3 minute read
The Amazing Rosie the Riveters
By Jim McCoy, Pacific Historic Parks
Advertisement
They are known as Rosie the Riveters, the American women who helped build the ships, tanks, planes and munitions that helped win the war and along the way planted the seeds of the women and civil rights movements.
Eight decades later, a pair of 95-year-old original Rosies were still flexing their muscles and turning heads at the 80th Commemoration events marking the start of World War II.
Mae Krier, a riveter in a Seattle Boeing plant, and Marian Wynn, a welder in a Kaiser shipyard in Richmond, California, were easily recognizable, always adorned in their signature polka dot blouses.
Led by Tammy Brumley, a docent at the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, the two Rosies attended just about every major event that week, going out of their way to greet and thank World War II veterans for their service.
They were at a Sunday morning veterans church service and again up before dawn on December 7 for the main ceremony. Then it was off to the USS Oklahoma ceremony that afternoon and a parade in Waikiki that night.
Their whirlwind trip included a visit to a Hawaiian Airlines hangar to meet and greet women mechanics and engineers. The beaming employees said it was an experience they will never forget.
“They opened up the doors to all the women in aviation including myself and my fellow teammates,” said HAL structures engineer manager Eli Oki. “It’s great for them to be here and tell their stories and hear what they went through. And it's just really amazing and we are honored to have them here.” The Rosies dropped flower petals at the USS Arizona Memorial. They drew lines of visitors at the Pearl Harbor National Memorial wanting a signed Rosie poster. They fielded questions from the media and participated in a digital event with the National Park Service and Pacific Historic Parks. They had dinner with members of Pacific Historic Parks and Tom Leatherman, the superintendent of Pearl Harbor National Memorial whose last post was at the Rosie Park in Richmond. They attended a luau sponsored by the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum.
It was at that luau that Mae saw the Swamp Ghost B-17, the very type of plane she helped assemble in the Seattle Boeing plant.
"So much of my life passed when I saw it. I got very emotional. That B-17 represented a time in my life when it all seemed to come together, my love for the B-17, meeting and marrying my husband, my love of Seattle and our dancing."
During the USS Oklahoma ceremony, Marian placed flowers for a shipyard friend whose brother, Charles Harris, was killed on the USS Oklahoma. She hopes this will help bring some comfort to the late friend’s family to know someone cared for him in person.
Marian placed flowers at her brother’s grave in Normandy during the 75th anniversary of D-Day. She was the first family member to visit his grave.
As for their future plans, the Rosies say don’t rule out a return visit to the islands.
"I'd love to go back to Hawaii,” Wynn said. “Everybody was so nice to us"
