It was at Pomona Junior College in the aviation shop building that it all got started. Willard I. Staples, the head man of the aviation shop, gathered us together and asked if any of us wanted to go to work for Douglas at Long Beach as jig builders. “What does a jig builder do?” we asked. “Oh, you will be cutting a lot of pipe,” he said. It sure would be great to go to work for Douglas, I thought.

Would I be willing to give up these classes in aviation that I was majoring in? There was aircraft drafting, machine shop and aviation shop. These classes were very enjoyable and would be missed very much. My favorite class was aviation shop. Old planes were brought in that looked like they would never fly again. With Mr. Bud Hadley showing us the way, we would restore these planes, engines and all, into new condition.

Pomona Junior College Aviation Shop

One plane I’ll never forget was a Great Lakes Trainer. It was a bi-plane with two open cockpits. It was beautifully restored. Even the control sticks had hand rubbed lacquer finishes. A few days after completion, two flyers dove it into the top of a big two story house. They had failed to pull out of a spin. When I got to the scene there was house insulation scattered all over the neighborhood. The plane was stuffed into a big hole in the roof and the engine was buried in the basement. Both flyers survived.

A model plane built by Dwight: Boeing B-12. Its made of metal, not wood.

In the aviation shop there were a lot of old aircraft engines just waiting to be worked on. There was this 900 HP Packard V-12 engine that Ward Woodridge and I took apart. We ground the valves. There were four valves per cylinder. Each cylinder was mounted separately on the crankcase.

So, why not have the best of both worlds, stay in school and work swing shift at Douglas? On May 7, 1941 I got started on the swing shift at 47 1/2 cents an hour. Yes, we got 1/2 cent an hour raises.

As I was led to the jig shop, we passed a huge work stand that went almost to the roof, 60 feet off the floor. On the floor at the base of this stand was an area outlined in chalk were a man had fallen to his death earlier in the day. This was the area that I worked in the first night.

The C-47 cargo plane, which is a military version of the DC-3, was the first plane we tooled up for.

A jig can be as small as your hand or bigger than a house. The one that we were working on was of the large variety. This assembly jig or "AJ" was for the center wing and engine nacelles, which were face down on the base, and the trailing edge of the wing  was straight up. At the outboard ends of the center wing were these big steel plates that located the bulkheads that the outer wings would be attached to later.

Building a jig this big with the primitive equipment available is worth describing. The base of the Assembly Jig was supported with jack screws and leveled in using spirit levels similar to a carpenter’s level. Piano wire stretched tight with a spirit bubble hanging on it was used for horizontal references. It always sagged.

To rig the two big end gates which support the outboard wing bulkheads in a vertical plane was an entirely different problem. By using heavy plumb bobs damped in oil pots, vertical references can be made. Piano wire was used to hang these plumb bobs. These had to be checked constantly because you may work for hours and find that the plumb bob has been dragging on the bottom of the pot instead of hanging free in the oil.

To check the end gates for spacing and being parallel to each other, a long tube with hardened buttons on each end and measured for span was used. Sometimes there was so much piano wire strung in all directions it was like working in a giant cobweb. We called it the ”wires and nails method”. We had to hang “paper dolls” on these wires to make them visible. Sometimes a spark from welding would hit a wire and Ping! There goes the clothes line.

To establish 90 degress on a floor layout or any large surface, we can thank that first boss we had, Mr. ”Mac” McGowan. He showed us his famous 3-4-5 method. If one leg of the triangle is 30 inches, the other 40 inches, the hypotenuse would be 50 inches and you would have 90 degrees. Any multiples can be used, i.e. 60-80-100.

Mr McGowan was a stickler for cleanliness. He would say in that rough German voice, “If you make a dirt, clean it up.”

Mr. McGowan saw this drill press base that had been in the area for quite a while. He told me to get the truck and take it to the salvage yard and that he was going with me. When we got to the salvage yard he picked out a piece of plywood and had his name put on it. He told me he needed it to put under their mattress because his wife had a bad back. While we were there I put my name on the drill press base. Douglas workers had first choice on all those items in the salvage yard. You could buy items that you could never find anywhere else.

The first big advancement in tooling in our shop was the introducton of the sight level, similar to the ones used for shooting in foundations for level. Not long after that we got our first transit. This took care of vertical references and just about eliminated the need for all that piano wire.

On the way to work one afternoon it appeared that a giant forest was growing up all over the plant and parking lot.  Soon cables were strung over the tops of all these poles. Then chicken wire plastered with chicken featheres was spread all over the cables. The entire plant and parking lot was camouflaged. Whenever it rained the cars got feathered.

I went up in a DC-3 just to see what the place looked like from the air.  It looked like a low hill with a few buildings scattered around. Lakewood Boulevard went right on through, just like it went over a low hill.

Aerial View of Douglas Plant

Bomb shelters were put in along Lakewood Boulevard and throughout the plant. When we had an air raid drill the plant was blacked out and everyone rushed to their prescribed shelter, where we would be crammed in like sardines. These shelters soon got a reputation and locked doors were installed. Later they were used for storage.

Commuting from where I lived at 819 West Holt in Pomona to Douglas was approximately 40 miles. There were no freeways then and we were always trying to find a faster and shorter route. We took turns driving and it took at least one hour to get to work. When not driving I knitted a sweater while riding in the back seat. I could do an hour’s worth of knitting without help.

June 18, 1942 was graduation day for me at Pomona Junior College. I didn’t want to miss work so I missed all the festivities.

One night after work, just as I got home, there was the sound of distant gun fire. It was all those anti-aircraft guns going off during a so-called air raid. One anti-aircraft round came down through the roof of one of the manufacturing buildings at Douglas and exploded on the floor leaving a lot of grooves in the concrete and damaging some of the building structure.

Along with the C-47 cargo plane we were tooling up for the A-20 ”Havoc” which was a twin engine medium  bomber.

Our tooling department 632 was growing as new people were being hired in. I’ll never forget the Arkies and Oakies, as we called the Dust Bowl Refugees. These people were great mechanics and they had a great sense of humor. They were good workers. I loved to listen to them talk. They didn’t like our earthquakes, though. When we had an earthquake we would look at all those thousands of lights hanging from the ceiling swinging in unison.

A typical jig shop had work benches along the aisle. In a corner would be a welding booth and welding machines, a couple of drill presses, grinders, and several surface tables. These surface tables were made of steel, cast iron and the most precise were made from granite blocks. The purpose of these surface tables was for building small jigs. Using height gauges, 90 degree knee blocks and other precision tools really facilitates this type of work.

Jig Building Shop

For recreation we started out with shuffle board. We painted our courts. We used steel jack screw plates at first, but after a little use they mushroomed around the edges too much. We had to regrind their edges after each session. Eventually we made them out of micarta. Ping Pong was the most popular game. The Douglas recreation department furnished the equipment.

For quite a long period the same people  played the same card game sitting in the same positions each day. The table was a cast iron surface table. After several sessions something unusual was happening to the surface where the cards contacted the table. One of the players had a strong acid condition. As the cards went around the table clockwise from his position the corrosion on the surface of the table gradually diminished.  Always oil your tools that you loan him.

Most of the people that started our jig shop came from the Santa Monica plant. They were our original bosses. Here is a summary of them:

Ted Pearson: Jokingly called Ted Pearshape

Joe Smith: He remarked that it was hard to be a good boss and still be a Good Joe. He married the office girl. He was my boss when I retired.

Harold Halvorsen: Some people called him the Sterile Norwegian until one day he came to work a proud papa.

Slats Horalec: He was a brilliant tooling man. He was my boss for a long time. One day he came to work just a shell of a man. His mind went out. He came to work regularly and just sat at his desk staring straight ahead. The company was very patient with him. This went on for months. Then one day he came in and he seemed fully recovered. He told me that his doctor unscrewed his head and screwed it back on correctly. Not long after that I went to his funeral.

Carl Gross: His deep base voice could be heard from one end to the other of the longest building. I went to visit him at the hospital on Pacific Avenue where he was to have minor surgery on his vocal chords. They told me he had expired.

Walter Berchtold: In my group for some time now were some of the most difficult tools to make and maintain. They were steam heated bonding tools. My new boss was Walter Berchtold. I’ll never forget his first words when he strutted into my area. ”Vas is so difficult mit des bonding tools?” He soon found out.

Bert Heller: The best boss that I ever had at Douglas. I called him at the Saint Mary Hospital. The last words I heard from him were “Mike, I can’t breathe.” He was a heavy smoker. I was asked by his family to be a pall bearer.

Butch Austin: The most difficult boss to get along with. Years later he changed some and so did I and we finally got along. At a retirement party at Rochelle’s, near the airport, I was sitting at a table with Butch Austin and Bert Heller. After a few drinks the tongues get loose. Butch told Bert Heller how he admired him all these years and that the big difference was that the people worked for him because they respected him whereas in his case, the people worked for him only because they feared him.

Now, to introduce some of the star jig builders that we had at this time:

Ray Days: One of the best. Every job he worked he used his Hewlett Packard pocket calculator.

Chuck Crowell: Big, good natured ex-heavy-weight boxer. He used to spar with Max Baer. A big surface table got tipped over on him when the overhead crane snagged it. His leg was crushed and I don’t know if he ever fully recovered.

Pop Neble: He was a real nice guy. He seemed to be under the influence all the time, but he masked it someway.

Mr. Wilson: He was known as Bleeding Eyes. He would put Rodney Dangerfield to shame. I can’t remember his first name but he was the most level headed man in the department. He always carried a mouthful of tobacco juice and if he should lean the slightest bit one way or the other it would spill out the corner of his mouth.

Ernest Hood: A real good natured guy and a good worker. I borrowed a pair of pliers from him one time to catch a rat by the tail. Afterwards I noticed he was cleaning the pliers with solvent.

Bill Boone: He is the one who showed me how to do the Crow Call. We tried real hard to get him to quit smoking, to no avail. He was just a young fellow.

Mr. Lowry: Some called him Liver Lips. Everyone liked him. He was not pretty. I threatened to take a counterbore in a drill motor and clean the hair out of his ears. We sure picked on him, but he didn’t care. The lunch that he brought each day consisted of some milky looking stuff and dried up looking sandwiches. We found a left over sandwich and let it sit until it got real moldy. Then we wrapped it up and put it in his lunch box. We all watched him eat it. He didn’t bat an eye. He got back at me, though. One of the big buildings wasn’t completed yet so Lowry and I had to go check it out. Lowry had picked up a hand full of shot from a ruptured shot bag on the way. When we got inside this huge building it was dark. Lowry came up close to me and said,“Mike, I have got to take a leak” and proceeded to pour that hand full of shot on my shoes.

Mr Fox: He and his wife had a pair of foxes for pets. When they died, they had them stuffed. He had pictures of them in his tool box.

John Lawrence: The most relaxed jig builder ever.

Eugene Deprete: Some called him Frenchy. He was one of the best. His humor kept everyone in good spirits. He was a great sketch artist, too.

Al Martin: The reliable one.

The Welders: They were special. You could always tell a welder by all the dingleberry scars on his neck and red eyes. When you go into a welding booth, the first thing you notice is the welder’s throne. 
These lounges are a work of art. They are welded up out of steel, padded superbly and then wrapped with lots of duct tape until they look like an overstuffed barber’s chair.

I was so impressed by the welders that I sketched several of them. These were great caricatures. I sure wish that I had saved them. My favorite drawing was of this welder who was a chain smoker. He was standing by the mantel of his fireplace. His cigarette holder held 5. He held some in his fingers. On the mantel there was a row of candlesticks with burning cigars in them. In the fireplace were the leftovers. I think he had some in his nose, also. There was almost as much cigarette smoke coming out of his welding booth as there was welding smoke. I told him that there was no reason why he couldn’t smoke while he waas sleeping at night. We would make up a simple cigarette wheel that clamped to his mouth. When lit it would burn all night. This way he could have round-the-clock smoking.

There was a welder from Pomona who I knew in school. His name was Virgil Amos. He could cut with an acetylene torch so smooth that there was very little cleanup.

So, with a crew like this, how could we lose? We had the C-47s and A-20s stacking up on the flight line. Now we start on the B-17. This tooling was going to be for high production.

B-17

The fuselage masters represent the real plane, only in steel. We had rows of fuselage assembly jig structures lined up waiting for these masters. They would be lowered into the jig structure. Then all the tooling points would be picked up from the master and attached to the jig structure. Then the master would be put into the next assembly jig and on down the line.

The wing assembly line was unique. All wing assembly jigs were mounted on wheels. The wings went from one positon to the next, like an endless belt.

The wing on the B-17 was very strong. Everyone has seen pictures of the B-17s returning from bonbing missions with big holes in the wings. The wing spars on the B-17 is where the strength is. These spars were made out of heavy wall aluminum square tubing. When all the cross bracing tubing was riveted in, the spar became a cantilever truss of immense strength.

The method of riveting these spars was very interesting. Bucking the rivets inside the tubes was accomplished by using an air expanded bucking bar called a “mouse” that was pulled through the tubing by a cable.

When we were in the pickup truck travelling near the north tunnel that goes under Lakewood Boulevard, we looked toward the nearly dark eastern sky and I said to Manuel, ”Look over there!” A huge fire ball was heading toward the ocean. It was a Russian satellite that ended up in the Gulf of Mexico.

The North tunnel that goes under Lakewood Boulevard was the sight of another unusual event. A man driving a pickup truck with a camper tried to go through the tunnel and peeled the camper right off the truck.

I remember when there was this young person who was a dispatcher and travelled between several departments. Everyone teased him and he was very excitable and would jump up and down. One night after work he was in a car going south on Lakewood. His car was involved in an accident near a gas station  and because it was so dark he was not discovered until the next day. He was found dead on the roof of the gas station wearing a dress.

 One time John Lawrence, Bill Boone, myself and at least one other person tried to ride the same bike. I was the peddler,  Bill Boone was on my shoulders and John Lawrence was on the handlebars. I believe another man was trying to stand on the axle stubs of the rear wheel. The trouble was we couldn’t get up enough speed and when we tipped sideways, we collapsed the rear wheel.

Meanwhile, back at work we were starting the toolup for the A-26 invader attack bomber which was twin engined with very clean lines. There were upper and lower gun turrets that were very shallow. They were operated remotely by periscope. The armament in the nose could be varied. One version carried a specially designed 75 millimeter cannon. The A-26 invader was the last twin piston engine bomber to be delivered to the Air Force.

A-26

The Douglas Long Beach plant established one of the most remarkable production records in the history of the aircraft industry. Just 16 days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the first C-47 transport was delivered to the Air Force. By VJ Day in l945 a total of 4,285 C-47 transports, 999 A-20Havoc attack bombers, 3000 B-17 flying fortresses and 1,156 A-26 invader attack bombers were delivered to the battle fronts.

There were opportunites for more education. They had War Training classes put out by the University of California. I took a 14 week class in aircraft tool design and the final test was designing a tool for a part of a plane. We were given an engineering print of the part. It happened to be a part of the plane we were building the tool for in my group. I felt a little guilty about getting an A on that test.

I had thought about transferring to the tool design department many times. We have to work with tool designers all the time. They are a great goup of people. Working over a drafting table just didn’t give me the freedom that I was used to, though, so I never did transfer.

G-Jobs? Yes, we did them. The first G-Jobs that I can remember were for Donald Douglas’s yacht that he and a Doctor White used down in Scammon’s Lagoon for studying whales. Then, there was this boss that every time he got a new car we had to weld him up a new trailer hitch. Once I was handed a tooling print by one of the big bosses and was told to have one tool built per print. It didn’t take long to recognize this tool as being a golf cart.

All the jig builders made precision tools that are difficult to buy. Parallel bars, angle blocks, V blocks and 1-2-3  blocks, to name a few. All these items required help from the tooling machine shop, so the machinist had to have his set, too.

Beautiful roll-away tool chests were made during slack periods. Every one was trying to out-do each other. After I left for the Navy I was told they had an assembly line making roll-aways, but it was finally halted.

The foundry used a lot of lead. The upper portion of the drop hammer dies were lead. They had a special mold for those big cod fishing sinkers

One of the tool liaison men was building a concrete sailboat, on the outside, of course. He had all kinds of stainless steel fittings made up in our jig shop.

Pranks were played on everyone. The trouble was that everyone tried to out-prank the other. Limburger cheese could be hidden in a tool box. A little dab in a socket was very effective. Most jig builders wore shop aprons. Lighting the apron strings was bad, because by the time it was noticed the clothing sometimes got scorched. This one welder delighted in slipping up behind me and pouring acetylene gas in my pocket with a small torch and then lighting it off with his sparker. It would go ”poof”. Ted Pearson had his tool box hoisted all the way to the roof area with the overhead crane. He also  had his pants removed and hidden. At the end of the shift the first two minute horn would blow and that was when everyone jockeyed for position to charge the time clock. This was frowned on by the bosses, but was very difficult to control. 

Individual lunch boxes were placed as close to the aisle as possible so they could be picked up on the run. One lunch box in particular got nailed down to the top of the workbench. When the final horn blew, the owner made his mad dash and came away with the just the handle. Fire extinguishers were all along the aisles where the men waited in line to clock out. Water fights were common. Leaving coats and jackets in the coat rack was just asking for it. Cuffs were stapled shut and sleeves knotted.

Out at the west side of the plant was a large storage area for tool masters, extra tooling, work stands and a lot of rabbits. Whenever we went out there we would prefer taking the motor scooter. This rabbit chasing area was our Outback.

There were always those who wanted to go to greener pastures. They wanted to quit Douglas and go to work at the shipyard. “We can make 15 cents an hour more at the shipyard.” I told these guys they would regret it and that they would lose their seniority and want to come back to us eventually. A rolling stone gathers no moss.

Most everyone in our department brought their own lunch. After a few meals at the Douglas cafeteria, which was famous for their apple core pie, you would become a brown bagger. This one welder, whose name I have forgotten, thrived on a diet of raw hamburger. The hamburger didn’t even smell good. It wasn’t even kept cool. We used the welding rod oven to warm sandwiches or TV dinners. We were told that we were contaminating the welding rods.

Vance Rust, a tennis friend, always rode his Harley 74 motorcycle to work. One day he asked me if I wanted to ride with him on his bike to Knotts Berry Farm in Buena Park during our lunch period. They have great chicken dinners. So, off we went. We didn’t have freeways then, but we made good time going 90 miles  an hour when traffic allowed. We had our chicken dinners and we were back at work on time. Lunch break was 42 minutes!

The Ivory Tower on Lakewood Boulevard

The buildings were kept clean. Good housekeeping was pounded into us constantly. Then overnight disaster struck! Smoking became permitted in the buildings. What a mistake. Sand filled ash cans were placed everywhere. Every stall in the rest room had big trays attached to the walls. Cigarette butts were everywhere and all over the floor. You’d pick up a phone and it would stink. No one had to sneak a smoke outside anymore. I’m glad to say that the plant is now smoke free againt thanks to the new smoking laws.

Safety lectures were given regularly. Posters were everywhere. Manufacturing buildings can be very dangerous. Every outside door was a sign at eye level, no entrance without wearing safety glasses. For a long time in our department a record was kept by the boss for every eye injury reported from the dispensary. I was in his office when the boss asked one man how he got the dirt in his eye. The man replied that it happened while he was sitting on the pot.

My first injury was when I lost the tip of my finger between steel plates that I was stacking up. The boss drove me to Community Hospital near the traffic circle where they did some plastic surgery. Several weeks later a guy came up to me and asked if I wanted the tip of my finger back.

A man in our group was using a drill press with a long small diameter drill. The drill started whipping around horizontally and scarred his face.

Driving dowel pins is one of the most dangerous operations when done with hard steel hammers or when the holes were not reamed properly. I saw where a piece of a dowel went through a man’s pant leg and into his leg like shrapnel.

Air grinders are very dangerous, especially the early models that had ceramic grinding wheels. If the grinding wheels were not installed with the proper washers or tightened properly they would crack. One unfortunate individual had a piece of a grinding wheel fly into his mouth.

A woman in the production department got her hair caught in a drill press. She was nearly scalped. Hair nets were required for women and men with long hair. They should be required for beards, also.

The tooling machine shop was located next to our main jig shop. Once in a while machine parts and tools would fly over our heads and slam into the wall of the building. A chuck wrench left in a lathe chuck when turned on becomes a missile.

A maintenance man was working on top of a big drop hammer machine. Even though he had probably turned off the air to the machine, he hadn’t bled the air out of the machine itself. Air pressure all over the plant was maintained at approximately 90 pounds PSI. When the man was disassembling a valve on top of the drop hammer it blew up in his face like a grenade.

We had safety men on duty all the time. They were always looking for hazardous and unsafe conditions. They were always at the scene of every accident. They held safety meetings regularly and shook us up with their gory stories.

There were those who moonlighted at various job shops. This one machinist wasn’t wearing safety goggles while operating a milling machine. The cutter grabbed and threw a piece of steel that smashed his eye. He was alone in this shop at the time.

Safety chains are used all over the production area. Access, in many cases, is by using safety snaps. These are similar to snaps used on dog leashes only much larger. We had a lot of these snaps in our department that were faulty and we were testing them. A safety man put one of these snaps in a bench vise then he pressed his hand against the portion of the snap that was protruding. He pressed with all his might and this faulty snap broke and his momentum carried his hand across the jagged surface.

If  you dropped a hammer or  a wrench when working overhead there was a good chance that it would get welded to the structure down below. Here is a safety slogan:  A split handled hammer and mushroomed chisel makes a job a hazard as well as a fizzle.

Dwight and Suggestion Award

Suggestion boxes were all over the plant. I got paid for 7 of the suggestions I made. The first one I made I was given a check for $5. The one suggestion that I should have turned in was for tool design to call for using square tubing in jig structures instead of pipe. I had talked to the tool designers many times asking them to call for square tubing. When building a structure out of pipe it was very difficult to make good joints. Visualize building a structure out of 12 inch diameter pipe and you need a 90 degree joint. It requires a saddle cut which is cut with a welder’s torch. It is rough and usually has to be re-cut several times or it can’t be welded properly. When using square tubing to make the same joint all that is required is a straight cut. The flat surface of square tubing also facilitated the attachment of tooling, where on pipe it was necessary to weld on pieces of channel iron to get a flat surface. Eventually square tubing caught on.

Harriet Fredericks in High School

Because the large assembly jigs were built on location they had to be reworked on location. Reworking was a way of life. Any change in the airplane made it necessary to rework the tooling. One day I was carrying two transits to a rework job in another building. When passing the B-17 wing assembly area, I met a Rosie the Riveter named Harriet. She became my wife.

Harriet Fishing

Dwight and childhood friend, Mickey

My parents passed away in 1942. I moved to Long Beach where my brother Raymond and his wife Marian were good to me and let me stay with them until I joined the Navy.

When a tooling job required the use of transits and levels the jig builders always looked forward to using them. It wasn’t long until it was decided that a group of women would do all the instrument work. The lead lady was known as Maggy. One of her girls was a tall blond with one eye that was crooked. She did good work, but we would kid her, “Did you use the good eye?”

We always had men doing the jig building. There were women in the template shop. Women worked on master plasters. There were women working in the master layout. They worked in all the tooling departments except the jig department. We had one man in the jig shop for years. He was a good worker and got along with everyone. He told us on numerous occasions that he should have been a girl. Finally after lengthy therapy, hormones and other alterations, Charles became Charlene. Our first girl jig builder.

Long Beach had a lot to offer even in those days. Swimming, deep sea fishing, pier fishing, boating, biking, and tennis to name a few. Then there was the Pike. Harriet enjoyed riding the Cyclone Racer. The Spit and Argue place was fun to watch.

Near the plant on Lakewood Boulevard was the Bomb Shelter. They had a burlesque show. I saw a striptease show there. Later it became the Union Hall for the UAW-CIO that represented the Douglas workers. In the beginning I wasn’t in favor of the union. They took a bite out of each pay check and I thought they were a bunch of Communists. If there were any, Walter Reuther cleaned them out. After all the raises and a few paid holidays, I changed my mind some.

I hated to go to union meetings. The first meeting I went to was held in the Scottish Rite Cathedral not far from the old Sears store. The meeting was interrupted continuously by Logan Crow. His constant crowing was very distracting. A large part of the union dues went to the International Headquarters in Detroit. It seemed to me that with all the dues coming out of all these thousands of employees that the union could afford to build their own hall. Much too late, they finally built one over west of the plant on Pixie Street.

Our tooling department would throw a big party once in a while. The Palladium in Hollywood was the favorite place. At Christmas time every department would go all out. The amount of food and drink was unbelievable. These festivities often lasted the entire shift. In later years these parties were not allowed. A lot of anniversary and retirement parties were held at Rochelle’s near the airport and at the Elks Lodge on Willow Street near Lakewood Boulevard.

Rochelle Restaurant

Harriet worked on B-17 ship 1000. It was lost the day after delivery. She also worked on B-17 G, Number 1512. The B-17 ”Sentimental Journey” was built at the Long Beach plant. There are only about 12 B-17s that are flyable now in 1995. There were continuous changes made on the B-17s, especially in the armament. More 50 calibre machine guns were added. The last model G had 13 machine guns. To test these guns, the B-17s were parked in concrete revetments where the guns were given a short burst. After the short burst of fire you would hear the crackling sound like bacon frying, which was the heated grease and oil on the barrels.

Group of Rosie the Riveters, Harriet is in there!

Overtime. Douglas always like to work their people overtime. Even when people were being laid off, they would work the remaining people overtime. It was time and a half for any hours over eight on Saturday. Sunday work was triple time. We worked one stretch of 3 months without any time off. 

There was one Sunday that I was asked to work, that I turned down because of some big family get-together. I believe it was the only Sunday work that I ever turned down. If I had worked that Sunday it would probably have been my last. That Sunday during the second shift there was a need for the overhead crane. There was no crane operator and one of the jig builders went up to operate the crane. If I had been there I would have been the first to go up. When this man was getting into the operator’s cage he crossed some electrical cables that weren’t insulated and he was electrocuted.

The Graveyard Shift is one that I have never worked. They worked 6 1/2 hours and got paid for 8. It seems to me that it was the wrong time of the night to be working. Overtime was also worked during the week. When working overtime on second shift we would go out to the parking lot after work and see the sun coming up. Second shift, or Swing Shift, had several advantages. Most of the big shots were on the first shift where they liked to make all the big decisions and do the chewing out. We always felt that more work was done on swing because everything was set up and ready to go and also there was a lot less confusion. If no overtime was required you could have quite a weekend.

Dwight atop Mt. Whitney

One Friday night after work I was picked up by my brother Raymond and a friend of his. We drove to Whitney Portal near Lone Pine. I had slept a little on the way. We started our hike to the top of Mount Whitney immediately. By Saturday night we were camped near the top at Mirror Lake. Sunday morning we went on up to the top at 14,496 feet above sea level. At this time it was the highest mountain in the United States. Alaska wasn’t a state yet, with its Mt. McKinley. We were back in Long Beach Sunday night. I didn’t have to be at work until Monday afternoon.

Gas rationing really put a crimp in travelling, long trips especially. I had a Harley 74 motorcycle that got pretty good mileage, but I never took long trips with it. I rode it to work at Douglas for a year and a half.

Dwight's Harley

My 1929 Model A Ford coupe was the way to go. It would run on Kerosene only if the engine was hot. By putting a small tank on the firewall for gasoline the engine could be started. The valve for the main tank of kerosene was then turned on and the valve for the small gas tank turned off. This worked fairly well if you didn’t forget to turn off the valve for the small tank of gasoline. When this happens you had better head for home before you have to turn the engine off.

Kerosene could be purchased without ration stamps, but it fouled the spark plubs and carboned up the engine. Finally there was a fuel offered at certain gas stations called Blazo. it could be purchased without ration stamps, but you had to bring your own containers.You couldn’t pump it into your car's tank. Blazo was a clear liquid that was used in some stoves. It was also called stove oil. the Ford and the Harley both started OK on Blazo. By filling the tank on the Ford and taking a couple of 5-gallon cans of Blazo in the turtle deck, you could take a nice trip to the Salten Sea or Parker Dam or both.

We not only had great beaches close by, but it wasn’t far to the desert and mountains. While the first shift was at work, we could be down at the beach. I was trying to swim from the old Belmont pier to the Seal Beach pier. Each day I could go a little further. By swimming just beyond the breakers it was fairly smooth. As my ears got cold and my legs cramped up, all I had to do was let the surf drift me to shore. Finally the day came to go all the way to the Seal Beach pier. On the end of Belmont pier there was a man with heavy fishing tackle. He had his hook sewed up in a bonita. He asked a boy on a paddle board to take his bait out approximately 100 yards. While this was going on I started to swim to the Seal Beach pier. When getting close to the pier, the water suddenly turned cold and a sea lion jumped up in front of me. My ears were cold so I called it quits and drifted to shore. Instead of walking back I hitched a ride back to the Belmont pier, which had a crowd of people on it. The fisherman had hooked up with a big shark. You could see it heading under the pier. Some guys went down a stairway under the pier and somehow got a line around the shark’s tail. The shark was brought up to the deck of the pier. We gathered around the shark and lifted it on to some scales. The Bonita Shark weighed 212 pounds.

Newport Beach was very popular because it not only had a great swimming beach, but good fishing. It reminded me when I was a child how my dad would take us to Newport to go deep sea fishing. While waiting for the boat, we would watch the Dory fishermen row those long slender double enders out to their favorite fishing holes.

Dwight in the Nav

While having all this fun, my consience was gradually getting to me. The company was giving me deferments regularly and I had become a Douglas Draft Dodger. Most of my school friends had become flyers in the Navy or Air Force.

When I went to the Los Alamitos Naval Station to sign up my hopes for becoming a pilot were not too high. While going through the lengthy physical, everything started looking up, until the last test. They caught my color-blindness with that Japanese color perception chart.  No flying for me. So that sent me to boot camp at Farragut, Idaho.  It was a beautiful place and I had a great time gaining 25 pounds.

I then went to the Great Lakes for basic engineering school. My next assignment was Bremerton, Washington.

Dwight and Harriet, married

On the way Harriet and I were married in Long Beach on June 15, 1945. We went to Washington together. Harriet got a job on the base at Bremerton and I was assigned to a sea-going tug boat. We would tow crippled ships back to the base for repairs, sometimes two at a time.

When the war ended I was shooting skeet everyday at the Aerial gunnery school on Whidbey Island, Washington.

So much for the war effort. I not only took Harriet away from her B-17 Rosie the Riveter job, I didn’t even get out of the country. We got in the car and drove back to Long Beach. Where else?

Douglas took me back without losing my seniority. however, now that the war was over, Douglas was laying people off. We would work from one Wednesday to the next. If we got past Wednesday without getting a pink slip, we had it made for at least a week. They finaly laid me off and gave me a job at the Santa Monica plant as a jig builder. After one week they called me back. They had laid me off out of seniority. After 5 months they nailed me for real.

North American was picking up while Douglas was going down. Wasting no time, I got a job with North American as a jig builder at the El Segundo division. It wasn't long until they wanted jig builders who were willing to transfer to their new location at the Douglas Long Beach plant in one of their vacated buildings. Guess who was first in line. it was great to be back home again even if it was a different employer.

 We were tooling up for the B-45, a four--jet bomber. The work was very interesting. They had me sending all the parts that needed machining back to the El Segundo plant because they didn’t have a machine shop at the Long Beach facility. I was able to help get harriet a job in the same building doing aircraft wiring. 

When one of these B-45s was attempting to take off it ran off the runway and rolled across Carson and into an empty field ending up in the trees. Fortunately no cars were hit. Tire marks from the plane were visible on Carson for sesveral days. 

After 7 months with North American, I was called back to Douglas. I’ll never forget that day. all that was necessary was to walk from one building to another and I was home free. Back to Douglas August 18, 1947.

It was a strange plant at that time. North American was building B-45s in one building. Kaiser Frazer was building cars in a couple of the buildings and Douglas was hanging on to the rest.

We must take a break at this time because on November 2, 1947 Howard Hughes flew the giant Hercules, 320 foot wing span, flying boat for the first and only time. Harriet was able to see this historic event.

There was another historic event that took place on January 29, 1948 that Harriet was very much involved in and that was bringing us our first of two girls, Jean Marie.

They finally took down all that chicken wire, cables and poles that had covered the plant like a big circus tent. There weren’t many chicken feathers left. The bomb shelters remained for now. And Douglas was struggling to take back the buildings they had vacated.

There was a one-of-a-kind plane that we did the tooling on called the C-74. Only one of these was built. It was a huge cargo plane with along cigar-shaped fuselage. The pilot and co-pilot were housed in theri own separate cabins, like streamlined bug eyes.

The vertical stabilizer stuck up so high that it would not clear the overhead when going out the door. A special ramp was built so that as the nose gear went up the ramp, the tail of the plane came down. Something like a teeter-totter. As soon as the tail cleared the building the nose gear went down the ramp at the forward end and the plane was out and level again.

On the C-124 Globemaster, the wing was the same as on the C-74, but the fuselage was much larger in depth and had clam shell doors in front. When these doors were opened, ramps were lowered so vehicles and equipment could be loaded.

C-74

Beginning in 1948 and continuing until May 1955, 445 of these giant planes were built. The first flight was November 27, 1949.

One turboprop version was built as a test bed for these new engines. The C-133 “Cargomaster” coming in the near future would have this kind of engine.

In the meantime, Harriet and I needed to have a home. We thought that after the war the prices of houses would drop because all the people would go back where they came from. Well, everyone stayed. So, we bought a lot and started building.

Building the house on Ximeno Street 1948-1950

We needed some rebar for the foundation. Douglas was tearing down the bomb shelters along Lakewood Blvd. By using a hacksaw I was able to salvage some from these demolished structures.

Building a house is a lot different than building tooling for aircraft.For example: a 2x4 piece of iron was 2x4 inches, but not a 2x4 stud for a house.

Harriet and Jean

You should have seen Rosie the Riveter nailing on the button board. She was also busy watching Jean Marie who was a toddler, and being pregnant with Jeri Lyn. We used genuine lathe and plaster. With Harriet’s help we were able to move in just in time for the roll out of the new girl, Jeri Lyn, November 20, 1950. This event completed our family.

Jean Marie, Jeri Lyn, Harriet

This is me and Jeannie, with Jeri Lyn on my lap, on the porch of our our new home in 1951

The DM-18 program was to produce the Nike ballistic defense missiles and a special shelter to house it. This system was to go to England. One shelter was set up on a special concrete slab, between 2  of our buildings. The roof would slide back exposing the missile. There was a lot of stainless steel used, some 3/4 of an inch thick.

A big odd shaped rubber bushing was required. It had to be turned on a lathe. The only way was to freeze the rubber and turn it before it thawed.

Another unusual job for an aircraft plant was the Arctic Hut. Honeycomb panels were used throughout it. These panels were strong and light and they had good insulating qualities. There were several floor plans and could be assembled rapidly. To test the Arctic Hut’s resistance to strong winds, one was set up near the flight ramp and was blasted by prop wash from a plane.

An unusual tooling job came up involving the DC6-B. This was a 4 engine propeller driven transport that competed with the Lockheed Constellation. The plane was being built at the Santa Monica plant. We were to tool up for a wider center section for the wing which would give it more wing span.

The DC6-B turned out to be one of the finest and most economical piston engine transports produced. They were produced until 1958 and a total of 288 were built. The first flight was made February 2, 1951.

1952 was an eventful year. The Long Beach airport was not long enough for the jet planes coming up in the near future, like the DC-8. Long Beach voted in favor of the extension and work soon began.

Most of the extension was on the eastern end where it terminated at the corner of Willow and Clark. Lakewood Blvd. was rerouted to the east so that the tunnel would be much shorter. The west  end was lengthened, also. The extension was completed in 1960.

Also, in 1952, we had our first strike. The UAW CIO, which represented the workers, couldn’t come to terms with the company.

I wanted no part of picket duty so I went to work for the Weber Showcase and Fixture Co. as a jig builder. The work had nothing to do with Douglas so the union did not object. The union did not have to pay me strike pay, either. Working at Webers was very interesting. The tooling that I worked on was for a military trailer equipped with all kinds of radio equipment. They had me working on plastic tooling. You have to mix your compounds by weight and measure,  then pour it over a special form which had bushings located all over it. When the plastic hardened you ended up with a drill jig with a compound contour.

The strike finally ended. It sure was good to be back at Douglas. There was a lot of work coming up. The B-66 Destroyer was a twin jet land version of the Navy A-3D Skywarrior. The A-3D at that time was the heaviest and largest aircraft to be flown off a naval vessel.

The B-66 was our first tooling on a jet powered plane at Douglas, Long Beach. The first flight was on June 28, 1954. 294 were produced. Some were used in the Vietnam conflict. Everyone went to the flight line for the takeoff.

The C-133 Cargomaster was the world’s largest turboprop transport at the time. It could carry payloads equivalent to twice the normal cargo capacity of the C-124. It was capable of carrying far greater payloads over longer distances than any other plane at this time. Later in 1958 a C-133 set a world record lifting 117,900 pounds to 10,000 feet. The maiden flight was April 23, 1956. The crowd roared when it took off.
At last the long awaited go-ahead for the DC-8 was given.  This was job security for a lot of people. The runway extension was well underway and two huge new buildings were started on the east side of Lakewood Blvd.

Cargomaster

One very big decision was made in regards to the DC-8 fuselage. It was designed so that it could be lengthened. How the wings would be joined was another big decision. This is a good example of why airplanes are so expensive. I hope that I can explain how this was done on the DC-8. Normally, the outer wing would be bolted to the center wing section, and that was it. To save weight, this is how it was done. The wings were joined at the center line. This may sound simple, but the upper and lower wing skins have to be formed at an angle in the area where they would normally be bolted together.

This is where it gets expensive. These huge wing skins taper in thickness and were made of 75 ST aluminum, which is almost like spring steel. So, how do you form them? They had a huge freezer box that would hold a stack of skins. When frozen, the aluminum skins became soft enough to be formed. The big Sheridan stretch press was a monster which would grip the frozen wing skin and would stretch it over a form block. It was a thrill to watch this machine in operation. They should charge admission to watch.

To tool up for a jet plane of this size major changes were made. Optical tooling was introduced. Powerful telescopes were used at one end of Assembly Jig and special optical glass targets with lights in them would be used at the other end. This was for horizontal references. For vertical references, tooling bars were used.

These were made in various lengths. The longest was 12 feet long. They were like long square tubes that were machined on top. This top surface had hole patterns jig bored in them so that it looked like a giant cribbage board. A scope that could be rotated in a vertical plane was mounted on a plate that indexed into these holes. To measure the distance you counted the holes and pegged in as required.

The wing assembly jigs that my group built would be used to assemble the aft section of the wing which includes the rear spar and all the fittings for the flaps, ailerons, etc.

These assembly jigs were 3 stories high. It took 8 tooling bars all optically aligned together to span one assembly jig lengthwise.

The manpower in our department had changed considerably since the war. I had a good crew and this is a note that I found in my papers regarding them and these two assembly jigs:

Avoid Verbal Instructions - May 6, 1955.To - W.G. Anderson, E.I. Hood, H.E. Nienaber, T.G. Love, J.W. Allen, F. Tavalozzi, W.W. Sherrer, D.E. Duerre, R. Neill. Let it be known that your efforts on building the 5503165 and 403 and 404 AJs were indeed gratifying. At the time you were told that May 1, 1955 was the deadline it looked like shooting the moon. I know that I wouldn’t have bet a lot that you would get one completed by May 1. I believe that your workmanship was outstanding, which in a real accomplishment in as much that its not easy to do neat work when under pressure. I want to thank each and every one of you for the fine job you have done.  signed  DF Minnich.

The next job they gave us was to build the wing joining position.The wings have to be aligned for sweepback and dihedral. Dihedral is the amount that the wing tip is raised in relation to the inboard end.

The wing on the DC-8 was the fuel tank. The front and rear spar represent the front and back of the tank. The upper and lower wing skins represent the top and bottom of the tank. Every rivet and attachment has to be fuel tight. And remember the wing flexes during flight. After the wing is joined it is moved to a special sloshing area. Sealant is poured into the wing and it is rocked like a teeter totter.

The fuselage had what was called a constant section for and aft of the wing. This made it possible to stretch the fuselage on future models by adding new sections as required. For example, the Super 61 model had the fuselage lengthened by 37 feet. The Super 62 had the fuselage lengthened by 7 feet and they added 3 feet to the end of each wing. This was the long range model. The super 63 model was similar to the 61 except it had the 6 foot longer wing and power plant improvements.

The first flight of the DC-8 was May 30, 1958. The last DC-8 made was SAS ship 556.

When DC-8 ship number 2 was going through f light tests at Edwards AFB, the fuselage was broken aft of the wing. My group was sent to Edwards AFB to do whatever tooling was necessary to rig and hold in alignment the broken fuselage with the rest of the ship. It was a sad sight. The only thing that kept the tail off the ground was a mattress. One look inside the fuselage and you could see why this accident could easily happen. On the full length of passenger deck where the seats would normally be there were cradles with big round water barrels nested in them from one end to the other. A hard landing was all that was needed. Talk about overkill.

A dolly was put under the tail and the ship was towed into a big hanger. By using wing jacks at the jackpoints under the wing and a support cradle just forward of the break, the ship was leveled in. The big problem now was how to align the broken portion of the fuselage to the rest of the ship. All the damaged area had to be cut away in such a way that a new section being made in Long Beach could be installed.

To establish a center line of the fuselage on the floor required dropping plumb bobs suspended from rivet holes in the bottom of the fuselage. We painted targets on the floor because we weren’t allowed to drill holes in the floor.

There were numerous hydraulic lines that were ruptured and where do you think that the leaking fluid went -- right through the rivet holes, down the plumb bob line and onto the painted targets which pealed off immediately. It was powerful stuff. This hydraulic fluid was a Douglas patent called Skydrol. I renamed it Skydrool.

We had instrument stands that we brought from Long Beach, but they weren’t tall enough. We went outside to look for something we could put under our stands to make them higher. It was so hot out there that the lizards were standing on their tip-toes. We rolled in some 100 gallon empty steel drums. By arranging these drums to fit the bottom of our stands and furnishing a ladder for the operator we got the elevation required.

After using cradles and jacks the two fuselage sections were aligned. The new section of the fuselage called the Pickle Barrel arrived and was spliced in position good enough so that the ship could be flown back to Long Beach where the repair was done over again and made like new.

A DC-8 that was being readied for delivery caught fire from some cleaning solvent and burnt the whole top of the fuselage. The fuselage is made in two sections top and bottom. By putting on a new top section the plane was made like new, but it was a big job.

There is a DC-8 Federal Express plane that comes to the Long Beach airport occasionally. For a 30 plus year old plane it is still the best looking of them all.

Douglas, Long Beach put out the welcome mat October 12, 1958 for a big open house. On display was a DC-8, C-133, C-124,  B-66 and others.

Everyone had high hopes for Douglas to get the contract for the C5-A very large military transport. We had more experience in building big transports than any one else. Lockheed got the job and we were heart sick. That was in 1965.

Awards

The Douglas El Segundo division began to down size by moving huge machines to the Long Beach Plant. Big holes were dug in the floor and heavily reinforced concrete pits were made to accept these machines.

This one-of-a-kind machine has to be seen to believed. It was an 1800 ton, 42 foot long Verson Press Brake. It provided us with the largest press brake capacity in aerospace.

The entire A-4 Skyhawk production was moved to Long Beach.  Relocating the tooling gave us a lot of work. New models of the A-4 required reworking the tooling. A lot of employees were moved to Long Beach. We jokingly called them El Segundo refugees. The union and the company had quite a time figuring out the seniority rights of these people.

A-4 Skyhawk

The A-4 Skyhawk has had a remarkable production record.  The first flight was on June 22, 1954. There were 2,960 built. Production ended February 27, 1979. It became the official plane of the Navy’s Blue Angels in 1974. It was small enough that it did not need folding wings. It was in service 30 years.

The DC-9 twin jet transport was designed for the short to medium range. The engines were mounted on the fuselage near the tail. Like the DC-8 the fuselage had constant sections so it could be stretched. The wings and tail cones were built in Canada by Dehavilland and shipped by rail. One DC-9 wing arrived with a bullet hole clear through it. Also a flat car that had DC-9 tail cones on it had caught fire on the way from Canada. I was asked to check to see if we could repair the supporting structure that held the tail cones in place. The wood deck of the flat car had all burnt up. A dragging piece of metal rubbing on a wheel started the fire. Some of the tail cones had melted into big gobs of aluminum.

DC-9

The tooling on the DC-9  that was left was the fuselage, horizontal stabilizer, and all the wing and fuselage joining positions.

Our tooling department, when we were working on the DC-9, wasn’t very big. A lot of people were laid off. I had been a leadman most of the time up until now. My boss became my leadman and I was back building jigs.

The DC-9 cockpit enclosure assembly jig was a fun tool to build. I couldn’t figure out why all the big shots kept checking on the progress of this assembly jig. It so happened that this was the first tool to be delivered to production on the DC-9. It was 4 weeks ahead of schedule. They had a big ceremony and Donald Douglas Jr. drove the first rivet in the assembled parts in this assembly jig.  Jackson McGowan, Vice President and GeneralManager of the aircraft division, bucked the rivet. They should have had Harriet there to show them how it’s done.

Another interesting tooling tale concerned the horizontal stabilizer.The DC-9 has what is known as a T tail. The horizontal stabilizer rested on top of the vertical stabilizer. The engineers determined that the “horrible stab”, as we called it, wasn’t big enough. Re-tooling for a new larger one was called the 215 program and was a rush job. We had this leading edge assembly jig just completed and ready to move to production. This tool was about 12 feet long and had 4 supporting legs plastered to the floor. This plaster had a lot of fibrous material in it to make a strong temporary attachment to the floor, eliminating bolting while being worked. We called this process putting on elephants feet.

This AJ (assembly jig) was ready to move. I had the control box in my hands that operated the overhead crane. A 4-way cable sling was hooked up to the AJ and the cables were snug. All that was necessary to lift the tool was to push the up button on the control box. This one boss, who was not a tooling man, asked why I was hesitant to lift the tool. I told him I was afraid I might lift part of the floor up with the AJ. The boss immediately said, “Oh! I don’t think so,” and I laughed to myself. You have to have a little fun once in a while.

The first flight of the DC-9 was February 25, 1965. On November 29, 1965 the first revenue passengers were carried. The first stretch version of the DC-9 was the series 30 which had a 15 foot longer fuselage. The DC-9A Nightingale was a variation of the series 30. It was an aeromedical ship ordered by the Air Force Military Airlift command in 1967.

To facilitate a sale of DC-9s to Yugoslavia, Douglas did its best to help sell their hams.

The formation of the McDonnell Douglas Corporation took place on April 28, 1967. The news of this merger was met with mixed feelings here in Long Beach. I felt that we lost some of our identity. Look who got their name in front. Even our pay checks startd coming from Saint Louis, Missouri.

A major event of 1968 was the commitment to production of the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 advanced technology Tri-Jet. The wings were to be built in Canada by DeHavilland. Having the fuselage barrel sections made in San Diego by ConVair was a poor decision. They were nearly 20 feet in diameter and very difficult to transport. For a while these barrel sections were flown to Long Beach in a specially built plane called the Super Guppy that looked like the Goodyear Blimp with wings. The nose section would swing to one side to allow the cargo to be removed. When the Guppy went to France to be used in their space program, the barrel sections were transported to Long Beach by barge.

Fuselage Assembly

A full size mock up of the fuselage was built. It was made of metal like the real thing. The base structure that we built to assemble this mock up was so long that laser beam tooling was used for longitudinal referencing. For horizontal referencing we were still using the Wilde level. It is a Swiss made instrument with a split bubble which is viewed through a built- in lens. This instrument had one peculiarity. The image was inverted. Through the years the guys got used to this, but it always bugged me. Finally, I asked Eugene DePrete, who was a great sketch artist, to draw up my answer to this problem. Eugene was one of the finest, good natured, all around jig builders that I have ever known. His sketch is a classic and I still have it. It shows one of our heavy steel tripod instrument stands. On top of the stand, where the Wilde instrument would normally be screwed on, Eugene has drawn a large gooseneck, like an inverted U. On the end was the Wilde attached upside down. Now, when looking through the instrument, you have an upright image. Eugene has himself drawn as the operator. A pentaprism would also solve the problem. The excuse was that some clarity would be lost through extra mirrors and lenses.

DePrete's Drawing

Most of the tooling on the DC-10 was building huge joining docks and positions. The wing joining position where the two wings are spliced together is still there at the south end of building 84 where the wings for the MD-11 are joined now.

On the DC-10 wing all the attachments were made out of titanium and were tapered. These tapered bolts and rivets all required a perfect fit. Every hole was taper reamed. After the wings were joined, the next position added a barrel section of the fuselage. In the next positions the fore and aft sections were added. If it was a stretch model the longer barrel sections would be installed.

Even though each section of the fuselage was mounted on big yokes that rolled on steel tracks, the alignment required final adjustment. This is where the Avon Lady comes in. Our group built an alignment tool and the number on the ID brass tag on the tool was AVO.... something or other, I can’t remember exactly,  but I called it the Avon Lady and the name stuck. Every time there was a fuselage joining we would send a crew, and tell them to get the Avon Lady and join ship so and so.

This alignment tool indexed into the seat tracks on the main deck. One part indexed at the one end of the fuselage and one part at the other end. By using telescopes and a Wilde level, the operators could tell the production people what adjustments were needed.

When the first DC-10 was joined, the view looking forward from  on top where the number 2 engine in the tail would be mounted was fantastic.First, you are looking through the air intake tunnel in the vertical stabilizer which is 6 feet in diameter and there stretched out below was the rest of this giant ship.

The company sent me to school to train for manufacturing supervision, which was completed May 13, 1969. My final 10 years would be on salary.

They assigned me to a job in production on the DC-8 wing. Working in production is a far cry from working in tooling. It wasn’t long until I learned to have a lot of respect for production workers. When they make a mistake it isn’t always easy to fix.

This one young man in my section was working inside the tank area of the wing using a pin router in an air motor. When I asked him to hold up, it was too late. He had gouged into the wing skin. This may seem like a minor error - not so. All the bulkheads and stiffeners had to be removed just to get to the area cleared so that a special oval plug could be put clear through the wing skin with a backup doubler. I felt as bad about it as the poor guy that did it. He received a reprimand. In tooling, you drill a hole in the wrong place, no big deal.

Certain areas of the DC-8 wing were very difficult to get in. We had a midget that worked in these inaccessible areas. Anytime any part is added in the tank area of the wing it has to be sealed.  When you want a sealer you signed up for one. Women did most of this work. They have a special sealing gun that uses sealant capsules right out of a freezer chest.

It was a great experience working in production but it was a relief getting back into tooling. For example, in production it is a constant strain. This lady boss was having the DC-8 tank section of the wing lifted out of the Assembly Jig. As the crane lifted, oneof the steel contour bars of the Assembly Jig snagged the rear spar, ripping it loose from the tank section. The lady boss sat down and cried.

In production you have to stay on the job all the time. In tooling you have more mobility. We may have to go anywhere in the plant at any time.

VIP Award

Our group was selected to get the VIP Value in Performance  award for the second shift. I told the guys to dress up tomorrow because we were going up the Ivory Tower, which was that tall office building on the west side of Lakewood Blvd. Guess what, all the guys came to work in suits. They spent the night working dressed up, but some used shop coats or aprons.

They were always sending individuals or groups up to have their pictures taken with an award. When I got my 25 year pin they took me to dinner in the supervisor’s section of the cafeteria on October 29, 1968.

The people in the country club estates, north of Carson, had been complaining about our heavy machines banging away in the buildings just south of Carson. They complained that cracks in their houses and swimming pools were caused by these machines. The only machines that were earth shaking were the big drop hammers. Even though they were mounted in reinforced concrete pits and were cushioned, it was a terrific blow when they came down. Douglas put up sound walls and planted a lot of trees on both sides of Carson to help quiet the natives.

DC-10

At 10:00 am, Saturday, August 20, 1970, with 20,000 people watching, the first DC-10 took its maiden flight. The project pilot, Clifford Stout took the trijet to an unscheduled altitude of 30,000 feet and landing at Edwards AFB 3 hours and 26 minutes after take- off.

The paint building, at the corner of Conant and Faculty, had been rebuilt to handle the DC-IO. This is a very complex building. During painting, the temperature and humidity had to be just right in a dust free environment (building). The paint fumes are processed through special ventilators.

You should see what a DC-10 looks like just prior to painting. All the green protective covering has been stripped off and the ship is cleaned and prepared for painting. The entire ship gleams like a sheet of aluminum foil.

We built the mobile paint stands that run on tracks under the wings. They were powered by air motors. The painter used a hand throttle that moved the stand.

For the fuselage there were painter cages suspended from the overhead that ran on tracks. The painter could move along the side of the ship as he masked or painted. They could move up or down, also. When a plane is being stripped of its protective coating there is a tremendous amount of material that flows into a reservoir where it is processed.

The stretch versions of the DC-10 were series 30 and 40. The KC-10 extender was the military ttanker Cargo Version. It carried 68,600 liters of transferable fuel by a flying boom operated by a man in the ventral station of the fuselage. Getting the contract with the Air Force for the KC-10 tankers was great news. Up until now all the previous tankers were Boeings. 

We built a temporary work stand to facilitate work on the tail of a DC-10. It was built out of scaffold parts something like an erector set.  We called it the Bamboo Jungle. The structure was 3 stories high. When it was no longer needed I was asked to get it dismantled. I had Charley Law go with me to look it over. He was near the top of the upper stairway and I was right behind him. Just as I neared the top of the stairway, it dropped under me like a trap door. Charley was able to hang on and I dropped straight down, landing on the bottom stairway handrail just like landing on a horse.  I came to a complete sudden stop.  All I could think of was to get out of there. The 500 pound steel stairway was hanging up above by one little strip of metal. This was another one of those times when someone was looking out for me. Charley’s forearm bothered him for several weeks. I went to the dispensary where no damage was found. I donated blood to the Red Cross later that night.

The fastest tooling program I ever worked on was the YC-15. It was a 4 engine transport being developed for the Air Force with externally blown flaps to increase lift.  It would have short take off and landing capabilities. Only two prototypes were to be built. The tooling would be minimal. The tooling and assembly of the two prototypes would be done in Building 15, known as the X shop.

YC-15

My job was to get anything we needed to build the tools from any department in the plant, if necessary. For example, we got aluminum photo shots on 1/8 thick aluminum. We filed them down to the proper line and fastened them to plywood to stiffen them. With several of these rigged on a simple structure we had a Assembly Jig good enough to do the job. If we needed machine work, all you had to do was ask the machine shop and it was as good as done.

The jig builders that worked on this job really worked as a no nonsense team. They had me running all over the plant getting tooling items they needed to keep going. As soon as a tool was completed, the production people were assembling parts in them. It wasn’t long until the wing and the fuselage was ready to be joined.

Shortly after the roll out of the first YC-15, Douglas had an open house for the employees and families on August 16, 1975. This time the visitors were allowed inside the buildings and tour the assembly lines. On display was a DC-9, DC-10, A-4, and the YC-15 aircraft.

The YC-15 #1 took off on August 26, 1975. Harriet and I with my brother, Raymond and his wife, stood right where the Marriot Hotel is now, watching the take off. Ship no. 2 took off on December 5, 1975. The YC-15 was the fore runner of the C-17, which is now in production for the Air Force.

To get the FAA Certificate on the new DC-9-50, it was required to have an emergency evacuation demonstration. It was held in building #54. I was #216. When everyone was seated and the lights were out, a signal was given and everyone unbuckled and headed for their designated door which was opened by a stewardess, who activated the inflatable escape slides. All you had to do was jump out the door and slide down to the floor. Everyone got a certificate and so did the DC-9-50. The evacuation test on the DC-10 was similar except there were a lot more people and when you jumped out you had a longer slide to the floor.

In 1976 I joined the Douglas Aircraft Mangement Club. They held meetings in the Elks dome-shaped building on Willow near Lakewood Blvd. The big shots had their retirement parties held there. I enjoyed the old time movies of the early attempts at flying.

The Douglas M2, open cockpit biplane that was built in 1926 was resting in the end of one of our buildings. As we visited it, from time to time, we noticed that it was being beautifully restored by some men who donated  their time.

M-2

On Tuesday, June 22, 1976, the M2, with the red and silver colors of the Western Air Express, took off with the nation’s first woman airline passenger in the front open cockpit and the pilot in the rear open cockpit.

Wearing helmet, goggles, scarf, jump suit and parachute, as she did 50 years ago that month, Maude Campbell of Los Angeles reenacted her first flight. The original cost of the aircraft was $15,000, including the war surplus liberty engine. The transcontinental flight to a place of honor in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC would be its last.

Another lengthy strike of 13 weeks is finally over, May 1978. Being on salary, we had to try to get some work done. They sent me to Torrance to run a lathe in the Douglas machine shop. The lathe was about 25 feet long. When we drove into the parking lot the strikers would holler at us. One guy had all 4 tires slashed on his camper. During the strike, 5 DC-IO’s and 4 DC-9’s were delivered and all the planned line moves took place on schedule.

Back at Long Beach at last. On the way out one night I noticed a Japanese Zero Fighter plane parked near the flight line. Later I learned that this was the only flyable Zero in the world at this time, July 1978. The plane was captured in Saipan in 1942. It took 5 years to completely restore it. One of the test pilots who flew this plane was Col. Charles Lindberg.

Capt.  Don Lykins, a Western Airlines jet pilot, flew the Zero from the Chino Planes of Fame Air Museum to Long Beach. Right on his tail was Ed Maloney, President of the Museum flying a P-51 Mustang. The two pilots and these two planes were invited by the Japanese Government to fly at a Tokyo air show commemorating the 33rd anniversary of the end of WWII. It would be the first flight of a Zero over Japan since 1945.

The F-18A Hornet was a new fighter for the Navy. Somehow, we got the job of tooling up for the forward fuselage section. At this time, 1978, most fighter work was done at the St. Louis plant.

When you build jigs for a Navy plane, you do it the Navy way. Before you could bolt, dowel or attach any part on a tool, you had to consult the library we had in our office. The Navy manuals gave explicit dimensions for the hole patterns. Big wall charts had to be kept up showing the progress, hours used and if we are on schedule. Keeping these charts up was one of my jobs. I used various colored ribbon tapes.

The F-18 eventually became the new official plane used by the Navy’s Blue Angels.

I told my boss, Joe Smith, a year in advance that I was going to retire on my birthday in January, 1980 and that I wanted it kept just between the two of us. I was going to slip out quietly. I worked hard that last year because I wanted the time to fly by. And it did. I went to work an hour early every day to check with day shift in some of the tooling departments.

The template department had several women template makers. They were very good at filing down to the line. During break time they worked jig saw puzzles. They had the completed ones on the walls. I always wondered how they did that. I think they worked them on masking tape.

The master plaster pattern department was a very important part of tooling. They would rig these templates on edge with the proper spacing and then fill the spaces with plaster. You end up with a pattern which is an exact replica of that part of the plane. Casts can be made from them. They are used to develop the form blocks for drop hammers or stretch form blocks. We use the casts to develop various compound shapes for jigs.

The tool and die group was where I liked to spend some time. Most dies are made using engineering prints only. Sometimes you had to study these prints for hours before you could get the dimensions or degrees of angle or radius. To get a die to punch out a perfect part requires close tolerance work. They require regrinding sometimes when they get dull.

Department 635 was the tooling machine shop. This was one of my favorite areas. You have to give the machinists a lot of credit. In a way its a lonely job. No matter whether he is running a lathe, mill, grinder, jig bore, shaper, boring mill or vertical lathe, the guy had to stand on that rubber matt for 8 hours by his machine.

A numerical control or NC machine was set up in Department 635. Once the billet was attached to the table of the machine, the cutter did all the work programmed by the tape.

The 5 spindle variax was a variable axis machine that could machine 5 F-4 Phantom carbon steel fold ribs at one time.

Our department 632 jig and fixture groups were scattered throughout the plant. When there was a tooling break down in production, we would work out of the nearest group. There was one breakdown that is worth mentioning here. When the first DC-10 wing was joined it was loaded on this big transport dolly that we had built. It was being towed by a tug from the south end of 84 to the paint building where it was to be sloshed.

We were walking along with men at the 4 corners where the wheels were, watching and ready for trouble, when it happened-the big dual wheel assembly right where I was walking collapsed. As it broke away that corner of the dolly dropped until part of the base structures hit the pavement. We had emergency jacks on board the dolly. We put one under the dolly right away, but the corner of the dolly and the jack began sinking into the pavement like it was the La Brea Tar Pits.

The wing was tilting in a precarious manner but fortunately a forklift arrived and saved the day. A machinery dolly was put in place of the missing wheel assembly and the wing finally made it to the sloshing area. This same wing dolly, with the new heavy duty truck wheels on all 4 corners, is still being used on the MD-11.

I believe that I have had my hand in every tooling program since the plant opened.

My last year was a lot of fun and very satisfying. I left with very little fanfare. I grew up with the Douglas plant and if I had it to do all over again, I would be the first one in line.

Dwight at Retirement, age 59

Boeing eventually bought out McDonnell Douglas. All my pension checks come from them. Boeing had the entire main plant leveled in the late 1990's. The Douglas Aircraft plant no longer exists. The cement floors were ground up and the material was gradually hauled away, I think to make more cement. Boeing said this vast area will become "Douglas Park."

 I think most of the palm-lined streets are in. There are a lot of big commercial buildings completed in one section. A shopping center was part of the original plans & some housing. You can drive in now, as of Fall 2010. It's hard to keep up with whats going on because the area has a temporary fence and you can't see much. I still live a few miles west and watch the planes coming and going to and from Long Beach International Airport, which is between the old Douglas plant and my house near the 405 Freeway. Harriet passed away at the age of 76 and I am in my late eighties and still live in the house we completed in 1950. 

Dwight in the twenty first century