Grumman Employees Work on a Bomber, 1943

Women work on the fuselage of a Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bomber at Grumman Plant #15, located in Port Washington.  For more information about this aircraft, click here.

From the book Flight of Memory, published by the Port Washington Public Library:

The first avenger was built in 1942.  Five months later, the production line began to tick off hundreds more.  This was unheard-of speed in an industry which formerly needed three years to translate blueprints into planes.  In 45 months of wartime service, Grumman Corporation built 17,000 airplanes.  Many parts were built in Port Washington, where women became key players at Plant #15.  Around Long Island, women comprised more than forty percent of the production force in aviation and mility support industries.

For more information about Flight of Memory, see www.pwpl.org/publications/flight.html.

Photo from the collection of the Grumman History Center.