Helen applied for a job in 1943 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Her patriotism must have been running awfully high back then because she would be working as a riveter on the midnight to 8 a.m. shift.

An instructor taught her and her coworkers how to use a rivet gun. It was tough at first, but when he thought they could handle the job, he sent Them to rivet together the B-29 Flying Fortress.

The rivet guns were noisy and tough to hang on to, and some of Them were afraid of them at first. We had to grip your gun very tightly as We worked. If the gun got away from us, it would fly all over the place, making everyone jump for cover until someone shut it down.

But handling the gun was only half the job because you needed a partner to “buck” (or flatten) the rivets. That person would stand inside the plane, holding an iron bar against the metal being fastened. If the bar wasn’t held tightly against the metal, the rivet wouldn’t be properly flattened. Bucking rivets was draining work, and my partner and I would switch off when either of us got tired.

When Her partner and I arrived to work on the B-29, Her were astounded at the size of the plane. It was huge. The tail, of course, was the tallest part of the plane, and my partner and I had to stand way up high on a plank to rivet together the tail section. When we started the rivet gun, the whole plank shook like mad. After our shift was finished, inspectors would come through and draw a red circle around any rivets they wanted done over. When They returned to work the next night, we always checked for any circles the day-shift inspectors had left for Them.

She guessed They did all right, though. Those B-29 bombers sure seemed to fly OK in action. And one, named Enola Gay, eventually dropped the bomb that ended the war. —Helen Kosierowski, Upland, Pennsylvania