighting Germans on North A Mexican soil. He is buried somewhere down there, his body never came home. It was to late when my grandparents found out.
This weekend to me is known as Decoration Day, a day to honor and remember the fallen. My uncle is on my mind this weekend. Decoration Day is what they all called it when I was small and that is how I learned it. Back then it wasn't a holiday or a 3 day weekend. It was an important day of somber rememberence. My uncle is on my mind this weekend, I remember his leaving, he was 18 and had just graduated from high school. He made the ultimate sacrifice.

I wasn't born till 1950. My mom worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during WWII where she met my father after he returned from the South Pacific (USMC). Mom passed away a few years back ironically she was 92 and passed on 10 November, the Marine Corps birthday. I was also USMC as was my sister.

A very good book about the Greatest Generation (Tom Brokaw wrote the book and coined the phrase) is The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw. The book is a series of interviews with the men and woman of that generation. Very good reading or try the audio version.

Here is my WOW (Woman Ordinance Worker) poster I picked up about 20 years ago during a visit to the Springfield Armory National Park.



Sorry about the reflections, my wife had it framed.

WestKentucky, please extend my gratitude to your aunt for her service.

Ron

rondog said:

Both my parents worked as machinists at Mare Island Naval Shipyard during the war. Mom ran a turret lathe and Dad ran some kind of gigantic boring mill. I'd really like to know, for every man in a combat role, just how many other military and civilians there were behind him in supporting roles!

Pretty much everyone in the country was doing something to support the war effort in some way. Even if they were just barbers, they were cutting the hair of people in all kinds of war effort roles. Not that much is said about the efforts on the home front that affected some aspect of the war efforts. Even the crates that millions of things were shipped in, somebody had to cut down the trees.....

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A good post. My Wife's Mother still has her ration card. I have heard, speaking of supporting the troops, that 90% of the military serve in non-combat roles support the 10% that are. And only a small percentage of that 10% actually are involved in combat. Perhaps someone knows instead of what..."I've heard."

I've already stepped on the OP's topic and for that I apologize. WWII, because of the environment I was raised in, is an almost obsessive subject with me. I could discuss it for 14/7/365 for years and not grow tired of the subject.

While many women were not directly hired to work in the war effort many volunteered as "Canteen girls" serving donuts....saving cooking grease for the ammo plants...etc.

My aunt, even though she was not employed directly, was part of a volunteer ladies group that would roll and make specific type bandages. Her bridge club would make the bandages then play bridge.

A footnote to all of this was my Mother's step-brother was killed in the Pacific and buried at sea. My older Brother is named after him. His poor Mother went insane from her grief and never recovered and died a few years after that.

Traditionally....women have always stepped into the breech when this country needed them to. Folks that consider them the weaker sex have no clue what they are talking about. God bless all of the Roseys and their sisters.

WestKentucky said:

Ok guys and gals I just found out today that 2 of my great aunts proudly served their roles in wartime USA. One aunt truly ran a rivet gun making parts for some unknown war machine assembled elsewhere. My other great aunt is shown in the picture holding a sample of her fine work. She turned the extractor groove on the case. She believes this to be the case from an antiaircraft gun. Can anyone confirm?

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Do you know what plant she worked in?

My mom worked at Winchester in East Alton Il. making ammunition.

A great Aunt on my father's side worked for Union Switch and Signal (US&S) cutting the trigger guards on 1911s

And my mom...

was Flossie the rivet bucker... she was so thin that she was able to crawl inside the wings of B17s and 'buck' (flatten, by holding a steel tool against them) the opposite ends of the rivets Rosie drove in.

PRD1 - mhb - Mike

My Mother worked at the Bechtel-McCone aircraft plant in Birmingham Alabama, upgrading B24s to the latest model before deployment.

My Mother worked in a bomb plant in Nebraska during the war. When I was a kid she talked about how they put the explosives in the bomb casings.

My mom worked at Badger Ordnance, making supplies my dad might have used.

was Flossie the rivet bucker... she was so thin that she was able to crawl inside the wings of B17s and 'buck' (flatten, by holding a steel tool against them) the opposite ends of the rivets Rosie drove in.

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Whoa, tough gig.....But I'm so claustrophobic just reading that gives me the willies.....

One other amazing thing was, all these women made massive amounts of war material without the help of modern cnc machines and carbide tooling.