Among many dispiriting developments in recent weeks, American women in the military have faced undue scorn and disparagement from those who would lead them. Most disturbingly, it's been normalized to accuse, without evidence, any woman or minority leader of having gotten their job as a "DEI hire."
Discouragingly, Darren Beattie, the man to run the State Department, has said "competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work." Following the tragic crash of a DC plane into a an Army helicopter, the President immediately blamed DEI policies, but "provided no evidence for the claim and later acknowledged there was none. (The Associated Press)."
I wrote the following in college about the Women Airforce Service Pilots program, which came about in World War II as a way for American women to support domestic aviation for the military. They transported troops, towed targets for live gunnery, and trained new recruits at bases all around the country. Women were allowed to enter military aviation only if they were already pilots (meaning the bar was set higher, rather than lower for them) and the program was never militarized, even though they were integral to operations.
After World War II, women were barred from military aviation once again and weren't trained as military pilots again until the 1970s. When they were allowed to serve as military pilots (again) it was framed as "experimental" despite women having served in operationally important roles as pilots in World War II.
I thought this historical information felt particularly timely right now.
THE WOMEN AIRFORCE SERVICE PILOTS OF WORLD WAR II
Introduction
Though women have participated in piloted flight since the dawn of aviation, the United States’ total commitment to Air Power in the Second World War brought unprecedented opportunity to female aviators. The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), a civilian program developed by Jacqueline Cochran and Nancy Love, in concert with the Army Air Forces, trained 1,074 women at the Avenger Airfield in Sweetwater, Texas before its deactivation in 1944.[1] After the first formal use of female pilots in the military in September, 1942, the WASP quickly proved themselves as capable pilots who ferried pursuit planes, multiple engine bombers, and jet aircraft. At the conclusion of the program, General Henry “Hap” Arnold declared that women could fly as well as men and that the WASP program was an unqualified success.
However, the WASP program was not an unmitigated triumph. The WASP were discontinued well before the end of the program’s useful life, amid a flurry of negative press. This backlash came as a surprise to General Arnold, who had just proposed a significant expansion of the program and expressed his hope that all domestic ferrying operations and the majority of pilot training could be conducted by women.[2] Instead, when the bill to incorporate the WASP into the US Armed Forces came up in Congress, the initial praise of the WASP program turned to rancor about waste, incompetence, and redundancy. Jacqueline Cochran, in particular, was the target of media scorn. In the end, the WASP were the only female auxiliary not to be incorporated into the War Department in World War II.
From its beginning, the WASP program elicited strong reactions. Some Americans were opposed, on principle, to women flying military aircraft. Many female pilots faced skepticism or even scorn from their own family members. Still, many depictions of the WASP were quite positive and focused on the glamour and novelty of female aviation. Most famously, the WASP graced the cover of Life Magazine in July of 1943. But even positive portrayals of the WASP exacerbated stereotypes about women in uniform and focused unduly on their physical appearance. Stereotypes about female leaders undermined the legitimacy of the WASP, especially regarding the supposed rivalry between Nancy Love, Jacqueline Cochran, and Oveta Culp Hobby, the director of the Women’s Army Corps. While there is no real evidence that these women struggled to work together, publishers latched on to the idea that they were rivals prone to squabbling. One representative from Kentucky even speculated during the WASP hearing that the WASP couldn’t be placed under WAC command because “that would be too many women in one place…the WASP might sting the WAC.”[3] Here, casual stereotypes had real consequences.
The end of the WASP was a catastrophe for female aviation. During the program, women from all over the country and from various walks of life flew cutting edge military aircraft and received a rigorous physical, technical and scientific education in aviation. Afterwards, female aviation once again became the privilege of non-conformists and millionaires like Jacqueline Cochran. Few of the WASPs would go on to any kind of career in aviation and relatively little had the means to continue aviation as a hobby. When the Air Force became an independent branch of the military in 1947, its doors were closed to women. Eventually, in 1948, a program called Women in the Air Force was established. While recruits could fulfill clerical and medical roles, no women were trained as pilots nor given pilot duties, even if they had previous experience in the WASP. Women were barred from military aviation until 1975, when U.S. Law required the Air Force Academy to accept women. In 1978, “women entering the Air Force knew that they were eligible for all job classifications except pilot and navigator, although they knew that women were being trained for both these on an experimental basis.”[4] Why was experimentation necessary, if more than a thousand women had flown all models of military aircraft in World War II?
In the end, the WASP program fell apart because Americans saw female aviation as a diversion, not a critical part of the war effort and because some male pilots and social critics actively campaigned against the inclusion of women in the Air Force. The government prioritized male pilots over female pilots, even if those women were more trained and their exclusion wasn’t in the Army’s best interest. As the war ended, American priorities shifted from wartime exigencies to the restoration of domestic tranquility and stricter gender norms. Though social clubs like the Ninety-Nines and the Order of Fifinella (the WASP alumni organization) kept female aviation alive after the war, female pilots were once again asked to prove they were up to the task of military aviation in the late seventies.
The WASP Take Flight
Long before the Second World War, female aviation was already a cultural flashpoint and women created their careers against the odds. As early as 1909, aviators like Raymonde de LaRoche, Melli Besse, and Hilda Hewlett had proven that women were capable pilots. Despite their example, critics speculated about the emotional and biological suitability of women for piloted flight. Famous aviators like Graham-White and Arnold Kruckman insisted that women weren’t decisive enough to handle the challenges of flying and many aircraft vendors would not sell to female pilots out of concern for their safety. The Aero-Club of Britain allowed, but expressively discouraged women from joining. As a result, women formed their own social institutions to support and mentor female pilots.[5]
Amelia Earhart’s accomplishments were a turning point for American aviatrixes. Today she is most famous for her 1932 flight across the Atlantic and her mysterious disappearance while attempting to circumnavigate the globe in 1937. But her life was even richer than these two details would suggest. Earhart was a determined advocate for women’s inclusion in aviation and eventually founded the Ninety-Nines, a society for female pilots. She also wrote extensively on her experiences as a pilot and became editor of the aviation section of Cosmopolitan Magazine. Her book, The Fun of It, gives a unique perspective on the status on women in aviation in the 1930s. She noted that commercial aviation was essentially closed to women, but opportunities existed in private aviation.[6] Still, in 1932, fewer than 1 in 37 American pilots was female.[7] Despite limited training opportunities, and largely because of the inspiration of Amelia Earhart’s example, the number of women in aviation reached 10% by 1939.[8] This cohort would provide Nancy Love and Jacqueline Cochran the beginnings of a female flying force.
In the same year, 1939, the Operations Division of the War Department found the US disastrously unable to meet the requirements of a potential war against Nazi Germany.[9] Bombardments in Guernica and the Japanese invasion of China had convinced the US military that air power could be decisive. But American aviation remained woefully underdeveloped. For example, the Air Transport Command alone required more pilots than existed in the entire Army Air Forces.[10] To ameliorate this, the Civil Aeronautics Authority initiated the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP) in 1939. When women began to participate in these free courses, the military decided that their proportion should be capped at 10%, to reflect the existing percentage of male and female pilots in the United States. It was still a remarkable opportunity and in addition to training women, the CPTP employed women as flight and ground instructors.[11]
The first known proposal to create a woman’s ferrying squadron was made by Mrs. Teddy Kenyon in 1936. [12] Previously, both Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt had proposed that women be included in the Army Pilot pool and Roosevelt frequently discussed the idea in her newspaper column, My Day.[13] At the same time, an informal association of women pilots in Florida deemed themselves the Betsy Ross Air Corps and purchased a training plane for its members to practice on.[14] They offered their services to the military after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, but were turned down. Meanwhile, Jacqueline Cochran took over the presidency of the Ninety-Nines and published calls for military preparedness.[15]
Jacqueline Cochran was a vivacious, inspiring, and divisive character. She had pulled herself out of extreme poverty after growing up in the foster system in Florida, established a successful cosmetics brand and married notable financier Floyd Odlum. Cochran was an astonishingly talented pilot and frequently set speed records for men and women alike.[16] She clearly had a knack for organization and communication. Under her administration, the Women’s Flying Training Detachment and the Women Airforce Service Pilots both grew substantially and became integral to Air Force Operations. When the program was ended, 916 WASP were on active duty and many flew into Sweetwater for the last graduation in December of 1944.[17]
Cochran approached Colonel Olds, the leader of the Air Transport Command, after honing her vision of a female air support division in conversations with the President and First Lady at Hyde Park.[18] Previously, she had sent a memo to General Arnold in 1938 proposing a female force, but Arnold had replied that at that time the military’s sole priority was to train male pilots.[19] Cochran dreamed of a force of 1000-1500 women to cover all domestic missions. After their initial meeting, Colonel Olds instructed Cochran to find out exactly how many women would qualify to fly military aircraft. Her answer, rather disappointingly, was 78. If extra training was provided, she could summon 154.[20] Olds did not find this figure compelling and for much of 1941 and 1942, Cochran was in England, ostensibly to provide the RAF with the assistance of 25 American pilots.[21] But in fact Cochran was in constant communication with American leaders and wouldn’t accept defeat.
Nancy Harkness Love, an accomplished test pilot and air racer had a similar desire for women to assist in domestic aviation. In 1940, Nancy Love had also approached Colonel Olds about a woman’s ferrying division. Her initial vision was rather limited. She referred Colonel Olds to 49 women she believed could capably handle the job. Later, she was directed to Lieutenant Colonel Tunner, commander of the AAF Ferrying Command and proposed a small female ferrying division. Love, unlike Cochran, thought it would be best to accept only female pilots who already had 500 hours of flight time and could essentially walk on to the job after a brief course in military aviation.
General Henry (Hap) Arnold was a reluctant convert to the use of women as military pilots. In 1944, after the success of the WASP program, he reflected that before he’d seen the evidence, he didn’t know “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.” [22] In 1941, Hap Arnold thought female pilots would be more trouble than they were worth. But the circumstances of the war eventually forced his hand. While he had previously insisted that lack of planes, not lack of pilots was the most significant hindrance to the AAF, in the summer of 1942, pilot shortages were severe and showed no signs of improvement. [23] The aviation industry had been tapped and only 11,000 qualified male pilots found.[24] As the war in the Pacific raged on, the Army would need many more.
At this point, Nancy Love and Jacqueline Cochran’s competing visions for women’s role in World War II aviation led to two separate programs. Jacqueline Cochran began the Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD) and Nancy Love initiated the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) in September, 1942. Both programs were officially experimental but took on advanced responsibilities and operational burdens. Although Nancy Love had only proposed a force of 49 women, on September 5th, 1942, General Harold L. George decided to send solicitations to 83 women to join the WAFS.[25] The WFTD grew rapidly in Texas as the trainees proved themselves as effective service pilots.
For both programs, the startup phase was challenging.
Cochran’s first WFTD pilots trained at Ellington Airfield in Houston, Texas. Cochran’s pilots there jokingly referred to themselves as “guinea pigs” and the program operated on a shoestring budget: no classrooms, no housing facilities, and no dining hall besides the cafeteria of the Houston Municipal Airport, a half-mile away.[26] Later, the expanded program would move to the Avenger Airfield of Sweetwater, Texas, the pilots from around the country had their first encounters with rattlesnakes, clouds of grasshoppers, and blistering Texas wind.[27]
The WAFS were stationed at Newcastle Army Base in Wilmington, Delaware. These pilots were, in general, more experienced than Cochran’s. Many had been CPTP instructors and some had been test pilots. The conditions at Newcastle were Spartan. One pilot was aghast. “Don’t tell me we’ll take showers out in front of God and everybody else,” she wrote, noting that “even more shocking was the fact that the commode stalls had no privacy doors.”[28]
The WFTD and the WAFS continued independently until 1943, when the AAF decided that the programs should be consolidated. Either the pilots would be incorporated into the WAC or the two programs would be combined into a single women’s auxiliary unit. The combination of the WACs and the WFTD or WAFS seemed natural and some proposed an arrangement similar to the situation of the AAF within the army.[29] However, Jackie Cochran believed that having her pilots accountable to the both the WAC and the AAF would be confusing and inefficient. Newsweek ran a story about this, depicting it as typical female in-fighting.[30] In the end, Cochran preferred that the WFTD remain an independent civilian force until they could be incorporated into the Army Air Forces. On August 5th, 1943, the Women Airforce Service Pilots were created when the WFTD and the WAFS were consolidated into a single program under the leadership of Jacqueline Cochran.
DISCRIMINATION
Even with the legitimacy of the Army Air Force’s approval, and the efficiency of being organized under a single institution, the WASPs still faced many obstacles. Institutional discrimination limited what they could accomplish and how they were paid, stereotypes in the media diminished their considerable accomplishments, and negative attitudes about working women alienated them from their own communities and families. Even in this context, most WASP reflect positively on their experience as one of the highlights of their youth. This could be because a gender segregated force created a unique opportunity for intense female bonding and a powerful sense of community.
Acceptance to the WASP was particularly rigorous because many leaders in the Air Force doubted it was a good idea to use women at all and hoped to hedge their bets by instating burdensome experience requirements.[31] Both the WAFS and WFTD originally required 500 hours of previous flight time for new recruits. Later, the WFTD would lower their requirements to 200 hours, then 75 hours and finally to 35 hours.[32] For men joining the Air Force, no previous experience was required. If a woman wanted to fly for her country, she would have to already have access to flying time and an airplane. The Civilian Pilot Training Program provided this for some. But since the percentage of women was capped at 10%, some WASP hopefuls had to pay out of pocket for flight time. Some were wealthy, but others scrimped to meet the requirements.
Once recruits were determined to have enough flight hours, they faced other institutional hurdles. Bureaucrats who disagreed with the WASP on principle could hold up paperwork without consequence. WASP Mary Wyall recalled an instance of ideologically motivated sabotage.
I got the telegram that my papers were not in order and that I would not be accepted into the 4-49, which just crushed me…I called up the flight surgeon because they had since sent a letter and said what was missing. I said, ‘I took this test and there’s no reason it shouldn’t have been sent in.’ He said ‘I don’t believe women should be in the military, so therefore I just let it sit on my desk.’
And that just blew my top. I was so furious. I wasn’t screaming; I was being very calm, but I said ‘You’ve just ruined my whole life. I had to quit my job and now I have no job and no money because I spent my money on the train ticket. Then I had to come back.’ And he said ‘Young lady, you do not speak to colonels like this.’ And I apologized. He said ‘But I will send in your papers.’ So I’m very fortunate.[33]
Some WASP also had to overcome familial difficulties. Because flying was dangerous and considered a man’s work, so it was challenging to persuade critical family members that pilot training was a good idea. Doris Hamaker recalled that her mother wouldn’t sign the form for her to take Civilian Pilot Training in junior college. After a much leg pulling, her mother consented, but then her father wouldn’t approve. He only consented when Hamaker framed her decision as a patriotic duty, rather than an exploration of a personal passion.[34] Another WASP remembered that a boyfriend asked her to choose between him and flying. She chose flying.[35]
Once the WASP entered the program, they were treated as Air Force employees, but classified as civilian contract pilots. This status was disingenuous; the women were educated by the Air Force and subject to Air Force rules. Their uniform, for example, was described by AAF Regulation 40-9.[36] Civilian status underrepresented their accomplishments and duties. One Abilene Texas reporter, Anne Stevick, lamented that the WASP were treated as “step-children in hand-me down clothes” while completing many of the Air Forces’ most demanding and tedious jobs like tow-targeting.[37] Stevick explained that incorporating the WASP into the armed forces would have meant a pay raise for most because their salary was $150 dollars a month in training and $250 after graduation, but that “girls pay about $50 board and room and buy their own uniforms. Trousers cost 12.50 and shirts $8 to $12. Most of the girls find it necessary to have about four uniforms.”[38]
Militarization would have eased these expenses, as well as the costs of getting to and from Avenger Air Field for training. While returning combat pilots were paid according to how many hours they flew, civilian pilots made the same wage regardless how many missions they flew. Compensation was a key reason many WASP wanted to join the Army Air Forces.[39] But civilian status brought other practical hardships to the WASP and their families. WASPs paid for long term occupational injuries, especially hearing loss, out of pocket, until they received V.A. benefits in 1977.[40] WASPs could not receive military funerals and their families could not display a star if they were killed. Former WASP recalled that when a pilot died at Sweetwater, “they had to take up the collection to get her body back home.”[41]
Despite the gradual increase in the military’s trust and the expansion of WASP duties, inefficient regulations hampered the WASP and served no purpose besides relieving gender angst.[42] The WASP couldn’t hitch rides with male pilots, were supposedly banned from dating any servicemen, and couldn’t issue commands to male service members. Actually, no woman could command a male service member unless the orders came from a male superior.[43] Like many female service members, the WASP faced stricter behavioral codes than men in the same roles. The wording of this uniform regulation reflects some of these anxieties about the WASPs conduct and appearance.
WASP Uniform Regulation[44]
Advertisers, the government, and individuals didn’t seem to know what to make of women in uniform. The WASP were not the only women to serve the United States military. There were also female auxiliaries in the army, navy, marines, and Coast Guard. The WASP were particularly notable though because they all flew and none were assigned to clerical or secretarial work. This meant their work was especially newsworthy. During the war, some worried that broadening gender roles could corrupt women’s femininity. One article published in Abilene Texas was presciently titled: “WASP Pilots May Look, Act Boyish: But They’re Still Feminine.”[45] Throughout the war, women were concerned worried how others would see their service and whether they would be ostracized. At the same time, men worried that the inclusion of women in the Armed Services degraded the services themselves. As a result, the military’s leadership focused on fulfilling the requirements of the war effort “with the least disruption of the pre-war sexual order.”[46]
Many of these attitudes and perceptions came to light in a Life Magazine Article published in July of 1943. From 1941 to 1943, almost all depictions of civilian war efforts were positive. At this point, allied victory seemed far from inevitable and publishers specifically intended to boost morale and celebrate full mobilization.[47] Coverage of the WASP bears this out. Though the women were cheered for doing their part, the underlying message is that they were not intended to replace men in the Army Air Forces and only to serve a support role. Though the women were celebrated for their patriotism, the rigor of their training and the importance of their work usually fell by the wayside.
The Life magazine cover story was almost certainly the most widely read description of the WASP program. In 1942, 63% of enlisted Americans read Life and at that point, the magazine’s editorial attitude to women in uniform was positive, if biased.[48] The cover photo featuring pilot Shirley Slade is one of the most iconic images of the WASP program.
It makes quite a contrast with the cover of a similar article run about the training of male bombardiers.
The topics of these two articles were very similar but the coverage was not. The article about the WASP, called “Girl Pilots” explained that the Army was training women for support roles in domestic aviation and gave some information on their training. The “Bombardier” article gave detailed descriptions of their training in Midland, Texas and a serious evaluation of the significance of their roles. The tone of these articles differs significantly and tellingly. Even the aesthetic choices made in the respective covers show which traits were valued in the trainees. The photo of Slade is cute, childlike and non-threatening. The photo of the bombardier shows him focusing on something in the distance, apparently in thought. His left eye is blackened with soot from pair of goggles. He is shown in a plane rather than on a plane or near a plane. In contrast, most photos in the article about the WASP show the pilots posed near planes or occasionally in grounded planes. Only one photo shows a pilot in flight:
The article about the bombardier features 7 photographs of the bombardiers completing an essential task in flight. The photos show the bomb-sights, the inside of the aircraft, and instructors working with students. Very few of the students are shown in any detail – often their faces are in shadow near a machine or while loading a plane. The emphasis is on the work itself, not the appearance or personality of the student doing the work. The WASP article focuses much more attention on appearances. The 9-page spread also makes 6 references to the WASPs’ hairstyles, 3 references to uniforms, and 2 references to Jacqueline Cochran’s appearance as either “pretty” or “glamorous.” There is a special panel on the various hairstyles WASP use to keep their eyes clear when flying. The editors also include a second photo of the pilot Shirley Slade with her hair down and note the difference it makes in her appearance.[50] “Girl Pilots” glamorizes flight at the expense of communicating the practical purpose of the WASP program.[51] Consider how the pilots are introduced:
At Avenger Airfield near Sweetwater, Texas, girls are flying military planes in a way that Army Officers a year or so ago would never have thought possible. These girls, who so joyously scramble into the silver airplanes of the Women’s Flying Training Detachment each day fly with skill, precision and zest, their hearts set on piloting with an unfeminine purpose that might well be a threat to Hitler… Girls are very serious about their chance to fly for the Army at Avenger Field, even when it means giving up nail polish, beauty parlors, and dates for a regimented 22½ weeks.[52]
The pilots are exclusively referred to as “girls” even though the author acknowledges that some were mothers, wives and widows. There is scant coverage of the duties of the WASP or the nature of their training. The author does speculate rather unscientifically about differences between male and female pilots, specifically noting that “the instructors says the girls are faster on instruments than the boys, more smooth and gentle in flying characteristics.”[53] No specific evidence is given for these claims. The language is consistently diminutive. For reference, the bombardiers are introduced in this manner:
In most modern bombing, the bombardier has to be right the first time. He gets no second chance…for his critical job, the bombardier must be rigorously trained. The Army Air Force is training bombardiers by the hundreds. In twelve crowded weeks, it teaches them theory of bombing, gives them ground training and flight training, and introduces them to combat work.[54]
The bombardiers are either referred to by their job title or as men. They are not called boys. There are no photographs of the students at leisure. The text of the article immediately explains the difficulty and importance of the bombardier’s task and the grave consequences of failure. The final image of the bombardier piece is of a student landing a bomb “smack on the target.” The language is almost dire at times and the reader is reminded that “years of planning, building, and training are wasted unless he puts the cross hairs just so, kicks his bombs off at the exact split second.”[55] The rest of the article guides the reader through the process of becoming a bombardier, the long hours of class, the intense practical examinations, and the palpable fear of failure. Other photos show the exact nature of the tasks the bombardiers learn, shot from the student’s perspective.[56]
The WASP article explains few of the difficulties of the program. The reader has only a vague understanding that the women are trained to do some form of military aviation but that they also have, apparently, a great deal of free time to lay out in the sun, go to the movies, and fix their hair. While the bombardier article only includes description of the trainees’ duties and training, the article about the WASP includes 2 full pages of pilots resting and sunbathing. One could be forgiven for assuming the program was superfluous when this is the final full page of the article:
This representation of the pilots and their abundant free time is misleading. In reality, the WASP program was difficult. WASPs rose at 6:15am and weren’t released until 10pm. They had two daily shifts of classes and flight exercises, plus an hour of calisthenics. An hour of free time a day was typical.[57]
The difference in these two articles was, in fact, only possible because of the unstated assumptions in the creation of the WASP that the women out to be segregated into their own program. This was, in itself, a way of treating the WASP differently from their male counterparts. But it had the ancillary outcome of creating a distinctly female sub-culture within the AAF. The WASP had a strong esprit de corps and many alumni described it as the highlight of their youth. The WASPs at Avenger Airfield published detailed yearbooks of every graduating class (Figure 1)[58], had rowdy celebrations each time a pilot flew by herself for the first time (Figure 2)[59], and wrote their own ‘training’ songs, which often had little to do with training (Figure 3). [60] The Order of Fifinella, the WASP alumni organization operated consistently after World War II until 2009, providing opportunities for pilots to reconnect with their peers and even pass on the tradition of female aviation through families.[61]
Figure 1: Avenger Class 44-W-4 Year Book
Figure 2: A WASP goes in the well after her first solo flight.
Figure 3: WASP Song: Zoot Suits and Parachutes
Despite these benefits, diverting female pilots into the WASP, as opposed to training them as Army Air Force cadets, made the program more vulnerable to criticism and eventually put their interests at odds with returning male pilots. Although the separation of male and female pilots seems like a necessary accommodation to the culture of the time, female pilots serving in the Air Transport Auxiliary in the United Kingdom were not segregated by sex.[62] In the USSR, women even served as combat pilots, specifically in tactical bombing and harassment at Stalingrad and the invasion of Berlin.[63] In the United States in 1942, the idea of a woman flying any military plane was progress. Combat duties were never seriously considered. But clearly these attitudes varied across cultures. Environmental factors may have changed outcomes for women, too. For example, the United Kingdom may not have given greater equality to female pilots out of a sense of social justice, but instead because they mobilized sooner and were facing an imminent invasion of their homeland.[64]
In the United States, negative attitudes about women caused real institutional difficulties for the WASP. The narrative that Jacqueline Cochran would not work with Nancy Love and Oveta Culp Hobby was especially damaging. This idea surfaced in congressional hearings to undermine the program and discredit its leaders. “Nancy was known as a ‘lady’ but Jackie was a character,”[65] or at least Madge Moore a WASP from San Antonio, Texas, thought so. Adela Schaar, a WAF, made the following smirking evaluation of Cochran’s background and why she was not the next Amelia Earhart.
No one criticized Amelia. So what was the difference between her and Jackie Cochran? Amelia, although not wealthy, had a college education. Her father was a professional man. She had the social status necessary to be eligible for the Junior League. In contrast, Jackie gave herself her own name. She … was raised by a woman in a poor mill town in the South. After only a year or two of formal schooling, she went to work in a cotton mill, left that, and got a job in a beauty shop where she learned her skills by apprenticeship. Always ambitious, she landed in a salon in New York City, met the Odlums and with Floyd’s help, started her own cosmetics company. She jumped the barriers to high society. After Amelia disappeared on the Pacific leg of her around-the-world flight, Jackie tried to make herself Amelia’s successor. She got some publicity, but did not win the admiration of aviation society or the attention of the press, such as Amelia had done.[66]
Many of the accounts of Jacqueline Cochran are contradictory. For example, the report she issued to Hap Arnold before the WASP was disbanded is often construed as an ultimatum: the WASP should either be militarized or disbanded. Since this was after there was no possibility of the WASP being incorporated in to the Army Air Forces, it clearly was not an ultimatum. She didn’t have the power to issue an ultimatum, she was just giving her opinion. Though Jacqueline Cochran was often portrayed as a provocative leader, she was typically conservative. Many called the WASPs “Cochran’s convent.” Her refusal to join the WAC was based on sound administrative logic. [67] She was, according to the majority of existing evidence, an able leader.
In 1942 and 1943, the increasing visibility of the WASP program exposed them to more hostility. Once WASPs graduated from the intense training and bonding in Sweetwater, Texas, they were sent to bases across the country to serve on an array of different missions. One of the largest concentrations of WASP was at Camp Davis, North Carolina. Many WASPs remember this environment as notably hostile and dangerous. For one thing, it was a huge camp with fifty-thousand servicemen. The engineers and mechanics were severely overworked. Many aircraft weren’t skyworthy and the WASP were often asked to test-fly planes to prove to men they were safe enough to fly. When Doris Hamaker tested a twin engine bomber and lost one engine, she had to make a crash landing. She recalled “the tower went berserk…when the air finally became quiet, we heard this little voice that said ‘A woman’s place is in the home.’”[68] Two WASP died at Camp Davis and upon investigation at the crash site, sugar was found in the engine of one of the planes. In another incident, two women quit after another pilot burned to death in a defective cockpit which wasn’t fixed after she had submitted a maintenance request.[69] Other WASP remembered cadets at Camp Davis joking about flying on their wings or shooting them out of the sky during tow-targeting. Camp Davis also provided women with opportunities, however, and it was here that WASP began ferrying B-26s, which were so unreliable the WASP were asked to embarrass the men into flying them.[70]
One of the worst legacies of the WASP is that even amidst the enormous challenges these pilots faced because of their gender, the program discriminated against other skilled pilots on the basis of race. When Mildred Hemman Carter, a completely qualified African American candidate applied to the WASP, Cochran asked her to quietly withdraw.[71] Cochran believed an African American recruit would draw unwanted attention to the program. The WASP did, however, include two Chinese-American pilots: Ah Ying Lee and Maggie Yee. In the summer of 1942, Lee was piloting an AT-6 over the Texas panhandle when the engine failed and she had to make a crash landing. When she climbed out of the plane, a panicked Texan met her with a pitchfork and bellowed that “The Japs had landed!” Lee insisted that she was a Yankee pilot but was eventually led away by local cops after she “surrendered like a prisoner of war.”[72]
PART 3: DISBANDING THE WASP
Even after undeniable success, the WASP program would be cut short in 1944. From the beginning of the WASP program, Jacqueline Cochran argued that it should be an official branch of the Army Air Forces, rather than a civilian institution. She believed this would grant the program legitimacy, improve operational efficiency, and provide greater resources. In January 1944, General Hap Arnold agreed that militarization was essential to the WASP program.[73] He then developed a plan to use the 1941 War Powers Act to commission the WASP as temporary officers, putting them on equal footing with men of the same rank. But when the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff heard about this, he insisted that provision was for men only.[74] This meant that militarization for the WASP would require an act of Congress. The WASP Militarization Bill was introduced by Representative John Costello of California and would become known as the Costello Bill.[75] It stipulated that women would receive the same pay and privileges as members of the Army Reserve Corps of the same grade and seniority. However, no women could exceed the rank of colonel, and women could only command their own division. The bill also required 95% of recruits to be licensed pilots.[76] Though some institutional inequalities remained, the Costello Bill would have been a huge leap forward for women in aviation by providing them a permanent presence as pilots in the military.
Initially, Army Air Forces endorsed the Costello Bill because it would direct able bodied men away from domestic aviation and towards the walking army, which was 200,000 men short of its requirements. In fact, General Hap Arnold had hoped to increase the female pilot pool to 2,500 women so that they could complete all domestic ferrying missions and the majority of pilot training. This would release the remaining male pilot trainers for combat and many other men for infantry service. Therefore, the WASP would not only release men for combat aviation but also for the army.[77]
Some men who had expected to serve as domestic pilots protested this arrangement. From their perspective, they felt their technical skills should prevent them from serving as canon-fodder in the Pacific War. Returning male pilots were shocked at how quickly the WASP program had grown and some were offended that women were preferred for ferrying duties. However, many of these men had been trained by the Civilian Pilot Training Program, which meant they did not qualify to cover the WASP duties. WFTD and WAFS training protocols followed CPTP training. They did not replace it. Some men who had completed CPTP training felt, incorrectly, that they were as experienced or more experienced than WASPs. In May 1944, Arnold essentially told these men that if they didn’t immediately qualify as pilots, gunners or bombardiers, they should expect to be drafted into the walking army. Many pilots, seeing women in the jobs they had expected, were irate.[78]
These men were the willing audience for critics of the WASP like Drew Pearson. Pearson denied the competence, necessity and legitimacy of women pilots. Pearson, missing the plain fact that in order to accept CPTP graduates the Army Air Forces would have to lower its requirements, wrongly asserted that the WASP cost more to train, had less experience than males, and were led by an irrational, megalomaniacal seductress: Jacqueline Cochran.[79] Pearson wrote the following in March of 1944:
The Transport Command already has pilots sitting around for as long as five weeks at a time without getting into the air. There's not a chance that the discharged instructors will be taken on by ATC. The feminine angle makes it worse. These instructors see the women pilots (Wasps) getting more flying opportunity than men. Explanation is that wasp chief Jacqueline Cochran uses her inside track in favor of her feminine flyers.[80]
The Air Transport Command to which Pearson refers had two duties. The first was to deliver supplies and equipment overseas to combat zones. The WASP did not fly into combat zones, so they participated in the second duty of the Air Transport Command: ferrying newly manufactured planes from factories to bases. Pearson was right. Men were not getting flight time (domestically) and that was on purpose. There was a genuine effort to direct men out of domestic aviation. This wasn’t because the military wanted to discriminate against male pilots, but because in May of 1944 there were still plans for an invasion of mainland Japan. Pearson didn’t reference this and pinned the blame for the misuse of male pilots on Jackie Cochran. Pearson protested them were “thrown out of work, to start their military service all over again – on the ground.”[81] He was right about the outcome. These men really were directed out of the Air Force. But he was wrong about the cause. Jackie Cochran’s vivaciousness had nothing to do with shortages in the infantry.
Cochran and the War Department had tried to get ahead of potential criticism of the program. In the early days of the Women’s Flying Training Detachment, it was officially decided that publicity should be avoided as much as possible. This posed no problem to recruitment; the WFTD and the WASP never had trouble finding enough women to apply. But the official silence about the WASP program meant that the American public knew almost nothing about what the pilots were actually doing. The public believed that male pilots were more qualified because it matched their expectations, even if it didn’t match the reality.[82] When a campaign was launched to discredit the WASP, it worked quite well because the War Department, following a conservative public relations protocol, would not comment on accusations of waste and incompetence.[83] Finally, in the midst of media scorn, to promote the image of the pilots as valuable employees, Cochran organized the first press event for the WASP at Camp Davis, where they “towed targets at which live machine gun and cannon ammunition was fired.”[84] But it was too late.
The timing of the Costello Bill couldn’t have been worse. In 1943, scandal had shamed the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps with allegations of excessive drinking, extramarital sex, and widespread pregnancies. It was later discovered that these accusations were mainly “gossip spread by American servicemen, many of whom had never met an actual Wac in their lives.”[85] But they made life harder for all women in uniform. Even worse, in 1944 just as the Costello Bill was being considered, a melodramatic and deeply sexist film, Ladies Courageous, hit theaters. Ladies Courageous reinforced and enflamed the worst stereotypes about women in uniform – stereotypes many were primed to accept after the WAC scandal. Much to the horror of the pilots and trainees, it depicted female pilots flirting with married men, succumbing to poorly timed, mid-air emotional breakdowns, and crashing planes to get attention or commit suicide in penance for the aforementioned affairs. The trainees at Sweetwater quickly dubbed the film Ladies Outrageous. The betrayal was particularly bitter because a card before the film read “sanctioned by the United States Army Air Force.”[86]
Meanwhile, the American public was increasingly confident about the war and increasingly anxious about women in the workforce. In June of 1944, when Senate Resolution 1810 and 4219 (which would have militarized the WASP) were being debated, the American forces had secured the Normandy beachhead and launched an invasion of continental Europe.[87] Consequently, many publishers, politicians, and families began to wonder what working women would do after the war. Would they return, happily, to domestic bliss or would they expect the wartime opportunities they’d had to continue? Companies started laying off enormous numbers of women in 1944. It became clear that the end of the war would restore traditional social structures and not always gently.[88]
In June of 1944, legislators couldn’t end the WASP program, but they could block militarization. This is exactly what happened and on June 21st, 1944, the Costello Bill was defeated 188 to 169. The hearing lasted less than an hour and only one witness testified in favor of the WASP: Henry H. Arnold.[89] The WASP continued operations in an awkward state of limbo until December of 1944. The Costello Bill’s defeat had come as surprise to many trainees. In May of 1944, one woman wrote that pilots were told to speak up if they had any objections about joining the Army.[90] In July, the same woman expected the school to close any day at that she wanted to “get all I can as long as it lasts.”[91] Because the WASP expected to be militarized, they were angered and saddened in June of 1944. Earlier classes of WASP felt badly for the newer recruits who knew there was no hope for militarization. But they continued flying and serving their country. In fact, on September 1944, Ann Baumgartner would become the first American woman to test pilot a jet powered plane.[92] Then, in December of 1944, the WASP were disbanded completely. Shortly after, Cochran sent General Arnold a 58 page report detailing the accomplishments of the WASP and explaining her thoughts about militarization. In it, she wrote that if ever again a women’s pilot program was developed, it should be militarized immediately.
Perhaps, as Cochran seems to believe, the WASP could have met a better end or no end at all if certain factors were different. The Women’s Army Corp, for example, existed until 1978 when female units were incorporated into male units. So the demise of the WASP may not have been inevitable. If the WASP had been incorporated into the WAC, it would have meant less autonomy for Jacqueline Cochran, but perhaps the unity of the two programs would have given them more political power. Furthermore, if the WASP hadn’t existed as a separate, gender segregated division it would have been harder to ground women fliers en masse. Because the program was “experimental” rather than functional, the military could easily justify ending it.
Some historians, like the previously mentioned Helena P. Schrader, believe the WASP program was undermined by a failure of leadership.[93] This was also a major theme of the congressional debate the Costello Bill. Men and women alike accused Jacqueline Cochran of being devious, seductive, and self-interested.[94] In most cases, Jackie Cochran seemed to make completely reasonable decision. More than any internal weakness, the WASP program was damaged by a variety of discriminatory practices employed by the military, the Army Air forces and the US Congress. All this reflected existing attitudes about women and men’s appropriate roles in society. Americans believed it was preferable to employ a man, because men’s work seemed like a necessity while women’s work seemed like a hobby. Consider the pages devoted to WASP sunbathing, napping, and writing letters home in the Life Article. The public assumed that that the man should get the job even if the best man for the job was, in fact, a woman. So the progress the WASP made was undone because few people could believe the WASP were equally qualified even when they were more qualified than the men who felt entitled to their jobs.
CONCLUSIONS
Upon the disbandment of the WASP, General Hap Arnold proclaimed, “it is on the record that women can fly as well as men.”[95] But the disbandment of the WASP was a huge blow to female aviation. The military trains more pilots than any other institution in the United States. Female aviation, after making huge strides during the war fell back to where it had been when Amelia Earhart expressed her concerns about discrimination in 1936. There wouldn’t be a substantial number of women in commercial aviation until the eighties and to this day only about 7% of Airline Pilots are women.[96]
From 1944 to 1975, the US Air forces did not train female pilots and as a result, there are relatively few women in aviation today. When women were finally accepted to the Air Force, they faced severe harassment of a kind they had never encountered in the gender segregated training at Avenger Airfield. In 1976, General William Westermoreland said that while one woman in 10,000 might be suited really well suited for the Air Force, she would be a freak and “the Military Academy is not being run for freaks.”[97] Another major said the kind of women the Air Force wanted were the kind who “will get married and leave.”[98] These comments were made in 1976, thirty-two years after the end of the WASP. The new Air Force recruits had to prove, once again, that women were up to the task even in the face of evidence to the contrary many leaders did not believe that women were pilot-material. [99]
Most WASPs retired from aviation, but others like Jacqueline Cochran continued to fly. Cochran, picking herself up after the media onslaught which dogged her in 1944, went on to a stellar career in aviation. In 1953, she took hold of the controls of an F-86 in Roger’s Dry Lake California and became the first woman to break the sound barrier. By the time of her death in 1980, she held more speed, altitude and distance records than any living pilot, male or female.[100] But Cochran was a woman of great means and her ability to continue aviation was the exception, not the rule.
With the introduction of women to the Air Force in the Ford Administration came a revival of public interest in the WASP program, which to that point had been largely forgotten. It was in this context that the WASP were finally given veterans benefits and recognized for their service three decades prior. The legacy of the WASP is now very positive, even after the controversial termination of the program. WASPs are now considered veterans who served their country and accomplished great things. There example also serves as a warning. Progress is fragile and dominant groups can discredit marginalized groups simply by controlling media narratives. Stereotypes do real harm; even mediocre films like Ladies Courageous seriously impact attitudes and policy. Change is painful, but pioneers like Jackie Cochran did the United States a great service by challenging what people assumed was possible. It takes bravery to be different and grit to keep going when others assume you will fail. Discrimination casts a long shadow, but by remembering the achievements of those who came before us, we let their bravery inspire our own.
BIBLIOGRAPHY & Footnotes
Avenger Field Yearbook, Class 44-W-4, 1944; Sweetwater, Texas. University of North Texas Libraries, crediting National WASP WWII Museum.
Arnold, Henry, “Address by Gen. Henry H. Arnold, Commanding General to WASP Graduate Class, December 7, 1944” (Speech, December 7th, 1944). Accessed at WASP Museum Digital Archives.
Bombardier School: Air Force Trains its Men for Deadly Job,” Life Magazine, May 18th, 1942, 73-79. Accessed with Google Books.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Jacqueline Cochran." Encyclopædia Britannica. March 16, 2018. Accessed May 01, 2018. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jacqueline-Cochran.
Cline, Ray S. “Washington Command Post: The Operations Division.” Center for Military History, United States Army. 1990. https://history.army.mil/html/books/001/1-2/CMH_Pub_1-2.pdf., 34-39.
"Current Statistics of Women in Aviation Careers in U.S. | Women in Aviation International." Women in Aviation. Accessed April 30, 2018. https://www.wai.org/resources/waistats.
Clipping: Women contributed to WWII campaign, September 6, 1992; San Antonio, Texas. (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth894057/: accessed April 30, 2018), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting National WASP WWII Museum.
Earhart, Amelia. The Fun of It: Random Records of My Own Flying and of Women in Aviation. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger, 2010.
Excerpts From Letters Regarding WASP Life], University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, crediting National WASP WWII Museum texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth874052/m1/19/?q=national%20wasp%20wwii%20museum%20letters:
“Girl Pilots: Air Force Trains them at Avenger Field, Texas,” Life Magazine, July 19th, 1943, 73-81. Accessed with Google Books.
Hartmann, Susan. The Home Front and Beyond: American Women in the 1940s. Boston: GK&Hall Co: Twayne Publishers, 1982.
Haynsworth, Leslie and Toomey, David. Amelia Earhart’s Daughters: The Wild And Glorious Story Of American Women Aviators: From World War II, To The Dawn Of The Space Age. New York: Perennial, 2000.
Hicks Stein, Judith. Bring Me Men and Women. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1981.
Merryman, Molly. Clipped Wings: The Rise and Fall of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) of World War II. New York: New York University Press, 1998.
Lebow, Eileen F. Before Amelia: Women Pilots in the Early Days of Aviation. Washington, D.C.: Brasseys, 2002.
Lenthe, Jean-Vi. Flying into Yesterday. El Prado, New Mexico: Wild Hare Press. 2011.
"Order of Fifinella & WASP, Inc." Order of Fifinella & WASP, Inc. - Texas Woman's University. Accessed May 01, 2018. https://twu.edu/library/womans-collection/featured-collections/women-airforce-service-pilots-wasp/fifinella-wasp/.
Pearson, Drew, Washington Merry-Go-Round, 15 March, 1944. Accessed at American University Digital Research Archive. https://auislandora.wrlc.org/islandora/object/pearson%3A56484?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=518264aecf5d2c1828f4&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=0&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=9#page/1/mode/1up/search/Cochran
Rich, Doris L. Jackie Cochran: Pilot in the Fastest Lane. Gainesville Florida: University Press of Florida. 2007.
Rickman, Sarah Byrn. Nancy Love and the WASP Ferry Pilots of World War II. Denton, TX: University of North Texas Press, 2008.
Rita Victoria Gomez, “Night Witches: The Untold Story of Soviet Women in Combat (Review),” Minerva, Pasadena Journal 1, no. 1 (1983): 48.
Ross, Betsy, “WASP Pilots Look, Act Boyish, But They’re Still Feminine,” The Abilene Reporter-News (Abilene, TX), May 7th, 1944.
Schaar, Adela Riek. Sisters in the Sky: Volume 1 – The WAFS. St. Louis Missouri, The Patrice Press. 1986.
Schrader, Helena P. "Winged Auxiliaries: Women Pilots in the UK and US during World War Two." Journal of Navigation 59, no. 02 (2006): 187. doi:10.1017/s0373463306003651.
Snapp, Helen Wyatt; Sizemore, Marjorie Popell; Hamaker, Doris Elkington; Gordon, Mary Ann Baldner; Wyall, Mary Anna Martin & James, Teresa D. "Group of Interview of the WASP Interview by Rebecca Wright Cocoa Beach, Florida" Transcript of an oral history conducted 1999 by Rebecca Wright, University of North Texas Libraries
Stevick, Ann. “WASPs Hope for Inclusion in Air Force,” The Abilene Reporter News (Abilene, TX), October 29th, 1943.
Tencza, Jane Elizabeth. Serving Two Masters: The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps and The Slander Campaign of 1943 (Doctoral dissertation). 2006. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/305335423?pq-origsite=summon&accountid=7118,
WASP Training Songs, text, Date Unknown; University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting National WASP WWII Museum.
U.S. Army Airforces. “AAF Regulation 40-9: Wearing the WASP Uniform.” February 1944.
[1] Molly Merryman, Clipped Wings: The Rise and Fall of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) of World War II (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 3.
[2] Merryman, Clipped Wings, 78.
[3] Molly Merryman Clipped Wings: The Rise and Fall of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II (New York University Press, 1998) 67.
[4] Judith Hicks Stein, Bring Me Men and Women (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1981), 3.
[5] Eileen F. Lebow, Before Amelia: Women Pilots in the Early Days of Aviation (Washington, D.C.: Brasseys, 2002). The above description is largely informed by Lebow’s history of women in flight before Amelia Earhart’s rise to fame.
[6] Amelia Earhart, The Fun of It: Random Records of My Own Flying and of Women in Aviation (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger, 2010), 142.
[7] Earhart, The Fun of It, 146.
[8] Adela R. Scharr, Sisters in the Sky / the WAFS (St. Louis, MO: Patrice Press, 1986), 61.
[9] Ray S. Cline, “Washington Command Post: The Operations Division,” The War Department, Center of Military History in the United States, pg. 34-39. (Accessed at National Archives: https://history.army.mil/html/books/001/1-2/CMH_Pub_1-2.pdf.)
[10] Merryman, Clipped Wings 9.
[11] Schaar, Sisters in the Sky 6
[12] Rickman, Sarah Byrn, Nancy Love and the WASP Ferry Pilots of World War II. (Denton, Texas: University of North Texas Press, 2008), 61.
[13] Merryman, 10.
[14] Schaar, 7.
[15] Doris L. Rich, Jackie Cochran: Pilot in the Fastest Lane (Orlando, University Press of Florida, 2007), 104.
[16] Rich, 3.
[17] Leslie Haynsworth and David M. Toomey, Amelia Earharts Daughters: The Wild and Glorious Story of American Women Aviators from World War II to the Dawn of the Space Age (New York: Perennial, 2000), 141.
[18] Haynsworth and Toomey, 30.
[19] Merryman, 12.
[20] Schaar, 7.
[21] Schaar, 12.
[22] Hap Arnold Speech, Portal to Texas History, Wasp Digitized Collections
[23] Merryman, 11.
[24] Merryman, 11.
[25] Haynsworth and Toomey, 33.
[26] Haynsworth and Toomey, 63-64
[27] Haynsworth and Toomey, 78-81.
[28] Schaar, 63-64.
[29] Merryman, 39.
[30] Schaar, 496.
[31] Schaar, 67.
[32] Merryman, 78.
[33] [Oral History Transcript of a Group Interview of the Women Airforce Service Pilots], text, July 18, 1999; (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth877319/) University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting National WASP WWII Museum. Mary Wyall Testimony, pg. 6. Other WASPs confirmed that flight surgeons could hold up paper work if they had ideological objections to the use of women in the military.
[34] Group Interview of the WASP, Doris Hamaker Testimony, pg. 7.
[35] Group Interview of the WASP, Teresa T. James pg. 30.
[36] U.S. Army Air Forces, AAF Regulation 40-9: Wearing the WASP Uniform (February 14th, 1944) 1-4
[37] Ann Stevick, “WASPs Hope for Inclusion in Air Force,” The Abilene Reporter News (Abilene, TX), October 29th, 1943.
[38] Ann Stevick, “WASPs Hope for Inclusion in Air Force,” The Abilene Reporter News (Abilene, TX), October 29th, 1943.
[39] Merryman, 65.
[40] Merryman, 142.
[41][Oral History Transcript of a Group Interview of the Women Airforce Service Pilots], Teresa T. James pg. 48.
[42] Haynsworth and Toomey, 119.
[43]Susan M. Hartmann, Home Front and Beyond: American Women in the 1940s (Farmington Hills, MI: Twayne Publishing, 1998), 38.
[44] U.S. Army Air Forces, AAF Regulation 40-9: Wearing the WASP Uniform (February 14th, 1944) 1-4
[45] Betsy Ross, “WASP Pilots Look, Act Boyish, But They’re Still Feminine,” The Abilene Reporter-News (Abilene, TX), May 7th, 1944.
[46] Hartmann, 31. The above description of gender roles in the forties is largely taken from The Homefront and Beyond.
[47] Hartmann, 43.
[48] Merryman, 45.
[49] “Girl Pilots: Air Force Trains them at Avenger Field, Texas,” Life Magazine, July 19th, 1943, 73-81. Accessed with Google Books.
[50] “Girl Pilots: Air Force Trains them at Avenger Field, Texas,” Life Magazine, July 19th, 1943, 75. Accessed with Google Books.
[51] Merryman, 52
[52] “Girl Pilots: Airforce Trains them at Avenger Field, Texas,” Life Magazine, July 19th, 73-75.
[53] “Girl Pilots: Air Force Trains them at Avenger Field, Texas,” Life Magazine, July 19th, 1943, 73.
[54] “Bombadier School: Air Force Trains its Men for Deadly Job,” Life Magazine, May 18th, 1942, 73. Accessed with Google Books.
[55] “Bombadier School: Air Force Trains its Men for Deadly Job,” Life Magazine, May 18th, 1942, 73.
[56] “Bombadier School: Air Force Trains its Men for Deadly Job,” Life Magazine, May 18th, 1942, 73-79.
[57] Excerpts From Letters Regarding WASP Life], letter, 5/27/1944 (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth874052/m1/19/?q=national%20wasp%20wwii%20museum%20letters:University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, crediting National WASP WWII Museum.
[58] Avenger Field Yearbook, Class 44-W-4, 1944; Sweetwater, Texas. University of North Texas Libraries, crediting National WASP WWII Museum.
[59]Betsy Ross, “WASP Pilots Look, Act Boyish, But They’re Still Feminine,” The Abilene Reporter-News (Abilene, TX), May 7th, 1944.
[60] WASP Training Songs, Date Unknown; University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting National WASP WWII Museum.
[61] "Order of Fifinella & WASP, Inc.," Order of Fifinella & WASP, Inc. - Texas Woman's University, , accessed May 01, 2018, https://twu.edu/library/womans-collection/featured-collections/women-airforce-service-pilots-wasp/fifinella-wasp/.
[62] Helena P. Schrader, “Winged Auxiliaries: Women Pilots in the UK and US during World War Two,” The Journal of Navigation 59, No.2 (2006): 187-199.
[63]Rita Victoria Gomez, “Night Witches: The Untold Story of Soviet Women in Combat (Review),” Minerva, Pasadena Journal 1, no. 1 (1983): 48.
[64] Schrader, 188.
[65] [Clipping: Women contributed to WWII campaign], clipping, September 6, 1992; San Antonio, Texas. (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth894057/m1/1/?q=national%20wasp%20wwii%20museum%20uniform:accessed March 8, 2018), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting National WASP WWII Museum.
[66] Schaar, 69.
[67] Haynsworth and Toomey, 30.
[68] Hamaker, Doris Elkington. [Oral History Transcript of a Group Interview of the Women Airforce Service Pilots], text, July 18, 1999;(texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth877319/m1/52/?q=national%20wasp%20wwii%20museum%20oral%20history%20woman%27s%20place) University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting National WASP WWII Museum.
[69] Haynsworth and Toomey, 126.
[70] Hanysworth and Toomey, 107.
[71] Hartmann, 45.
[72] Haynsworth and Toomey, 90.
[73] Haynsworth and Toomey, 120.
[74] Haynsworth and Toomey, 120.
[75] Merryman, 75.
[76] Merryman, 76.
[77] Merryman, 78.
[78] Merryman, 79.
[79] Drew Pearson, Washington Merry-Go-Round, 15 March, 1944. Accessed at American University Digital Research Archive.https://auislandora.wrlc.org/islandora/object/pearson%3A56484?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=518264aecf5d2c1828f4&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=0&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=9#page/1/mode/1up/search/Cochran
[80] Drew Pearson, Washington Merry-Go-Round, 15 March, 1944. Accessed at American University Digital Research Archive.https://auislandora.wrlc.org/islandora/object/pearson%3A56484?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=518264aecf5d2c1828f4&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=0&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=9#page/1/mode/1up/search/Cochran
[81] Pearson, Drew, Washington Merry-Go-Round, 15 March, 1944.
[82] Merryman, 65.
[83] Merryman, 66.
[84] Merryman, 60.
[85] Elizabeth Jane Tencza, Serving Two Masters: The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps and The Slander Campaign of 1943 (Doctoral dissertation). 2006. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/305335423?pq-origsite=summon&accountid=7118, 1.
[86] Haynsworth and Toomey, 118.
[87] Haynsworth and Toomey, 135.
[88] Hartmann, The Homefront and Beyond, 50.
[89] Merryman, 77.
[90] [Excerpts From Letters Regarding WASP Life], letter, 5/27/1944 (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth874052/m1/19/?q=national%20wasp%20wwii%20museum%20letters: University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, crediting National WASP WWII Museum.
[91] [Excerpts From Letters Regarding WASP Life], letter, 7/19/1944 texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth874052/m1/19/?q=national%20wasp%20wwii%20museum%20letters: University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, crediting National WASP WWII Museum.
92 Haynsworth and Toomey, 137.
[93] Schrader, 187.
[94] Schaar, 15.
[95] General Henry Arnold, “Address by Gen. Henry H. Arnold, Commanding General to WASP Graduate Class, December 7, 1944” (Speech, December 7th, 1944). Accessed at WASP Museum Digital Archives.
[96] "Current Statistics of Women in Aviation Careers in U.S. | Women in Aviation International," Women in Aviation, accessed April 30, 2018, https://www.wai.org/resources/waistats.
[97] Stein, 1.
[98] Stein, 1.
[99] Stein, 1.
[100]“Jacqueline Cochran”, The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, September 7, 2017/ https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jacqueline-Cochran.
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