The Leaders
JACQUELINE COCHRAN
In 1939, on the day after Germany's tanks rolled into Warsaw, pilot Jacqueline Cochran sent a letter to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt encouraging the use of women pilots in the armed forces. In May 1940, another pilot, Nancy Harkness Love wrote the Ferry Division of the Army Air Force with a similar idea, but the Army was not ready to put women in the cockpit of planes.
The demand for male combat pilots and warplanes left the Air Transport Command with a shortage of experienced pilots to ferry planes from factory to a point of embarkation. The leaders remembered Love's proposal and hired her to recruit twenty-five of the most qualified women pilots in the country to ferry military aircraft. These outstanding women pilots were called the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron, or WAFS.
By September 14, 1942, General Henry "Hap" Arnold, Commanding General of the Army Air Forces, also approved a program that would train a large group of women to serve as ferrying pilots. The training school was placed under the direction of Cochran. The program was called the Army Air Force Women's Flying Training Detachment (WFTD).
NANCY LOVE
On August 5, 1943, the WAFS and the WFTD were merged and were re-designated the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASP. Cochran was appointed Director, and Love was named WASP executive with the ATC Ferrying Division.
The Training
Love and the WAFS first gathered as a squadron at New Castle Army Air Base in Wilmington, Delaware. Although the WAFS were required to have 500 hours of flying time, those that arrived averaged more than 1000 hours. The pilots were checked out and trained for just a few weeks before they were assigned to their posts.
While the WAFS were beginning their ferrying duties, Cochran began organizing the WFTD and recruiting classes of women pilots. The training involved six months of ground school and flight training. The first three classes trained in Houston, Texas at the Municipal Airport. Bad weather and crowded skies led Cochran to move the program to Avenger field in Sweetwater, Texas.
The Jobs
The WAFS and the first classes that joined the Air Transport Command out of the Houston and Sweetwater training programs ferried planes from factory to point of embarkation.
Eventually, the Air Transport Command complained that it could not take all the pilots graduating from Avenger Field. Cochran announced to all the air bases that she would accept any job (she called them "dishwashing jobs") which the WASP could do and thus relieve additional males for combat duty. Besides flying all the airplanes in the Army's arsenal, WASP taught flight instruction, flight testing, flew radio-controlled planes and anti-aircraft tow targets.
Deactivation and Militarization
Unfortunately, the WASP and WAFS were hired under Civil Service. Cochran and General Arnold had intended the women pilots to be made part of the military, but the need for pilots was so great and the road to militarization was slow, requiring an act of Congress. They began the program with the idea of militarizing later.
In 1944, just as the bill to militarize the WASP went before Congress, the need for pilots lessened. The decision was made to deactivate the WASP in December 1944. General Arnold would record that "in any future total effort, the nation can count on thousands of its young women to fly any of its aircraft."
The amazing experiment using women pilots during wartime almost seemed destined to be forgotten. Then, in the mid 1970s, the Navy announced to the media that, for the first time in history, women would be permitted to fly government planes. The announcement reverberated among the former WASP, and like nothing else, mobilized them to seek recognition. With the help of Bruce Arnold, son of General Arnold, and political help from Senator Barry Goldwater, who commanded women pilots in his squadron, the WASP finally gained their belated militarization from Congress in 1977.
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