The Icelandic connection - 01.06.2014, Side 37

Vol. 66 #4
ICELANDIC CONNECTION
179
When that contract
was completed in 1943,
Can Car was awarded
another contract to build
Curtis Helldivers for
the United States war
effort, many of which
were then sent on to
Europe for the British
Navy under the Canada-
US wartime Lend-Lease
agreement. Margret told
stories of how she had
to crawl into the farthest
tip of the wing with her
riveting tools to finish
off the final construction
of the airplane. “I was
never claustrophobic like
so many of the other
women, so that job was
always mine” she said.
They worked ten hour days with a half-
hour lunch break and two ten minute
rest breaks. It was difficult work in noisy
conditions in these monster metal and
concrete hangars. It wasn’t all work and no
play. Margret recollected making friends
with the other ladies during evenings in
the barracks and “the conga lines through
Winston Hall in our nighties”.
Whenever they got together later,
the three sisters reminisced about their
war years. It was an exciting time to be
young and single in the big city. On the
weekends, Winnipeg would fill up with
young men in uniform. The Halldorsson
sisters had three brothers, Harold, Karl
and Leo who had joined the Canadian
forces and were, at various times, training
at the army base in Shilo, Manitoba.
Whenever they were on leave, they would
head to Winnipeg to visit at Home Street
and take their sisters out on the town.
There were dances and movie theatres
and no shortage of young men in on leave
looking to meet the ladies.
Harold brought his army buddy Allan
Sabiston with him on one of his visits to
his sisters. Allan fell madly in love and
began spending every leave in Winnipeg
courting the lovely Lily who eventually
consented to become his bride. Their
daughter remembers the story her father
told of being so love-smitten, he stole a
jeep from the base at Shilo in order to
rush to Winnipeg to visit his sweetheart.
He got caught and got punishment duty
for months. He always said: “I am sure
I have peeled more potatoes than any
housewife in Canada”.