The WASPs: Women Pilots of WWII

Women weren't doctors, lawyers, engineers. I could be a nurse, a librarian or a teacher. Those were my choices. And if it wasn't for the war and the fact that they were so short of pilots that they condescended to let us enter the sanctum sanctorum. And they let us know that. They let us in because they needed us. They needed pilots.
-- Kaddy Steele, WASP 1942-1944

The WASPs
Photo courtesy of National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution

In the early 1940s, the US Airforce faced a dilemma. Thousands of new airplanes were coming off assembly lines and needed to be delivered to military bases nationwide, yet most of America's pilots were overseas fighting the war. To deal with the backlog, the government launched an experimental program to train women pilots to fly military aircraft.




On NPR: Read an interview with Joe Richman about producing The WASPs



For more on the story of the WASPs, read on...

It was a unique time in history. For the most part, women still stayed at home and tended to their families. Few people imagined women could ‚ or should ‚ fly. But the wartime emergency took precedence over traditional male-female roles. As many former Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) describe it, a bubble of opportunity formed, one they knew would be unique in their lifetimes.

I knew in my lifetime that I would never ever get another opportunity like that. I was old enough to know that. And of course I never did. It was the only chance we had to fly anything more than a Cub or a Cesna or a little sports airplane. We would never get back in the military.
-- Kaddy Steele, WASP 1942-1944


From 1942 to 1944, more than 1,000 women were trained to ferry aircraft, test planes, instruct male pilots, and tow targets for anti-aircraft artillery practice. The women came from all socioeconomic backgrounds: teachers, nurses, secretaries, factory workers, waitresses, students, housewives, debutantes, actresses, even a Ziegfield chorus girl.

Callihan
Margaret Callihan gets out of a plane at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, TX. Photo courtesy of The Woman's Collection, Texas Woman's University.

On the surface, their differences seemed vast, but knew they all shared one commonality ‚ a passion for flying.

"We thought we'd died and gone to heaven," WASP Caro Bayley Bosca said. "We would have done it for free. It was hot, we were tired, we were sticky half the time, but we were having a ball because we had those airplanes and we all loved to fly."

They were pioneers, and as such they often faced disbelief and resentment from male officers. Nonetheless, the female pilots were fearless and committed. Thirty-eight women would be killed in the line of duty.

The WASP program was the brainchild of Jacqueline Cochran, a successful businesswoman and legendary aviator, and General Hap Arnold, Chief of the Army Air Forces. More than 25,000 women applied; to qualify, each applicant needed 200 hours of certified flight time (later downscaled to 35 hours).

The 1,830 women who were accepted received pilot training at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas, where it was hot, dusty and dry, and the threat of finding a rattlesnake in your cockpit was real. It was the first ‚ and only ‚ all-female Air Force base in history, and the women nicknamed it ěCochran's Conventî. They slept six to a barrack. At night, they stuffed socks in the urinals and used them to wash their underwear. On the hottest days, they took showers with all their clothes on to cool off. Their olive drab uniforms, called ězoot suitsî, were sized for men, so they rolled up the cuffs and tied belts around their waists.

Group Studies Map
Photo courtesy of The Woman's Collection, Texas Woman's University. WASPs study navigational maps at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas.

Training was rigorous, and just over 50 percent of trainees made it to graduation. They moved on to ferry aircraft from factories and airfields to military bases nationwide. As the program proved successful, WASP assignments expanded beyond ferrying.

Nell "Mickey" Bright towed targets in antiaircraft training. The male trainees on the ground would shoot live ammunition at a large target being dragged 25 feet behind the plane.

"They came pretty close to us every once in a while," she remembered. So close, in fact, that one night Bright found herself flying into artillery; the trainees were supposed to be aiming for the target trailing the plane. "Their job was to shoot the target," Bright said. "If they did not shoot the target, we were in charge. We could roll in the target and go home." That night, she did just that.

Women pilots were also used to ease fears over airplanes with bad reputations. The B-29, for example, was thought to be a dangerous plane after word got around about engine fires in testing. Colonel Paul Tibbets, who piloted the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, picked Dora Dougherty Strother and Dorothea Johnson Moorman to market the plane from base to base. They showed the men that the four-engine bomber was safe -- safe enough for a woman -- to fly.



Libby Gardner

WASP Libby Gardner, 43-W-8, prepares for take-off. Photo courtesy of Libby Gardner.

The WASPs prided themselves on having better flying records than their male counterparts. Through their ability, courage and hard work, they proved to the skeptics that women were capable pilots. Yet they had no official military status. WASP Louise Bowden Brown remembers having to ride with her roommate's casket in a train from Texas to New York. Once there, she had to tell the young woman's parents that she was killed. They received no military honors, no flag, nothing to commemorate their contribution to the country. In fact, the women took up collections for trips like Bowden's. The military didn't even give Bowden money to get her roommate's body home for burial.

In 1944, the European war drew to a close and male pilots began returning from combat. The WASPs were no longer needed. Cochran was given the option to fold the WASP program into the Women's Army Corps (WACS), but she refused to compromise, believing that her pilots would be stuck on the ground. On December 20, 1944, the women pilots packed up their bags and went home. It would be more than thirty years before women would fly again for the US military.



Visit the Texas Woman's University WASP archives

Visit the official WASP website: Wings Across America

Visit the Women of Courage website

Credits
Producer: Joe Richman
Associate Producer: Teal Krech
Assistant Producer: Shelley Preston
Editor: Deborah George
Consulting Editor: Ben Shapiro

Thanks to all the WASPs in our story:
Leonora Anderson, Caro Bayley-Bosca, Mickey Bright, Louise Bowden-Brown, Vi Cowden, Ethel Finley, Libby Gardner, Charlyne Greger, Dawn Seymore, Kaddy Steele, Julie Stege, Dora Strother, Elizabeth Taylor, and Marty Wyall.

Thanks: Chris Turpin/All Things Considered, Laura Gross, Matt Richman, Kate Landdeck and Tracey Mac Gowan at Texas Woman's University, and all the WASPs we met. Support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts.