D-Day anniversary shines a spotlight on ‘Rosie the Riveter’ women who built the weapons of WWII

By SYLVIE CORBET and JOHN LEICESTER
Associated Press

PEGASUS BRIDGE, France (AP) — In World War II, millions of women rolled up their sleeves and worked in defense-industry factories, freeing up and equipping men for combat. They had their own icon in “Rosie the Riveter,” a woman in a polka-dotted bandanna flexing a muscular arm. She was the star of a recruitment poster that declared: “We can do it!” A few “Rosies” are in Normandy for the 80th anniversary of the June 6, 1944, Allied landings on D-Day that helped liberate Europe of Adolf Hitler’s tyranny. One woman says that “we were doing it to save our country. And we ended up helping save the world.”