As American men went to war during WWII, women built airplanes. Thousands of women, symbolized by "Rosie the Riveter," took up the slack in the workforce. At Boeing, they helped boost production from 60 planes per month in 1942 to an astounding 362 planes per month by March 1944 -- at one point the Seattle plant rolled out 16 planes in 24 hours. A total of 12,731 B-17s were produced around the country; of these Boeing built 6,981.