WEBVTT

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- Margaret Wills, although, make it Peggy.

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^They call everybody that worked,

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^everybody that did anything on the planes,

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they called them all Rosie the Riveter.

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They would have to say Rosie the Electrician,

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because that's what I did.

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They brought the B-24s in

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on the other end of our hangar,

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and they came in and they did a lot of this other stuff,

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but we finished up by doing the electrical work.

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I worked for three years.

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I don't know, I think I was only 18 or 19.

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I was told we'd get a certain amount of money.

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We turned it down because our boys were fighting

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and dying over there.

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We lost a lot of our men and our planes there on Ploesti.

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That hurt because I imagine a lot of them were my planes.

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I do regret, now, that I didn't take the number down

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of every plane I worked on.

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I would know if they were in the Ploesti Raid or not.

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I think I maybe better not know because I got

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shivers when you think of all the men that died every time

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or were killed on those B-24s.

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But boy, the women just flooded in.

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When they came on,

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we came in as typists,

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and everything that you can do as a woman.

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Somebody had to put the electrical work

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or they wouldn't fly.

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You know?

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And I was always so happy every time I left the plane

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the proofer would tell me, your work was all good.

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And that made me feel good, because I never had accolades

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on anything I'd ever done, really.

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But to me, the most important thing was

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just doing it, and not thinking about it just as a job.

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- [Interviewer] How does that picture make you feel?

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- Oh.

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It made me proud that I was a woman, I guess.