The Icelandic connection - 01.06.2014, Side 35

Vol. 66 #4
ICELANDIC CONNECTION
177
free, to and from the Cordite Plant to
Union Station. Although the factory was
decommissioned and destroyed after the
war and the site has been cleared, there is
still a Cordite Road listed on maps at the
farthest eastern boundary of Winnipeg.
MacDonald Brothers quickly built
a concrete and metal building of over
170 thousand square feet (approximately
four football fields size) to set up their
factory at the far west end of the city.
They began assembling Anson aircraft
which became the mainstay of the
British Commonwealth Air Training
Plan. Quickly, other buildings were
erected across the street for more parts
manufacture and to house damaged
bombers that were now being shipped
in. Large quantities of crash damaged
airplane parts, many with bullet holes,
began arriving and needed to be sorted,
repaired and reassembled.
In 1940, Margret began working for
Canadian Car and Foundry Company
(also known as Can Car) in Winnipeg.
She was boarding at her aunt Albertina
Benson’s place on Home Street in the heart
of what was then the Icelandic district of
West-End Winnipeg.
She was riveting wings
and fuselages for the
‘Hurricane’ aircraft.
The call for women
to work in the factories
was ever more urgent as
the call for men to join
the armed forces shifted
from volunteering to
conscription. Anna
moved to Winnipeg
and doubled-up with
Margret in the room
at their aunt’s house.
The Cordite Plant was
quick to hire her. She
didn’t talk much about
PHOTO COURTESY OF BRISTOL AEROSPACE LIMITED, WINNIPEG PLANT
her job there other than she said: “I made
bombs”. She and her sisters did tell of
how they remembered her coming home
from work every day dirty, with a black
dust on her clothes and the dust ground
into the skin of her hands.
Lily had been sent to Lundar to
attend grade nine because their one-room
school only accommodated students up
to grade eight. After finishing grade nine
in 1941, she too went to Winnipeg and
joined the war effort with her sisters. She
moved into her aunt’s house with her
sisters and got a job with MacDonald
Brothers. There were now three of them
PHOTO COURTESY OF SHERRY TUBBS FORSTER
Workers on break at the Cordite Plant, Anna in the far top
right corner