One thing that has been lost in time is our ability to make things. Back in the WW2 era the men that worked on machinery were real mechanics..NOT "parts changers" like we are today. If something on ship broke and they didn't have a part, they would just make a workable one from stuff that was available..
My dad, who was a millwright, made all of his own tools for working on machinery.
My Uncle Al went into the merchant marine in 1936 and I saw some of his handy work in building boilers. A one inch cut through steel with a blow torch which looked like it had been cut with a saw blade...it was perfect!
Our fathers grew up making do with what they could make. We are not like that.
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