The FReeper Foxhole Profiles Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) - March 21st, 2004

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/history/wasp/wasp.htm ^

[snippy_about_it]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.


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WASP


Women Airforce Service Pilots

As early as 1930, the War Department had considered using women pilots but the Chief of the Air Corps had called the idea "utterly unfeasible", stating that women were too "high strung."

Famed woman aviator Jacqueline Cochran in 1939 wrote Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt (wife of the President) to suggest women pilots could be used in a national emergency. Aviatrix Mrs. Nancy Harkness Love in 1940 made a similar proposal to the Air Corps' Ferry Command. Nothing was done until after American entry into World War II. Facing the need for male combat pilots, the situation by mid-1943 favored the use of experienced women pilots to fly Army Air Forces (AAF) aircraft within the United States. Two women's aviator units were formed to ease this need and more than 1,000 women participated in these programs as civilians attached to the AAF. These were merged into a single group, the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program in August 1943 and broke ground for USAF female pilots who would follow in their footsteps.



Just before the outbreak of World War II, Royal Air Force (RAF) Commander Gerard D'Erlanger organized a pool of experienced male pilots who were not eligible for the RAF, and placed this organization, the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA), at the disposal of the British government. In the winter of 1940, nine women pilots were accepted by the ATA.

At this time there were no accommodations for women at British bases and the women were restricted to ferrying Tiger Moths, small open cockpit planes. The ATA girls gradually advanced to larger planes, although they were forbidden to ferry operational types until June 1941, when eight of them were allowed to ferry Hurricanes and Spitfires.

At the beginning of 1942, the ATA girls were allowed to ferry Blenheim and Wellington twin-engine bombers and by the summer of 1943 the last restriction was removed from them and they were allowed to fly the heavy four-engine bombers. By July 1943, they were flying any one of the 120 different types ferried by the ATA. At the opening of October 1942, it appears that only 16% of the ATA total strength was female, but by the summer of 1943 this percentage rose to 25%.

Ferrying planes short distances, the ATA girls were able to pile up an impressive record of deliveries. According to Sir Stafford Cripps, they had delivered 100,000 airplanes by September 1942.

To generate publicity for the ATA in North America, Jackie Cochran ferried a Hudson Bomber to Britain beginning on June 17, 1941. Although she was not allowed to take off and land, she flew the aircraft for most of the flight.



Jackie Cochran recruited all but six American women who flew for the ATA. Mary Nicholson, who served as an assistant to Cochran before joining the ATA, was the only American woman killed while serving as an ATA-girl. On May 22, 1943, while flying a Master 2 trainer, the propeller mechanism fails and the propeller breaks completely off the plane. The weather was overcast and she was killed when her plane crashed into a stone barn.

Some ATA-girls, including Myrtle Allen, Emily Chapin, and Helen Richey, completed their contracts and returned to the United States to join the WASPs. One of the original WAFS, Aline Rhonie, joined the ATA after resigning from the WAFS program.



The Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS), never numbering more than 28, was created in September 1942 within the Air Transport Command, under Mrs. Love's leadership. WAFS were recruited from among commercially licensed women pilots with at least 500 hours flying time and a 200-horsepower rating. (Women who joined the WAFS actually averaged about 1,100 hours of flying experience.) Their original mission was to ferry Army Air Force (AAF) trainers and light aircraft from the factories, but later they were delivering fighters, bombers, and transports as well.



The WAFS recruited only the most experienced women pilots and was never intended to be a large organization. However, a training program for women pilots, under Jacqueline Cochran's direction, was approved on September 15, 1942 as the 319th Army Air Forces Flying Training Detachment (Women) or more simply Women's Flying Training Detachment (WFTD). The 23 week training program begun at Howard Hughes Field, Houston, Texas, included 115 hours of flying time.



Training soon moved to Avenger Field at Sweetwater, Texas, and increased to 30 weeks with 210 hours of flying. The 318th AAF Flying Training Detachment (Women) was activated at Avenger Field which was chosen to provide enough space for the rapidly expanding WFTD program. The Army estimated that more than 700 women pilots would be needed in 1943 and another 1000 in 1944.

The first WFTD class (43-W-1) of 29 women began training on 12 November 1942. Twenty three women from the first class graduated at the end of April, 1943.

Trainees were between 21 (later dropped to 18) and 35 years old, and already had at least 200 hours pilot experience (later reduced to 35 hours), but were taught to fly military aircraft the Army Air Force (AAF) way. Their training emphasized cross country flying with less emphasis on acrobatics and with no gunnery or close formation flight training.



In August 1943, all women pilots flying for the Army Air Force (AAF) were consolidated into the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program with Jacqueline Cochran as AAF Director for Women Pilots. Mrs. Love was named as the WASP executive on the Air Transport Command's Ferrying Division staff. More than 25,000 women applied for pilot training under the WASP program. Of these, 1,830 were accepted, 1,074 graduated and 900 remained at program's end, plus 16 former WAFS. WASP assignments after graduation were diverse - as flight training instructors, glider tow pilots, towing targets for air-to-air and anti-aircraft gunnery practice, engineering test flying, ferrying aircraft, and other duties.



Women pilots sometimes encountered resentment from males. For example, the only WASP in a P-47 class of 36 males was considered an intruder - until she became the fourth in the group to solo in the huge fighter. WASPs later routinely ferried P-47s from the factory. WASPs made demonstration flights in the "hot" B-26 Marauder and the new B-29 Superfortress, challenging male egos and showing that these aircraft weren't as difficult to fly as some men felt them to be.



Ann Baumgartner was the first woman to fly an AAF jet when at Wright Field she flew the Bell YP-59A twin jet fighter. WASPs flew virtually every type of aircraft from light trainers to heavy four-engine bombers. They flew about 60 million miles or 2,500 times around the world at the Equator, with 38 deaths. Before and after graduation, their accident rate was comparable to that for male pilots doing similar jobs.

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Thanks to Foxhole FReeper WaterDragon for suggesting this topic.

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FReeper Foxhole Armed Services Links

[Samwise]

The Foxhole should be required reading for history courses in all public schools.

I'll second that.

[WaterDragon]

Thank you so much for the WASP thread today, snippy. I've been sicker than a dog (and am looking like one, too! LOL) so did not work on this story.

[The Mayor]

When the people complained, it displeased the Lord. —Numbers 11:1

Instead of grumbling because you don't get what you want, be thankful you don't get what you deserve.

[WaterDragon]

Thank you so much for this thread on the WASPs, snippy. My flight instructor for a private pilot's license was Isabel Martell, of Molina, Oregon. This was in the early 1990's. I'd been told by a young instructor at Salem Airport that because of a slight limp from a childhood illness, I'd have to have special instruction (?). A co-worker at my office told me that her old high school journalism teacher was a flight instructor working out of Aurora Airport, and I decided to give her a call.

When I told Isabel about the slight limp, she barked "Can you walk? Do you drive a car?" And when I said, of course, she said "Then you can fly!" And sure enough, I did.

She was meticulous and demanding as a teacher, but all her students (and she had so many over the years!) adored her. She was in her seventies at the time I knew her, and as agile and as careful about her appearance as a teenager. She became a friend, as well, and I loved hearing about the WASPs from her.

She grew up on a farm in Nebraska, I think, and sold magazine subscriptions to pay for flying lessons while still in high school. She was graduated as a WASP at Avenger Field in the next-to-the-last class there.

She especially treasured her women students, because comparatively, there are many fewer women pilots than men, and she worked hard to get women interested in flying.

She became ill just before I got my license (she handed me over to another instructor). Congress had finally enacted a law giving the WASPs veteran status, so when she died, she was buried in the National Cemetary in Portland, in her WASP uniform. Several of her former students provided a 'fly-over' at the grave service.

Former WASPs and their children have a very active organization, giving speeches around the nation, and have established a museum in California, I think.

Thanks for recognizing the WASPs today, snippy.

[stand watie]

Frank deployed RIGHT ON TIME this am,@0700.

when the government FINALLY gets their act together, they CAN do things correctly!

free dixie,sw

[E.G.C.]

Congradulations OSU on beating Memphis 70-53 in the second round of the NCAA this afternoon.

[Soaring Feather]

Hi sw!!

Woo Hoo no more waiting for Frank.

free Dixie, bf

[Darksheare]

I'm in.

[Valin]

Jackie Cochran

Jacqueline Cochran was born sometime between 1905 and 1908 in Florida. Orphaned at birth and with almost no formal education, she went on to the top of her profession as the owner of a prestigious salon and developer of a line of cosmetics, Jacqueline Cochran Cosmetics, which would later become her empire. Her soon-to-be husband, millionaire businessman Floyd Odlum, suggested she learn to fly in order to use her travel and sales time more efficiently. In two days she soloed and 18 days later had her pilots license.
Despite her lack of education, she mastered flying in a few weeks. Cochran soon owned her first airplane, a Travelair, and later a Northrop Gamma.

She was the first woman to enter the Bendix Race in 1935 and although she did not win it that year, she placed first in the women’s division and third overall in 1937.

As a test pilot, she flew and tested the first turbo-supercharger ever installed on an aircraft engine in 1934. During the following two years, she became the first person to fly and test the forerunner to the Pratt & Whitney 1340 and 1535 engines. In 1938, she flew and tested the first wet wing ever installed on an aircraft.

With Dr. Randolph Lovelace, she helped design the first oxygen mask, then became the first person to fly above 20,000 feet wearing one.

In 1940, she made the first flight on the Republic P-43, and recommended a longer tail wheel installation, which was later installed on all P-47 aircraft. Between 1935 and 1942, she flew many experimental flights for Sperry Corp., testing gyro instruments.

Cochran was hooked on flying and her taste for record setting was strong. She set three speed records, won the Clifford Burke Harmon trophy three times and set a world altitude record of 33,000 feet – all before 1940.

With World War II on the horizon, Cochran talked Eleanor Roosevelt (who, like Jackie, had been friendly with Amelia Earhart) into the necessity of women pilots in the coming war effort. Cochran was soon recruiting women pilots to ferry planes for the British Ferry Command, and became the first female trans-Atlantic bomber pilot. In 1942 Cochran recruited more than 1,000 Women's Airforce Service Pilots and supervised their training and service until they were disbanded in 1944. She went on to be a press correspondent and was present at the surrender of Japanese General Yamashita, was the first U.S. woman to set foot in Japan after the war, and then went on to China, Russia, Germany and even the Nuremburg trials.

Flying was still her passion, and with the onset of the jet age, there were new planes to fly and records to break. Access to jet aircraft was mainly restricted to military personnel, but Cochran, with the assistance of her friend Gen. Chuck Yeager, became the first woman to break the sound barrier in an F-86 Sabre Jet, and went on to set a world speed record of 1,429 mph in 1964. That was 1953. She was well over 50 years old at the time.

Ironically, it was Jackie Cochran who may have kept early women astronauts grounded. Testifying before the House of Representatives Science and Astronautics Committee in the early 1960s, Cochran warned NASA not to "waste a great deal of money" by taking "a large group of women in, because you lose them through marriage," according to an August 1994 Smithsonian magazine article.

After heart problems and a pacemaker stopped her fast-flying activities at the age of 70, Cochran took up soaring. She died in 1980, holding more speed and altitude records than anyone else in the world.

Some of her other achievements include setting an altitude record of 33,000 feet (1938), flying future president Lyndon Johnson to the Mayo clinic for emergency kidney surgery, saving his life (1948), serving as company pilot for Canadair, Lockheed and Northrop, earning the USAF Distinguished Flying Cross (1969), being named Honorary Fellow, Society of Experimental Test Pilots (1971) and being inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame (1971).

http://www.edwards.af.mil/articles98/docs_html/splash/feb98/cover/cochran.html

[Professional Engineer]

Ooo, a whole thread on the LuftSpankenTruppen. Awesome!

[Professional Engineer]

Howdy ma'am. I've been wondering if I was going to have to start "We miss Snippy and Sam, day ##" threads. Not yet.

[Samwise]

so when she died, she was buried in the National Cemetery in Portland, in her WASP uniform. Several of her former students provided a 'fly-over' at the grave service.

That is very cool--and very appropriate.

[Samwise]

Hi, P.E.!

[Professional Engineer]

Hiya Samwise, Warrior Hobbit.

[Samwise]

LOL.

I feel like throwing spitballs or something while the teachers are gone, but it's almost no fun when we can't get it trouble.

[snippy_about_it]

Thanks Aeronaut for the picture of Liz. She has a great smile!

[snippy_about_it]

Good evening EGC.

[snippy_about_it]

Finfinella??? Must be before my time. ;-)

Good evening archy.

[snippy_about_it]

fifinella. okay I've now read your link. Cool!

[snippy_about_it]

Awwww. Thank you so much for your kind words. Sam has created a wonderful place here and I am happy to be his partner at the best place on FR imho. ;-)

We are on a mission and are encouraged when we hear comments such as yours.

My mom was a WAVE and speaks highly of her time in the service. We are thankful for your aunts service.

We do know that homeschoolers use our threads and we are very happy about that.