ROSIES DID DUTY FOR WAR.

Byline: Brent Hopkins Staff Writer

LANCASTER - She retired her rivet gun long ago, but Alma Hungerford's still as tough as the B-17s she built 60 years ago.

Like scores of other women eager to answer her nation's call during World War II, Hungerford spent two years with Lockheed's Vega Aircraft Co., putting her muscles and eye for perfection to use as a riveter.

Alhough those days are six decades in the past, she can still recall the pounding din of the guns as she toiled in the Burbank plant. She's lost touch with her old working pals, affectionately known by the catch-all moniker Rosie the Riveter, but their images stay fresh in her mind.

``We met a lot of interesting people, and we felt like we were doing something important,'' the 79 year-old retiree recalled Friday. ``We didn't even think about being patriotic; we just did it.''

Her sisters in arms will gather in Seattle this weekend, meeting at the Women in Trades labor organization's Rosie Reunion luncheon this afternoon at the Seattle Center. Though Hungerford herself won't be attending - too much distance and too little time for her - organizers expect a healthy turnout for the event, reuniting the wartime bulwark of the American industrial machine.

When American men enlisted by the tens of thousands after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, faltering wartime factories called for women to pitch in. Though Hungerford herself took the job without thinking of waving the flag, companies trumped up the patriotic angle to encourage women to sign on.

``They decided they certainly did not want to appeal to women on the basis of independence and making a good living,'' said Columbia University instructor Penny Colman, whose book ``Rosie the Riveter: Women Working on the Home Front in World War II'' tackles the subject. ``They decided on the patriotism path.''

Although Hungerford only worked two years at Vega, the memories are fond as she recalls the bustling assembly floor. The noise, she said, still rings in her ears today, a deafening roar never heard on the quiet alfalfa farm where she grew up.

``We couldn't hear each other,'' she said. ``You could stand face to face with someone and not be able to hear what they were saying because it was always so loud. I'd never handled those tools before - we became strong doing that.''

Plants, such as Seattle's Boeing, provided ``lots of dances, picnics and sporting events'' to help workers deal with ``the stress of the war - and the stress of the factory,'' said Boeing archivist Mike Lombardi.

Other Boeing incentives included transportation aid and help arranging day care, Lombardi said.

``I can still see them in my mind,'' Hungerford said. ``Lots of nice people, and I remember working hard with them.''

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Alma Hungerford

Recalls defense work

(2) Handling heavy power tools to build B-17s for Lockheed during World War II made her strong, Alma Hungerford recalls.