Gold Hill woman was one of the original ‘Rosie the Riveter’ workers during World War II

At 5 foot 1 inch and barely tipping the scales at 100 pounds, Grayce Battaglia doesn’t look like she was a big factor in winning World War II.

But she packed a gun that made war history.

"I was the first girl riveter on the second shift," said Battaglia, 87, of Gold Hill. "They still called us ‘girls’ back then. But we felt we were doing something important for the war effort with our rivet guns."

Meet a Rosie the Riveter, one of the thousands of women who stepped forward to take over jobs left by men who had marched off to war beginning 64 years ago today.

Shortly after Dec. 7, 1941, she and two other women left their jobs at a hat manufacturing plant in her native Buffalo, N.Y., to become riveters at the nearby Curtiss-Wright aircraft factory.

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Until VJ Day — Victory over Japan — on Aug. 15, 1945, she would build cowlings for P-40 Flying Tigers and the C-46, an aerial workhorse carrying men and materials.

"I had a young boy bucking for me while I operated the riveting gun," she said.

A bucker worked in conjunction with a riveter by holding the bucking bar against the opposite side of the sheet metal so the rivet would flatten after it was fired by the air-powered rivet gun, she explained.

"Women didn’t wear pants in those days," she said. "But we sure did. We were working. I was one of the fastest riveters there."

If anyone was unaware of the work being done by the female work force, Norman Rockwell changed that. His famous portrait of "Rosie the Riveter" appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post magazine in 1943.

Like the other Rosies, she worked long days, from early afternoon until nearly midnight.

"I’d come home and be so tired I’d go right to bed," she said. "But I’d get up the next morning and listen to the radio for war news. It was important to me to be able to help."

While she was back home building warplanes, her four brothers and husband, Joseph, were all in the Army during the war. All survived, including Joseph, a D-Day veteran who was wounded three times.

"Every single day during the war, I’d write a letter to my husband," she said. They were married 42 years before he died. They have two daughters, Elizabeth and Sharon.

"I also wrote to one of my brothers or a cousin," she added. "It seemed like every young man in our family was in the war."

While times were hard, there were also some laughs, like the day she attended her cousin’s wedding before going to work on the afternoon shift.

"We girls got the record player going, playing the ‘Jersey Bounce,’ " she said. "We started dancing in a line like the Rockettes and drinking wine."

After partying hearty for several hours, it was time for her to go to work.

"Things were kind of spinning," she said, noting she got a ride to work. "But I got to my department. I was ready to rivet."

But one of her coworkers let her foreman know Battaglia wasn’t feeling well. She was called to the manager’s office, where she explained she had been to her cousin’s wedding.

"My manager said, ‘I’ve been to Italian weddings, Grayce. You’d better go to the infirmary for awhile so you don’t hurt yourself,’" she recalled.

The only incident where she came close to being injured was one summer afternoon in 1942. A loud explosion shook the plant.

"All of a sudden there was flames and smoke in the paint department which was right next to our cowling department," she said. "Men were on fire. We all stopped working. We were shaking and crying."

An engine had fallen from an airplane flying overhead, crashing through the roof, she said. Three people were killed and several injured, she said.

"We had a memorial ceremony for them out in the parking lot — it was very sad," she said.

Her job ended with the war.

"When VJ Day came, we went to a cathedral and said our prayers," she said. "We were glad it was over."

Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at pfattig@mailtribune.com.