Ed, in 1999, on a visit out to California to see Darrell, I was invited
to the
home / shop of an ex drag racer and present day gearhead to see his collection
of old cars and rods . During our long gab session, I asked about the former
Kaiser shipyards there in Richmond, as he had grown up in the hills that
overlook the town, and was a boy during the WW II years . He said that
he could clearly remember the steady parade of trains bringing steel, and
all the huge amounts of material needed, to construct all those Liberty ships,
which played such a large role in our final victory . The other thing that
stood out in his mind was how he could see many, many, blue arcs from
all of the welding there, every night of the year, as the construction was a
round the clock, continuous operation for all of those years .
This was just one of all the yards, factories, mills, and shops, large
and small, that made America truly " The Arsenal of Democracy ."
During those busy years, the United States produced approximately
FIFTY PER CENT of all the military equipment on earth !!!
I think that I read somewhere that the father of Bonneville and drag
racing great Art Chrisman, and his brother, Lloyd ..... the senior
Mr. Chrisman, was a welder in the shipyards in the Long Beach area
during those years ..... these people helped to win the war as much
as all of those in uniform ......
Can we even imagine the thousands of tons of welding electrodes
that got used in places like this during those years of constant work ?
That is really burning some wire !!!
Bruce,
also thinking about all the flatheads that took those workers
to and from the job back then ...... and a ( VERY ) few of them are
STILL ALIVE and TICKING ..... or even KICKING A - - !!!
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