World War II Honoree

Gerry Benjamin

Hometown

Ipswich, Massachusetts

Honored By

Ralph Bozorth

Relationship

A Grateful American

During WWII she worked in a Sylvania plant in Ipswich, MA where she assembled the delicate parts of the proximity fuse by hand, by the hundreds, daily, a tedious job that strained the eyes. She was not told what she was working on, and the work was done under such secrecy that she was searched when she entered and left the plant, and was not allowed to enter the plant with a purse. The proximity fuse greatly increased the accuracy of artillery shells.