I don’t know what either of my grandmothers did during the war. However I do know what both my grandfathers did.
My grandfather on my dad’s side was a bombardier/navigator on B-25s and B-26s stationed on Guadalcanal at Henderson field and flew up “the slot” to bomb Japanese positions. His claim to fame was on the way back to Henderson field after a bombing mission in which his plane didn’t take part in the bombing run, jettisoned his bomb load. Since you couldn’t land with armed bombs onboard (due to weight and obvious reasons) they just dropped them over the jungle. After leaving the target area and on the way home he just dropped them and the patch of jungle they hit happened to be a Japanese ammo bunker. Anyway, I guess there was some big story in the paper that was written about it here in Oregon. He even received a medal for it. When he passed away several years ago it was amazing seeing him buried with full military honors.
My grandfather on my mom’s side was an engineer for US Army Corps of Engineers at Oak Ridge working on the method used to extract uranium-235 from uranium-238. At the time they didn’t know why they were doing this, but many of them suspected it was for a bomb of some kind. This grandfather was the one who gave General Groves his first tour of the Oak Ridge facilities. After the war he went to work at Hanford working with plutonium. He eventually grew tired, of what he calls “the bomb making business” and went to work for Oregon Freeze Dry, Inc as one of the head engineers. He is my only surviving grandparent which is a miracle considering all the radioactive isotopes he used to work with during and for a while after the war.
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