Rosie the Rivetter

Not gun related but last week i met a 'gent who is part of the trainbusters club from the Korean war. surprised him and his daughter when i asked them if he was a trainbuster.
 
My Grandmother always said that she was a hooker during the war !!! She hooked wires together in a bomb factory.

Harley
 
At the start of the war my maternal grandfather worked in a Hawker Aircraft factory building Hurricane fighters. It took him until 1943 to escape "essential war work" to get into uniform. As it turned out, he joined the RAF, where he became a Physical Training Instructor. I wouldn't say his work in the latter role was a bigger contribution than in the former.
 
In the Second War, my Mom made Hudsons at the Lockheed plant in Vancouver.

My Dad was an Aircraft Instrument MAKER, which was the very top qualification. He was at Number 2 Bombing and Gunnery at Dafoe, then Lethbridge where 133 FS formed up, then Boundary Bay and Tofino and then finally posted to Edmonton where he was the Service inspector at Aircraft Repair, rebuilding huge numbers of aircraft for the Services as well as a whole big bunch of Airacobras to go up the Alcan to Fairbanks for the Russian girls to fly over. They got together in '42, married in '43 and then, in 1944, they made the finest single known product of World War Two: ME!

In the Great War, my Grandma trained as a Driver/Mechanic and drove General Staff officers around for over a year. When her first husband went "Missing" (he still hasn't been found) she left the Army, went into Directed Labour and spent the last couple of years of the War building airframes for a while, then aircraft engines. I have a great photo here of her in her Army uniform.

The women darned well EARNED their votes. Too bad that so many today don't appreciate what they have, just given to them because they have managed to survive for 18 whole years; so many, male and female, know little and don't even bother to vote.
 
My dad was an A.C.S. Aerial Civilian Spotter during the war...he was 15 years old in 1943 and could not join the service. Also, he had lost an eye in his early pre-teens...I asked him how the heck he was able to become an Aerial spotter with only one eye...he said his one eye was his best eye.
One of the fellows in my lodge worked in "Center Section" of a Hurricane aircraft plant during the war...meaning he built the cockpit portion of the fuselage.
Another fellow in my lodge was a pay clerk at an RCAF base during the war...he was almost embarrassed to even say what he did overseas because it was not actual combat he was involved in. I told him he had the most important job on the base since everyone depended on him to get their weekly/monthly pay so they could go to town and relax, get drunk/laid/or have a good meal. Even the base commander would have had to come him for his pay, so he virtually had more power and authority then him. He figured that was pretty cool and had never considered that perspective.
Cheers
 
War time history is disappearing too fast. I think too few people realize the tremendous war effort exhibited by Canadians during WW2. The total amount of equipment built is staggering, for a population of little more than ten million, and about 5% of those in uniform and mostly overseas. I might be wrong on the percentage in the forces, but it was substantial.
The true, historical figures of our war effort should be published, and made known, more often than it is.
 
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