Cozy Croc

10 color photos from America’s WWII factories

By Cozy Croc

Split image: a woman in a red jacket and red cap working inside a clear bomber nose section on the left, and a woman in a pink headscarf and light-blue shirt holding a drill up to an aircraft on the right.

In 1942 and 1943, Alfred T. Palmer and Howard R. Hollem photographed American aircraft plants in color for the U.S. government. These ten pictures, taken in California, Kansas, Tennessee and Texas, show the people who built the bombers. Every photograph is in the public domain.

A woman in a glass house at Douglas

A woman in a red jacket with a white collar and a red knit cap stands inside a clear domed nose section, holding a curved strip of its transparent frame, a yellow badge pinned to her chest.
Alfred T. Palmer, Library of Congress, 1942

The Library of Congress caption calls her “this girl in a glass house.” She is putting finishing touches on the clear bombardier nose section of a B-17F at the Douglas plant in Long Beach, California, in October 1942. Douglas built 3,000 of the 12,731 B-17s, alongside Boeing and Lockheed-Vega.

Women at work on a bomber at Douglas

A woman in a pink headscarf and a light-blue shirt sits on a low platform and holds a pneumatic drill up against the underside of an aircraft, while a second woman in a cream blouse works behind her.
Alfred T. Palmer, Library of Congress, 1942

The Library of Congress caption begins “Women at work on bomber.” Alfred T. Palmer took the picture at the Douglas plant in Long Beach in October 1942. By 1943, women made up 65 percent of the U.S. aircraft industry’s workforce, up from about 1 percent before the war.

A real-life Rosie the Riveter in Nashville

A woman in a red headscarf and a navy work shirt holds a hand drill against a dark, glossy panel, her face and the drill reflected in the surface at right.
Alfred T. Palmer, Library of Congress, 1943

The Library of Congress caption calls her “a real-life ‘Rosie the Riveter,’” at work with a hand drill at Vultee-Nashville on an A-31 Vengeance dive bomber. Alfred T. Palmer took the picture in February 1943. The dark panel gives the photograph a second Rosie, reflected beside the first.

B-25 Mitchells in yellow at Kansas City

Rows of bright yellow bomber airframes stand in a huge factory hall under long lines of ceiling lights, with ladders and workers beside the nearest planes and an American flag hanging at the far end.
Alfred T. Palmer, Library of Congress, 1942

Alfred T. Palmer photographed B-25 Mitchell bombers under assembly at North American Aviation’s Kansas City plant in October 1942. The yellow is probably zinc chromate, a corrosion-resistant primer used widely on U.S. military aircraft. The plant went on to build 2,290 B-25Ds and 4,318 B-25Js. A flag hangs far down the hall.

Drilling on a Liberator in Fort Worth

A woman in a patterned headscarf and pale gray-green coveralls sits on a metal surface dotted with rivet holes, drilling with a pneumatic drill, its hose looping around her boot, against a dark background.
Howard R. Hollem, Library of Congress, 1942

Howard R. Hollem photographed this woman drilling on a B-24 Liberator at the Consolidated Aircraft plant in Fort Worth, Texas, in October 1942. The plant began operations that April. More than 3,000 B-24s were built, assembled or modified there during the war.

Three women inside a B-17 tail

Three women work inside the ribbed, tunnel-like tail section of a bomber: one in blue overalls reaches left, one in a pink top and blue-green slacks stands on a wooden crate with her arms raised, and one in a white blouse works at right.
Alfred T. Palmer, Library of Congress, 1942

Women workers install fixtures and assemblies in a B-17 tail fuselage section at the Douglas plant in Long Beach, according to the caption of this October 1942 photograph. The Library of Congress adds that the B-17F carried a crew of seven to nine. The ribbed tunnel glows around them.

Touching up the star on a Vengeance

A woman in a blue work shirt leans toward the white star on a blue circle painted on a fuselage, a red dot at its center, touching it up with a small brush.
Alfred T. Palmer, Library of Congress, 1943

A woman touches up the U.S. Army Air Forces insignia on a Vengeance dive bomber at Vultee’s Nashville plant, in a candid view Alfred T. Palmer took in February 1943. Vultee designed the plane in 1940 for the French air force. The Army Air Forces mostly used it as a target tug and trainer.

A sea of workers at Consolidated

A dense crowd of workers, mostly men in work shirts and caps, fills the frame outdoors, with a smiling man in a light-blue shirt at the front, floodlight poles at upper left, a small balloon in the sky and an aircraft propeller at the far right edge.
Howard R. Hollem, Library of Congress, 1942

The Library of Congress title for this October 1942 picture begins “Workers on the Liberator Bombers.” Officials planning the Fort Worth plant estimated it would need 14,000 workers to cover three shifts. About 23 percent of its wartime workers were women, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

A row of B-25 engines at Inglewood

A line of silver radial engines on blue wheeled stands runs down a factory floor, with a man in tan coveralls working beside the second engine and an American flag hanging from the ceiling beyond.
Alfred T. Palmer, Library of Congress, 1942

The Library of Congress record says cowling and control rods are added to these motors for North American B-25 bombers as they move down the assembly line in Inglewood, California, in October 1942. They are Wright R-2600 engines, with 14 cylinders and 1,700 horsepower, and each B-25 carried two.

Two women inspecting tubing at Vultee

Two women in blue work shirts bend over a fan of bent silver tubes with red caps on their ends laid out on a wooden bench, one holding up a long tube and the other, in glasses, handling a short one, against a dark background.
Alfred T. Palmer, Library of Congress, 1943

Two women cap and inspect tubing for the Vengeance dive bomber at Vultee’s Nashville division in a picture Alfred T. Palmer took in February 1943. Most of the 1,931 Vengeances built came out of the Nashville plant. The red caps on the tubes make a neat row across the bench.

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