Zaddie Johnson, standing fourth from left and pictured in 1945, was the leader of an all-female welding crew during World War II at the shipyard in Mobile, Alabama.
That work ethic served her well during World War II, when she was part of an all-female welding crew at the shipyard near her hometown in Mobile. They had to learn how to climb on and off platforms, pull their own electric cables and join heavy pieces of metal together.
Like most young families during those years, they struggled. ‘We started with nothing, so you were glad for anything you had,’ Zaddie said. ‘Both my babies were in diapers, and I was washing on a rub board and drawing water out of a well. I look back and wonder how people did all that. We didn’t starve, but we had very little to exist on.’
She soon got a job at the paper mill, but worked there for only a short time. ‘I found out you could make more money at the shipyard,’ she said. ‘Just a little bit more money meant a lot to people.’ The crew consisted of about 15 women, and they worked until the war was over. ‘There was no men to do the jobs,’ she said. ‘I was assigned to the welding crew and I liked it. I didn’t know anybody by their first name.’
At least five tankers would be built at the shipyard at the same time. Once her job of helping build the hull was complete, the ship went to another area where the inside was finished. ‘Then some bigwig would break a bottle of champagne over it,’ she said.
After the war was over, they moved to Pascagoula where Miss Zaddie owned a restaurant and lived there five years. She hangs on to her memories and thinks often about how things have changed through the years. ‘We didn’t even have electricity until after we were married,’ she said. ‘Now if the power goes off, we’re helpless.’ Zaddie said she probably won’t see times again as tough as she had long ago, but she believes others will.
COMES A SOLDIER’S WHISPER remembering the Greatest Generation.
Jenny Tharp La Sala
COMES A Soldier’s Whisper
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Photo/Text Source: www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2365835/Zaddie-Johnson-leader-female-World-War-II-welding-crew-shares-story-74-years-
