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HAP ARNOLD

Visionary, pioneer, hero of the United States Air Force and champion of the WASP, General Henry (Hap) Arnold played a key role in the formation of the Women Airforce Service Pilots.

He was the official in charge who said "YES" to Jackie Cochran when she proposed that women be trained to fly military aircraft and relieve the male pilots for combat duty.

December 7, 1944

ADDRESS BY GENERAL H.H.ARNOLD, COMMANDING GENERAL,
ARMY AIR FORCES,
BEFORE WASP CEREMONY,
SWEETWATER, TEXAS,
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1944

I am glad to be here today and talk with you young women who have been making aviation history. You and all WASPs have been pioneers in a new field of wartime service, and I sincerely appreciate the splendid joy you have done for the AAF.

You, and more than nine hundred of your sisters, have shown that you can fly wingtip to wingtip with your brothers. If ever there was in doubt in anyone's mind that women can become skillful pilots, the WASP have dispelled that doubt.

The possibility of using women to pilot military aircraft was first considered in the summer of 1941. We anticipated than that global war would require all our qualified men and many of our women. We did not know how many of our young men could qualify to pilot the thousands of aircraft which American industry could produce. There was also the problem of finding sufficient highly capable young men to satisfy the demands of the Navy, the Ground Forces, the Service Forces, and the Merchant Marine. England and Russia had been forced to use women to fly trainers and combat-type aircraft. Russian women were being used in combat.

In that emergency I called in Jacqueline Cochran, who had herself flown almost everything with wings and several times had won air races from men who now are general officers of the Air Forces. I asked her to draw a plan for the training and use of American women pilots. She presented such a plan in late 1941 and it formed the basis for the Air Forces use of WASP.

Frankly, I didn't know in 1941 whether a slip of a young girl could fight the controls of a B-17 in the heavy weather they would naturally encounter in operational flying. Those of us who had been flying for twenty or thirty years knew that flying an airplane was something you do not learn overnight.

But, Miss Cochran said that carefully selected young women could be trained to fly our combat-type planes. So, it was only right that we take advantage of every skill which we, as a nation, possessed.

My objectives in forming the WASP were, as you know, three:

1. To see if women could serve as military pilots, and, if so, to form the nucleus of an organization which could be rapidly expanded.

2. To release male pilots for combat.

3. To decrease the Air Forces' total demands for the cream of the manpower pool.

Well, now in 1944, more than two years since WASP first started flying with the Air Forces, we can come to only one conclusion--the entire operation has been a success. it is on the record that women can fly as well as men. In training, in safety, in operations, your showing is comparable to the over-all record of the AAF flying within the continental United States. That was what you were called upon to do--continental flying. if the need had developed for women to fly our aircraft overseas, I feel certain that the WASP would have performed that job equally well.

Certainly we haven't been able to build an airplane you can't handle. From AT-6's to B-29's, you have flown them around like veterans. One of the WASP has even test-flown our new jet plane.

You have worked hard at your jobs. Commendations from the generals to whose commands you have been assigned are constantly coming across my desk. These commendations record how you have buckled down to the monotonous, the routine jobs which are not much desired by our hot-shot young men headed toward combat or just back from an overseas tour. In some of your jobs I think they like you better than men.

I want to stress how valuable I believe this whole WASP program has been for the country. If another national emergency arises--let us hope it does not, but let u this time face the possibility--if it does, we will not again look upon a women's flying organization as experimental. We will know that they can handle our fastest fighters, our heaviest bombers; we will know that they are capable of ferrying, target towing, flying training, test flying, and the countless other activities which you have proved you can do.

That is valuable knowledge for the air age into which we are now entering.

But please understand that I do not look upon the WASP and the job they have done in this war as a project or an experiment. A pioneering venture, yes. Solely an experiment, no. The WASP are an accomplishment.

We are winning the war--we still have a long way to go--but we are winning it. Every WASP who has contributed to the training and operation of the Air Force has filled a vital and necessary place in the jigsaw pattern of victory. Some of you are discouraged sometimes, all of us are, but be assured you have filled a necessary place in the overall picture of the Air Forces.

The WASPs have completed their mission. Their job has been successful. But, as is usual in war, it has not been without cost. Thirty-seven WASPs have died while helping their Country move toward the moment of final victory. The Air Forces will long remember their service and their final sacrifice.

So, on this last graduation day, I salute you and all WASP. We of the AAF are proud of you; we will never forget our debt to you.

Today's Educational Sources and suggestions for further reading:

www.wpafb.af.mil/
A WASP Among Eagles - By Ann B. Carl

I'm Valin and I approve of
This Day In History

Birthdates which occurred on March 21:
1474 Angela Merici Italian monastery founder/saint
1527 Hermann Finck composer
1609 Jan II Kazimierz cardinal/King of Poland (1648-68)

1685 Johann Sebastian Bach Eisenach Germany, composer

1708 Caspar Ruetz composer
1713 Francis Lewis signed Declaration of Independence
1806 Benito Pablo Juárez Oaxaca Mexico, President of México (1858-72)
1839 Modest Mussorgsky composer (Boris Gudunov, Night on Bald Mountain)
1869 Florenz Ziegfeld producer (Ziegfield Follies)
1884 George D Birkhoff US mathematician (Aesthetic measure)
1902 Eddie James "Son" House folk blues musician (Delta Blues)
1906 John D Rockefeller III billionaire philanthropist (oil)
1911 John Paxton screenwriter (On The Beach, Kotch, Farewell My Lovely)
1916 Harold Robbins US, novelist (The Carpetbaggers) [or 0521]
1918 Howard Cosell Winston-Salem NC, sportscaster (Monday Night Football)
1928 James W Kinnear Pittsburgh PA, CEO (Texaco)
1929 James Coco Bronx NY, actor (Man of La Mancha, Murder by Death)
1929 Jules Bergman space & science reporter (ABC-TV)
1934 Al Freeman Jr San Antonio TX, actor (One Life to Live, My Sweet Charlie)
1937 Tom Flores Fresno CA, NFL quarterback/coach (Raiders)
1945 Vernon Guy US gospel singer (Cool Sounds, Sharpees)
1946 Timothy Dalton Colwyn Bay Wales, actor (James Bond-Living Daylights, License to Kill)
1958 Brad Hall Santa Barbara CA, comedian (Saturday Night Live)
1962 Matthew Broderick New York NY, actor (Inspector Gadget, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, WarGames, Biloxi Blues)
1962 Rosie O'Donnell comedienne (League of Their Own, Flintstones, Rosie)
1969 Jennifer Lyn Jackson Cleveland OH, playmate (April, 1989)

Deaths which occurred on March 21:
1487 Nicholas van Fluë Swiss saint/patron of Switzerland, dies
1556 Thomas Cranmer archbishop of Canterbury, burned at stake at 66
1656 Armagh James Ussher Archbishop (said world began 4004 BC), dies at 76
1921 "Big Jim" Colisimo US gangster, murdered by Al Capone
1936 Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov composer (Chopiniana), dies at 70
1952 A J Pieters SS-Untersturmführer, executed
1958 Cyril M Kornbluth US sci-fi writer (Space Merchants), dies at 34
1985 Michael Redgrave actor (Goodbye Mr Chips, Mr Arkadin), dies at 77
1987 Robert Preston actor (Harold Hill-Music Man), diesfrom lung cancer in Montecito CA at 68
1991 Leo Fender inventor (Fender guitar), dies
1991 Rajiv Gandhi former Prime Minister of India, killed by bomb at 46
1992 John Ireland actor (Rawhide), dies of leukemia at 78
1994 Dack Rambo actor (Jack Ewing-Dallas), dies from AIDs at 52
1995 Norman Schwartz record Producer, dies at 66

Reported: MISSING in ACTION

1966 BURER ARTHUR W.---SAN ANTONIO TX.
[02/12/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1966 COMPTON FRANK R.---CHATHAM VA.
1966 TIDERMAN JOHN M.---KANSAS CITY KS.
1967 CHARVET PAUL CLAUDE---GRAND VIEW WA.
1968 HESFORD PETER D.---MYSTIC CT.
1968 STOWERS AUBREY E. JR.---SENTINEL OK.
1970 GONZALES DAVID---VENTURA CA.
1970 HUDGENS EDWARD MONROE---TULSA OK.
[REMAINS RECOVERED OCT 94 AND APRIL 95 ID MARCH 96]
1970 UNDERWOOD THOMAS W.---ZANESVILLE OH.

POW / MIA Data & Bios supplied by
the P.O.W. NETWORK. Skidmore, MO. USA.

On this day...
1349 3,000 Jews killed in Black Death riots in Efurt Germany
1421 Battle of Beauge-French beat British
1610 King James I addresses English House of Commons
1697 Czar Peter the Great begins tour through West-Europe
1702 Queen Anne Stuart addresses English parliament
1788 Fire destroyed 856 buildings in New Orleans LA
1791 Captain Hopley Yeaton of New Hampshire becomes 1st commissioned officer in USN
1804 French civil Code of Napoleon adopted
1824 Fire at Cairo ammunitions dump kills 4,000 horses
1826 Beethoven's Quartet #13 in B flat major (Op 130) premieres in Vienna
1843 Preacher William Miller of Massachusetts predicts the world will end today
1844 Origin of Bahá'í Era-Bahá'í calendar starts here (Bahá 1, 1)
1851 Yosemite Valley discovered in California
1857 Earthquake hits Tokyo; about 107,000 die
1863 Naval Engagement at Havana Cuba-USS Henrick Hudson vs BR Wild Pigeon
1864 Battle at Henderson's Hill (Bayou Rapids) Louisiana
1865 Battle of Bentonville ends, last Confederate effort to stop Sherman
1866 Congress authorizes national soldiers' homes
1868 1st US professional women's club, Sorosis, is founded in New York NY
1871 Journalist Henry M Stanley begins his famous expedition to Africa
1885 2nd French government of Ferry resigns
1890 Austrian Jewish communities are defined by law
1891 A Hatfield marries a McCoy, ends long feud in West Virginia; it started with an accusation of pig-stealing & lasted 20 years
1907 US invades Honduras
1909 Moran & MacFarland (US) win Europe's 1st 6 day bicycle race (Berlin)
1913 Flood in Ohio, kills 400
1917 1st female US Navy Petty Officer is Loretta Walsh
1918 Germany launches Somme offensive
1923 US foreign minister Charles Hughes refuses USSR recognition
1924 Mass Investors Trust becomes 1st mutual fund set up in US
1934 Babe Didrikson pitches an inning in an A's-Dodgers exhibition game Walks 1, hits the next guy, 3rd guy hits into triple-play
1934 Fire destroys Hakodate Japan, killing about 1,500
1935 Persia officially renamed Iran
1937 Ponce massacre, police kill 19 at Puerto Rican Nationalist parade
1939 Nazi-Germany demands Gdansk (Danzig) from Poland
1941 Joe Louis KOs Abe Simon in 13 for heavyweight boxing title
1942 Convoy QP9 departs Great Britain to Murmansk
1942 Heavy German assault on Malta
1943 Assassination attempt on Hitler fails
1943 British 8th army opens assault on Mareth line, Tunisia
1945 1st Japanese flying bombs (ochas) attack Okinawa
1945 During WWII Allied bombers begin 4-day raid over Germany
1945 Dutch Resistance fighter Hannie Schaft arrested by Nazi police
1946 Kenny Washington signs with Rams, 1st black NFLer since 1933
1946 UN set up temporary HQ at Hunter (now Lehman) College (Bronx)
1947 Pope Pius XII publishes encyclical Fulgens radiatur
1947 President Truman signs Executive Order 9835 requiring all federal employees to have allegiance to the United States
1951 2,900,000 US soldiers in Korea
1952 Alan Freed presents Moondog Coronation Ball at old Cleveland Arena, 25,000 attend 1st rock & roll concert ever
1952 Tornadoes in Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama & Kentucky cause 343 deaths
1953 NBA record 106 fouls & 12 players foul out (Boston-Syracuse)
1955 Brooklyn Bulletin asks Dodger fans not to call their team "Bums"
1960 Sharpeville Massacre: Police kill 72 in South Africa & outlaws ANC
1961 Art Modell purchases Cleveland Browns for then record ($3,925,000)
1961 Beatles' 1st appearance at the Cavern Club
1962 A bear becomes the 1st creature to be ejected at supersonic speeds
1962 Dutch Roman Catholic bishop Beckers of Bosch makes TV speech in Netherlands in favor of birth control
1963 Alcatraz federal penitentiary in San Francisco Bay closed
1965 Martin Luther King Jr begins march from Selma to Montgomery AL
1965 US Ranger 9 launched; takes 5,814 pictures before lunar impact
1966 Supreme Court reverses Massachusetts ruling that "Fanny Hill" is obscene
1968 Israeli forces cross Jordan River to attack PLO bases
1968 Portuguese socialist Mario Soares banished to Sao Tomé
1969 John & Yoko stage their 1st bed-in for peace (Amsterdam Hilton)
1972 US Supreme Court rules states can't require 1-year residency to vote
1975 Ethiopia ends monarchy after 3000 years
1979 Egyptian Parliament unanimously approve peace treaty with Israel
1980 On TV show Dallas, JR is shot
1983 Only known typo on Time Magazine cover (control=contol), all recalled
1984 Soviet sub crashes into USS aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk off Japan
1985 Arthur Ashe is named to International Tennis Hall of Fame
1990 Namibia becomes independent of South Africa, Sam Nujoma becomes president
1991 27 lost at sea when 2 US Navy anti-submarine planes collide
1991 Largest wrestling crowd in Japan (64,500) at Tokyo Dome
1991 UN Security Council panel decided to lift the food embargo on Iraq
1993 Pope John Paul II declares Duns Scotus, a saint
1994 Watne Gretzky ties Gordie Howe's NHL record of 801 goals
2000 Pope John Paul II began the first official visit by a Roman Catholic pontiff to Israel.
2001 Space shuttle Discovery glided to a predawn touchdown, bringing home the first residents of the international space station.
2001 - The U.S. ordered 51 Russian diplomats to leave, in retaliation for Russia's use of an FBI spy, Robert Hanssen.

Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq : Nawroz (Persian New Year)
Iowa : Bird Day
Ohio : Buzzards Day. The day the buzzards return to Hinckley, Ohio
México : Benito P Juarez' Birthday (1806)
Namibia : Independence Day (1990)
US : National Agriculture Day (1981)
World : Earth Day (most years)
World : International Day For Elimination of Racial Discrimination
US : National Teenage Week begins
US : Master Gardener Day
US Chocolate Week Begins
National Pothole Month

Religious Observances
Bahá'í : Feast of Naw-Rúz (New Year) (Bahá 1) [year=Gregorian-1843]
Persian-Afghánistán, Iran, Iraq : Nawroz (New Year)
Wicca : Alban Eilir sabbat
Roman Catholic : Commemoration of St Benedict, abbot
Roman Catholic : Commemoration of Nicholas von Flüe
Anglican : Commemoration of Thomas Ken, bishop of Bath & Wells
Moslem : Night of Power (Ramadân 27, 1413 AH)

Religious History
1098 The monastery in Citeaux, France was founded by St. Robert, a Benedictine monk and abbot of Molesme. It marked the beginning of the Roman Catholic Cistercian religious order.
1146 King Louis VII of France took up the cause of the Second Crusade, in response to Bernard of Clairvaux's preaching, and became leader of the ill-fated mission.
1747 [N.S.] On a slave ship bound for England, during a violent storm at sea, English sea captain John Newton, 22, was dramatically converted to a living faith. It was more than a "foxhole religion," as Newton soon abandoned the sea, and from 1764 until his death (43 years later), he devoted his life as a clergyman in the Anglican Church.
1900 In Chicago, following the death of its founder Dwight L. Moody, the Bible Institute for Home and Foreign Missions changed its name to Moody Bible Institute. The school has since become the model after which other learning institutions have patterned their curriculum.
1985 The Association of International Mission Services was founded in Dallas. A trans-denominational organization, AIMS promotes the work of foreign missions among independent Pentecostal and charismatic churches.

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

Thought for the day :
"Every happening, great and small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message."

Hallmark cards that never made it...
We've been friends for a very long time ...
(inside card)
What do you say we stop?

New State Slogans...
Maine: We're Really Cold, But We Have Cheap Lobster

Male Language Patterns...
"It's really a good movie," REALLY MEANS,
"It's got guns, knives, fast cars, and naked women."

Female Language Patterns...
Yes = No
No = No
Maybe = No

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