Championship Riveters, April 22, 1943

Martha Myskowski, on right, and Betty Relli were members of Port Washington’s championship riveting team.  They hold the crowd spellbound as they bang their way to a new record of 19.2 rivets per minute.  The contest was held at the “Nassau At War” exposition at Adelphi College, April 22, 1943.

Photo from the collection of the Grumman Corporate Archives.

Women Outside of Manufacturing Plant

Female Grumman Aviator

Women were not only riveters.  They also flew the planes!

Photo from the Grumman Corporation Archives.

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.