In the wake of the 80th anniversary of D-Day, a local woman who was part of the war effort is calling attention to the oft-forgotten young gals who did their part.
“I was contributing … I tried my best,” Michelle “Mickey” Cohen, a 100-year-old who welded guns onto ships at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during World War II, told The Post. “[You hear] nothing about the women.”
Cohen, who will celebrate her 101st birthday next week, still looks back with pride on her contributions.
She was part of the first female coterie to work in the expanded shipyard, but the group was little known.
Michelle Cohen’s motto is There’s no trying – there’s only committing.” Stephen Yang
“You would always see advertising for Rosie the Riveter,” Cohen told The Post from her home in Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village. “I said, ‘I’m Zelda the welder!’ I got so angry – why don’t they write about Zelda the welder?
These days, her life is more about pumping iron than fusing steel.
She works out three days a week with a personal trainer and doesn’t shy away from climbing six flights of stairs at a time or asking for heavier weights. Her motto is: “There’s no trying – there’s only committing.”
“She’s incredible,” trainer Billy Brinsell, 38, told The Post. “She’s at her happiest when she pushes the hardest,” he added, noting that she crushes two-minute planks and leg presses 60 pounds.
Cohen grew up as a fierce, short-haired tomboy on the Lower East Side in a Delancey Street tenement with her Jewish Eastern European immigrant parents and four siblings.
Cohen works out three times a week with a trainer. nyjewishweek/ Instagram
She was a daredevil kid who got into scraps with neighborhood gangs and once climbed to the top of the Williamsburg Bridge, but she felt the call of duty as a young woman.
“There was an advertisement to take a welding course. I didn’t know anything, but I knew I liked to work with my hands,” Cohen said. “I always had steady hands.”
She clicked with the work immediately and loved the sense of purpose it brought her.
“[I welded] some of the most important pieces that go on a ship,” she said. “I was sitting on top of the world.”
Cohen was one of the first women to work in the Brooklyn Navy Yards during WW2. Photo via Naval History and Heritage Command
It helped that she seemed to have a god-given talent for welding
“I was the number one welder of all the guys,” she said. “[But] there I was, getting paid less than the boys.”
She rallied seven other women and went to talk to one of the naval officers about her pay. He wasn’t amused and she was eventually transferred to a shipyard in New Jersey.
“It was punishment for speaking up,” she said with a defiant shrug.
After the war, Cohen worked as a nurse. Stephen Yang
After the war, Cohen got a degree in nursing from Brooklyn’s Kings County Hospital School. She spent two years in the profession before changing course to become a teacher. For decades, she taught in Long Island public schools.
Afraid she’d remain single, Cohen married a pleasant dentist at age 23 and had one beloved daughter at age 30, but her “true love made in heaven” was a Jewish cop named Ralph Cohen.
She divorced the dentist and spent 40 years with Ralph before he died in 1997.
Flying was another true love. Though she’s extremely fond of her days building boats, she speaks wistfully of having wanted to join the women’s air service patrol. But, friends and family warned her that she’d face antisemitism.
Her true love was a Jewish cop named Ralph Cohen. Stephen Yang
“I wanted to learn to fly. But everyone said, ‘You’re Jewish, forget it,’” she recalled. “I think they were right – but I think I should have gone for it. I really felt sorry that I listened to them.”
Later in life, she took a handful of flying lessons and found the experience so exhilarating that she struggled to keep her nose on the horizon, as commanded by the instructor.
“I couldn’t stop smiling,” she recalled.
The great-grandma of five was recently invited to demo at a welding school and discovered a disparity in workmanship nowadays. “[There’s] no comparison [to the old school craftsmanship],” she said. “But they’re learning.”
Cohen will celebrate her 101st birthday next week. Stephen Yang
Cohen, who keeps busy with long walks around the neighborhood, dinners and wine with friends, live concerts and the occasional weekend at Fire Island, can’t believe she’s as old as she is.
“I’m having more fun at this age than ever. I look at that number 101 — and I can’t believe it,” said the soon-to-be birthday girl. “I never thought about age. But I am so grateful, you can’t imagine.”
