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BURNET — At the height of World War II, Katy Campbell Hall of Bertram worked at the North American Aviation plant in Grand Prairie installing the tail wheels on the famed P-51 Mustang fighters.

Maybe in today’s automated world that doesn’t sound like much, but the pilots who flew those planes 70 years ago saw things in a different way — especially when the fighters got them home in one piece.

In late January, the 89-year-old Hall got to take a trip down memory lane at the Burnet Municipal Airport as she ran her hands along the fuselage of a P-51, much like the ones she worked on as a 19-year-old.

PHOTO 1: Katy Campbell Hall, 89, stands next to a P-51 Mustang at the Burnet Municipal Airport in January. The Bertram resident once installed the tail-wheel assemblies on the fighter planes during World War II. Though one of the planes she worked on crashed after a battle, the pilot survived and returned to the plant  to thank Hall for her work. Courtesy photo

Her son, Rusty Hall, took his mother to the airport to see the restored fighter plane called “Pecos Bill” that will become part of an aviation collection.

“It was a great experience for her,” he said. “But also for me because it was so incredible to see her next to the plane — the type she worked on during the war.”

Hall was one of the thousands of women — often affectionately known as “Rosie the Riveter” — who headed to the assembly lines during World War II to fill vacancies in the factories left by the men who went off to fight the war.

Her job was to install the tail-wheel assembly on the P-51.

The P-51, considered one of the United States’ most versatile planes during World War II, was a long-range, single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber. Some historians say it’s the plane that won the war.

Rusty Hall said assembly-line workers such as his mother often wrote a message and signed their name inside the plane’s fuselage wishing the pilots “God Speed” or “Win the War.”

“One of the planes she worked on crashed in Europe and the only piece the pilot could recover was the tail-wheel assembly,” Hall said.

The pilot regained consciousness after the crash and was looking straight at the inspirational note inscribed on the fuselage, Hall said.

After the pilot recovered from his injuries, he returned Stateside where he was part of a tour that encouraged Americans to purchase war bonds to help fund the war effort.

The pilot made a stop at the Grand Prairie facility where his P-51 was built.

“So one day my mom hears her name called to come to the dining hall,” Hall said.

His mother feared she was being let go. She entered the chow hall where she saw the boss onstage with a man in uniform.

The serviceman turned out to be the pilot of the ill-fated P-51 who traced the debris back to Grand Prairie and the young Katy Hall.

“The pilot went on to tell my mom and all the other workers there how important their jobs were,” Hall said. “I think it was something that meant a lot to my mom.”

Meanwhile, his mother also enjoyed her recent visit to the refurbished P-51. Hall said the plane will eventually stay in Burnet as part of Cowden and Sherry Ward’s Freedom Flyers Foundation.

The foundation is building a hangar for the Mustang. Hall said the plane is now in Galveston, but will return when the structure is completed.

“I think it’s important to remember all the contributions people made at home during that war,” Hall said.

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