Former Navy WAVE holds Navy heritage dear

Maroney served two years as a Navy WAVE during World War II as a metal smith in Pasco, Wash. WAVE is an acronym for Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service.

“I did just about everything there was to do with metal and a whole bunch of other things,” she said. “I changed batteries and took apart cylinder heads on engines.”

That's how she got her nickname: Buckshot.

“My initials were BBB, so sailors called me Buckshot,” she said. “Once I was taking a cylinder head off an airplane and there were some Marines putting a wing together, and they all said, ‘Look at the muscles on that WAVE!' and it all just stuck from there. I still have a grandson that calls me Buckshot.”

Among those planes she worked on was the gull-winged Corsair, one of the best fighter aircraft the Navy had in its inventory.

Today, Maroney is as feisty as ever. But her life wasn't without pain. She lost her brother, David Beagles, during World War II. He was a sailor on a ship that collided with a mine. Two other brothers also served in the Navy during the war, but both survived.