WORLD WAR II

WORLD WAR II

The American Home Front in Color

 

American mothers and sisters, like these women at the Douglas Aircraft Company, give important help in producing dependable planes for their men at the front, in Long Beach, California.

 

This girl in a glass house is putting finishing touches on the bombardier nose section of a B-17F navy bomber in Long Beach, California, She's one of many capable women workers in the Douglas Aircraft Company plant. Better known as the "Flying Fortress," the B-17F is a later model of the B-17 which distinguished itself in action in the South Pacific, over Germany and elsewhere. It is a long range, high altitude heavy bomber, with a crew of seven to nine men, and with armament sufficient to defend itself on daylight missions. Photo taken in October, 1942.  

Women are trained as engine mechanics in thorough Douglas training methods, at the Douglas Aircraft Company in Long Beach, California, in October of 1942

 Answering the nation's need for womanpower, Mrs. Virginia Davis made arrangement for the care of her two children during the day and joined her husband at work in the Naval Air Base in Corpus Christi, Texas. Both are employed under Civil Service in the Assembly and repair department. Mrs. Davis' training will enable her to take the place of her husband should he be called by the armed service. Photo taken in August, 1942.

With a woman's determination, Lorena Craig takes over a man-size job in Corpus Christi, Texas. Before she came to work at the Naval air base she was a department store girl. Now she is a cowler under civil service. 

 Part of the cowling for one of the motors for a B-25 bomber is assembled in the engine department of North American Aviation's Inglewood, California, plant, in October of 1942.

Annette del Sur publicizes a salvage campaign in yard of Douglas Aircraft Company, in Long Beach.

 Lathe operator machining parts for transport planes at the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation plant, Fort Worth, Texas.

The water stretching machine of an eastern parachute manufacturer stretches shroud lines so as to make them more adaptable to the finished product, in Manchester, Connecticut.

Pearl Harbor widows have gone into war work to carry on the fight with a personal vengeance, in Corpus Christi, Texas. Mrs. Virginia Young (right) whose husband was one of the first casualties of World War II, is a supervisor in the Assembly and Repairs Department of the Naval Air Base. Her job is to find convenient and comfortable living quarters for women workers from out of state, like Ethel Mann, who operates an electric drill.

Men and women make efficient operating teams on riveting and other jobs at the Douglas Aircraft plant in Long Beach, California. Most important of the many types of aircraft made at this plant are the B-17F ("Flying Fortress") heavy bomber, the A-20 ("Havoc") assault bomber and the C-47 heavy transport plane for the carrying of troops and cargo.

 

Women workers install fixtures and assemblies to a tail fuselage section of a B-17F bomber at the Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, California.

 Carefully trained women inspectors check and inspect cargo transport innerwings before they are assembled on the fuselage, at Douglas Aircraft Company in Long Beach.