Elkton’s Triumph Defense Plant (Part 2)

Elkton’s Triumph Defense Plant (Part 2)

Three Who Remember

My dad, my mom, and my sister worked at the Triumph Plant in Elkton. Dad was a powder mixer, and Mom and my sister worked in the building where they put the explosive inside the shell casing. They had some bad explosions at that place. That one place, where my dad worked, blew up, and killed three men. Dad and another guy survived it.   Chet Borger, Florida

During the war, I worked at the Triumph plant in Elkton. I rode the bus for a while, until my friend moved to Chesapeake. Then she took me to work in her car. When we worked the 4-12 shift, we'd come home and ride across on the ferry to cool off. It was a lot of fun. We would just relax at the top railing where we had a nice view. My husband, Ralph, was in the service at the time.

My job at the Triumph was to make primer heads for those tracers. I put small pellets into the tip of the shells. I remember the terrible explosion that happened when I was there. People were killed; it was awful, and it happened on my 21st birthday so I'll never forget that. I was just a few buildings from it. One of those big florescent lights fell right down in front of me. The explosion was caused by a woman carrying a container of powder, which must have scraped something to cause a spark, because it just blew up. Many people were killed, and they asked people to come in off the street to identify the bodies. So you can imagine what was going on overseas in the war. The sound was so awful that I just froze, sitting there at that table with that smashed light right in front of me.

Eleanor Benson Northrup, Chesapeake City

Working at the Triumph plant was hard. I worked in the department that made twenty-caliber anti-aircraft shells. A lot of people worked there because it was wartime. There was a terrible explosion when I worked there. Some workers were badly injured. Some of the people there were hard to work with. They'd leave for some reason and not come back, which would hold up the line. It was not an easy job. I rode a bus to work. It stopped to pick up powder plant workers along the way to Elkton. I remember how it rolled up into the ferry.        Suzi Lum Taylor, Cecilton