Description:
Tape Number WCHFT003
03:00:53;04 03:01:29;23 [00:00:36:17] WCHFT003
:keywords:
World War II
Home Front
Joyce Amato – interview
Interview conducted on November 21, 2002
former Manitowoc Company employee
shipyard
submarnine
Navy
Marines
drafting
factory
blueprints
fighter planes
Lake Michigan
shoot date: 11-21-2002
Transfered from Hestad laptop: March 2004
03:01:31;10 03:02:04;14 [00:00:33:02] WCHFT003
:intro questions:
Q - So you grew up during the Depression, right?
J - Yes.
Q - Before the shipyards, things were pretty slow there I would imagine.
J - Yeah, I imagine so.
Q - And then right after you graduated from high school, right, it was around Pearl Harbor?
J - Yeah after...
Q - Do you remember anything about that period?
J - What?
Q - Pearl Harbor, do you remember?
03:02:04;14 03:03:21;07 [00:01:16:21] WCHFT003
:Pearl Harbor / World's Fair:
J - I remember, well, there was no TV so, heard it on the radio and was kind of in shock and> And then before that, in 1939, our family had gone to New York to the New York World's fair, and I remember I went into the Czechoslovakian pavilion there, and then they had, um pictures of, um Germany invading Czechoslovakia and those places. And that, that I didn't like either, so, so, then, um.
Q - You were aware of what was going on before Pearl Harbor?
J - Yes. Yes.
Q- And then, what was your reaction? You say you got mad, but then did anything else happen at that point?
03:03:21;07 03:04:51;09 [00:01:30:00] WCHFT003
:changes in blueprints:
J - Well, there wasn't anything I could do at that time. I wasn't working at the time and I was just going to school there and, well, not taking anything special, you know. But then after a while when my dad was teaching blueprint reading and stuff for, the uh, the men that were working at the shipyards, cause they have to be able to read the blueprints to see what went in on the submarines, you know. So um, that's when I worked there. And then they had these, uh men who were the real draftsmen, and then they would go out onto the submarines and make sure that, uh, cause they were making changes all the time. Something moved here, or something moved there, and so then, um they would go out there and then they make the changes and then they'd come back and then, oh I'd have to get the right tracing to um, make the corrections on that.
03:04:51;09 03:06:32;00 [00:01:40:17] WCHFT003
:drafting class with father:
Q- So did you start working at the shipyard before or after you took the drafting class?
J - After.
Q- So you, you kind of, you signed up, you told me a story yesterday about how you ended up in that class.
J - Well yeah.
Q - You, uh, something about, uh, so it was part of a war-training program?
J - Yes.
Q - In the evening?
J - Yes. In the evening my dad was teaching that and my parents said, "Well you're not doing anything else. You may as well go to those classes, so then he, that was about 72 hours or 75 hours of class, and then I just kept on going to those, so. And then I found out that I like to do drafting.
Q- And that was, you were sort of following in your father's footsteps right? Because, was he a draftsman too?
J - Well, he, he taught drafting but actually, my uh, I had a grandfather who was an architect and a building contractor, and my dad built a lot of, well, when he was in high school he used to work for his dad doing, building homes and, uh and other things like that. And so then that's when he went to school, Platteville, then he, he learned to teach that, so...
03:06:32;00 03:07:34;13 [00:01:02:11] WCHFT003
:learned to ink:
Q - So, then you were, you were involved at the shipping, shipyard as a draftsperson, right?
J - Right.
Q - And you were the only one that knew how to ink, can you tell me that story?
J - Yeah, well, see these tracings that they had, some of them were 10 to 11 feet long and they were made of this mylar that was treated so that you could erase with a little water, you could erase that, and then um, then uh, put the right things up in ink on there. So I learned to do that in ink, and um, so that.
Q - You said that you were the only one in your class that learned how to do that?
J - Yes. (laughs)
03:07:34;13 03:08:28;24 [00:00:54:09] WCHFT003
:inked blueprints at plant:
Q- Can you tell me that story?
J - Well, I said to my dad I was doing drawing, and then he said, "Would you like to ink that? Do a tracing of that so that you can make a blueprint from that?" They had kind of a primitive blueprint-making machine there at the vocational school. Later, those at the, at the um shipyards, well those, they could handle those big long ones and all that kind of stuff so.
Q - So you inked it and then that became your job? Is that?
J - Yes.
03:08:28;24 03:09:28;09 [00:00:59:13] WCHFT003
:Lots of work in shipyards:
Q - And then, so when the contracts came in to do the submarines, was that a big deal when that happened in town? Or did you?
J - Well yes it was. At least the shipyards had a lot of work to do because at first they had 10 submarines to do and later on they got a contract to build a few newer than that, but it was, uh. I left before they, before they were working on the latter submarines, so.
Q - So were you working there before they got the contract or was that after?
J - This was after.
Q - It was all after. And um, I lost my train of thought here. Hang on a second.
03:09:28;09 03:11:07;24 [00:01:39:13] WCHFT003
:Subs built in sections/welded well:
Q - Um, so at the plant, what was it like working there?
J - Well, it was very interesting. Like, I remember going out and seeing gee, now these submarines were being built in sections and in the shops. And then, these sections, they had to have all these big things put into sections before they went to weld them to the other sections there, and then they had a kind of rollers there that they pulled them over to where they were, where they were building the submarine. And um, because everything had to be inside there because otherwise, um anything too big to go down the hatch you wouldn't be able to do that, you know. And so then that was all. Then they'd weld that thing together, so that was one of the best things about the submarines, that they were welded, and they were welded very well, so that these submarines went, uh didn't have any problems when they went into the Pacific Ocean.
03:11:07;24 03:12:19;06 [00:01:11:10] WCHFT003
:blueprint creation of submarines:
Q - So it's an extremely complicated vessle, isn't it? I mean, there must have been a lot of blueprints involved.
J - Oh yes yes. Lots of blueprints of all kinds and um, and then there was this other section that um, uh, of that, um, control room with all this stuff and that we didn't work on. That was done by another group in another room. So they had quite a few of us there in that, working in that.
Q - How many draftsmen do you think they had in a room?
J - Well, lets see, oh there was a chief draftsman, and then we had about three or four other people that were drafting, and then they, after me then they had some other women there doing tracing, and on that, so I don't know.
03:12:19;06 03:13:16;09 [00:00:57:01] WCHFT003
:women did everything they could:
Q - Is that an unusual job for a woman to have at that time?
J - Well, I suppose at that time, but except at the time during the war, women did everything that they could to uh, for the war, and so that was really special. Yeah, so.
Q - Did you think that that was a good opportunity for you? Did that provide you with an opportunity?
J - Yes, yes. Cause uh, then from there on I did some more. After a while then I went to the University of Minnesota and took engineering and that's where I got to be a draftsmen at other (??).
03:13:16;09 03:14:06;26 [00:00:50:15] WCHFT003
:busloads, custerdale:
Q- What was it like at the plant? That must have been going full blast wasn't it?
J - Well yeah. They had three shifts and so then they had people coming in from uh, well by busload from neighboring towns and then they built that Custerdale, which housed a lot of people, it was built on the edge of town there. At the edge of town at that time, which has grown further west since then. And so then they had all these families here so that they could do all that stuff and so yeah they had lots of people working here.
03:14:06;26 03:15:42;06 [00:01:35:08] WCHFT003
:sailors tested submarines in Lake Michigan:
Q- And there were a lot of military people too, right, the navy?
J - Well, when each submarine, after it had been, after it had been launched, then they had the Navy, the uh sailors came in. They were living in barracks, The ones, the crews for each submarine, so then they could go out and learn how that submarine worked, how it operated and all that, and then so they'd go out into Lake Michigan and dive and um, and fire out dummy torpedos, you know, so that, you know, so they knew how the submarine worked. After that, after the submarine well then, then when they took it down to New Orleans, then some of the sailors went with it and others, I guess, had a little furlough before they could had to go down to New Orleans to get on the submarine and go off to the Pacific. Yeah so.
03:15:42;06 03:16:32;25 [00:00:50:17] WCHFT003
:selling war bonds in park:
Q- So, must have been kind of a wild place in Manitowoc. From completely calm to,
J - Busy town. Yeah.
Q - How would you describe that?
J - Well, I don't know. I didn't really go downtown much to get into all this excitment or anything like that. They had people come to the park where they were selling war bonds, you know, people, different people would come and entertain a little and then 'Buy war bonds! Buy war bonds!', you know, and all that kind of stuff.
Q- Did you buy some?
J - Well, yeah.
03:16:32;25 03:17:55;28 [00:01:23:01] WCHFT003
:joined Marines:
Q- So you reached a certain point where you decided to leave the shipyard. Can you talk about that a little bit?
J - Yeah well, I thought, well, I don't know, I just thought that I wanted to do a little bit more so maybe I was getting a little bored or something like that. I decided I wanted to do a little bit more, so then I thought, "Well, I'll join the Marine Corps," yeah. And at that time, the women marines, well, they were doing all kinds of different jobs. I know some of my friends, some of them were in the offices, some of them were recruiting. Some of them, like me, went to aviation machinist mates school and then there were communications and there were some that were at operations for checking planes in and out and radio operators and all kinds of stuff like that.
03:17:55;28 03:19:01;24 [00:01:05:22] WCHFT003
:why chose Marines:
Q- So how did you choose the Marines, as opposed to the other choices?
J - Well, they had the WACs, the women in the army, and I thought, Well there's just too many. They're too different. And then the Navy, well, I was involved with the Navy there and I thought, "Nah, I don't want the Navy," and so then I thought of the Marine Corps, yeah. And they just, uh, the, navy didn't, I mean the Marine Corps didn't accept women until about, uh in 1943. Otherwise some of the others were before that, but then they accepted the women in 1943.
03:19:01;24 03:19:30;25 [00:00:29:01] WCHFT003
:women free men to fight:
Q - So what's this idea of freeing up a man to fight?
J - (Laughs) Free a man to fight, yeah. That's what they said. That's what the posters said. And, you know, I think there were some men who were, who had desk jobs and all that, that weren't exactly happy about being freed to fight. Although, well, you know, that's war, you gotta go.
03:19:30;25 03:21:14;18 [00:01:43:21] WCHFT003
:being placed in Marines:
Q- How were you treated in the Marines? Did you find, you must have gone in right, was that right away when they started accepting women?
J - Well, I couldn't get in until 1944 when I was 20 years old, so then that's when I got in there and, well, then at boot camp, well then we had these men who were training us to march. Then we had all kinds of lessons and other things about the history of the Marine Corps and First Aid, and the traditions of the Marine Corps and all that kind of stuff like that. So then you had to sign up for what else you wanted to go to after boot camp, and of course a lot of the women had been in offices and all that so then they got into offices and stuff like that. I had never done any office work, so then, well then I had to get a, well took a test. I was mechanically aptitude. (Laughs) So I could get into that.
03:21:14;18 03:22:34;13 [00:01:19:23] WCHFT003
:trained to work on small figher planes:
Q- What did you end up being trained to do?
J - Work on these little fighter planes. Uh, we, at um, at the air training stations and we worked on these little fighter planes, um, Hellcats and Wildcats and Corsairs, and other little ones. And then at Cherry Point, the Marine Airbase, the Marine Airbase there um, is out in the boondocks and it's kind of swampy, so um, so these runways couldn't hold any real big planes so they uh, so I remember watching these um, wait outside watching the um, the pilots training with the smaller planes there and watching them with dogfights and go this way and that way and, oh that was fun. Fun to watch them chasing each other and all that kind of stuff.
03:22:34;13 03:23:11;03 [00:00:36:18] WCHFT003
:checked planes after flights:
Q- So when the planes came in you had to check them out?
J - Well, after so many hours of flying, then they'd take, then they'd take them all apart and so then they'd take them to the different sections in the engine overhaul and so then they'd, oh put in new gaskets and new this and that and clean them up and all that kind of stuff, so uh, so that they could, so that they could work again.
03:23:11;03 03:24:02;04 [00:00:50:29] WCHFT003
:fixed carburetors and fuel feed valves:
Q- What was your specialty?
J - Carburetor regulators, and then later fuel feed valves. That was part of the carburetors, but there were men in our section who had gone to the company to learn how to repair the carburetors but we just worked these other things. They were all taken apart and they were cleaned up and we had, and then they had some kind of a stand so that we could build them up and put new gaskets in and all that kind of stuff.
03:24:02;04 03:24:28;21 [00:00:26:17] WCHFT003
:wasn't mistreated in Marines:
Q- Were, did you, were you ever mistreated, do you think by, or discriminated against because you're a woman during that time?
J - Not that I recall, you know. If it was, I just kind of maybe ignored it or something because I just didn't feel like I was being mistreated or anything like that.
03:24:28;21 03:25:20;24 [00:00:52:01] WCHFT003
:Marine life:
Q- What else do you remember about being a Marine? Did you have any fun or was it mostly hard work?
J - Well, they had, they had, oh they had movies, and they had and you could go into town and do some shopping, but you had to take the bus to town, and I told my grandmother once that I lived 17 miles from town. She didn't like that. She thought, oh my gosh, I don't know if she thought I was living in a tent way out in the middle of nowhere or what, but (Laughs) anyway that bothered her so.
03:25:20;24 03:26:27;17 [00:01:06:21] WCHFT003
:family okay with her in marines:
Q- And how did the rest of the family feel about your joining the Marines? Was that a problem?
J - Well, no, I guess they both, my mother and father, well they felt like it was something that had to be done, so help with the war and all that. My dad had been in World War One and then my brother, well, he wanted to get into Navy Aviation and then they said he couldn't get in there. Something about his overbite. I don't know. At that time the pilots had to be able to put for oxygen, put something in their mouth and all that, and they said, no they didn't want that. And of course then I was at boot camp and writing home and telling how great the Marine Corps was and so, well then my brother, well, he graduated in 1944, so then he got into the Marine Corps.
03:26:27;17 03:27:48;24 [00:01:21:05] WCHFT003
:brother stationed on troop ship and traveled around world:
J - But he got into the best part because he was stationed on the troop transport as a, as a, like a Marine Guard or something like that and they got the people back and forth, and so then he got to see, he got to see, well he was in, practically all over the world. He, he got back and forth in the Pacific, taking people out to, uh, to where they uh, where they had to fight, and bringing the wounded back and all that. And then he, um, oh, he was in New Guinea after the war, and then he was in the Philippines after the Japanese surrendered, and he got into China, and then they came back, then they went back through the Panama Canal and into Europe and were bringing people back from Europe. So he got to see... He got around. (Laughs) And nobody fired at him. Not like some other people.
03:27:48;24 03:29:45;11 [00:01:56:13] WCHFT003
:submarine training in Lake Michigan:
Q- You said they trained, the submarines trained here on the lake?
J - Yes, um, well, they had trained to learn how to work on their submarines and the sailors and so I was told that one of the deepest spots in Lake Michigan is out in the lake off of Two Rivers. So then they could dive down there and learn how to dive and come up and then fire these torpedoes and they had these sub-tenders that would go out there and they'd bring these dummy torpedoes back and so then they could use them over and over again. I remember seeing when they'd come in in the winter time, then they'd be coated with ice so then they'd have to use something hot, steam things to get the ice off. I remember watching the sailors go sliding down the deck and all that kind of stuff and so then when the submarines had everything ready, the crew was all trained, and they were ready to take them down to the uh, to New Orleans, then they'd come back and they'd have a broom up on the top there so that "Clean sweep" so they were all ready to go. (Laughs) |
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