Oklahoma Military History Center

08/29/2026

08/13/2026

08/06/2026

Jeanne Gibson was one of the last surviving Rosie the Riveters. She died on Wednesday, July 29, at the age of 100.

When America went to war, the aircraft factories needed workers, and the riveters who assembled the bombers and fighters at Boeing, Douglas, Lockheed and Consolidated became the image of the whole effort. Around six million women went into wartime industry. They built the planes, the ships and the tanks, and they kept the war machine running while the men were overseas.

Jeanne was one of them. Born in Minneapolis in 1926, she was studying nursing when the war came. In 1944, at 18, she left Minnesota for Seattle and became a welder at Todd Pacific Shipyards, working swing shifts building destroyers for the US Navy. She later served with the Army Transportation Corps in Juneau, Alaska.

When it was over, she did something most women of her generation never got the chance to do. She earned her private pilot's licence. It had been a lifelong ambition, and she finally got it.

She also went to university, earned a doctorate, and taught for thirty years.

In retirement she gave her time to keeping the story alive. She became a regular at the Rosie the Riveter and World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, California, turning up for "Rosie Fridays" and telling her story to visitors and school groups who had only ever seen the poster. She made a particular point of talking to young girls.

In 2024, at 98, she and her fellow Rosies were collectively awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, one of the highest civilian honours in the United States. That same year she travelled to Normandy.

She kept going almost to the end. In the weeks before she died she received a Wall of Honor banner at the Richmond park and was honoured at a San Jose Earthquakes match.

Pacific Historic Parks, which announced her death, said her warmth and enthusiasm left a lasting impression on everyone who met her.

She was not the woman on the poster. She was one of the women behind it, and she flew, too.

Rest in peace, Jeanne Gibson.

08/06/2026

August 5, 1943 the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP's) was formed.
Read more: https://foundationforwomenwarriors.org/women-airforce-service-pilots-wasp/

08/06/2026

US Coast Guard established August 4, 1790

07/28/2026

Buffalo Soldiers Day July 28th.