Woman Air Force Service Pilot Of World War 2
Woman Air Force Service Pilot Of World War 2
The Women Airforce Service Pilots ( WASP ), and the predecessor groups the Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD) and the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) (from September 10, 1942) were pioneering organizations of civilian female pilots employed to fly military aircraft under the direction of the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. The female pilots would end up numbering a little over thousand, each freeing a male pilot for combat service and duties. The WFTD and WAFS were combined on August 5, 1943 to create the para-military WASP organization.
Creation of the WASP
By the summer of 1941, the famous women pilots Jacqueline "Jackie" Cochran and test-pilot Nancy Harkness Love independently submitted proposals for the use of female pilots in non-combat missions to the US Army Air Forces (USAAF, the predecessor to the United States Air Force or USAF) after the outbreak of World War II in Europe. The motivation was to free male pilots for combat roles by employing qualified female pilots on missions such as ferrying aircraft from factories to military bases, and towing drones and aerial targets. Leading into Pearl Harbor, General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, commander of the USAAF, had turned down both Love's 1940 proposal and the proposal of the better connected and more famous Cochran despite unsubtle lobbying by Eleanor Roosevelt, but essentially promised command of any such effort to Cochran, should such a force be needed in the future.
While the U.S. was not yet fighting in the war, Cochran had gone to England to volunteer to fly for the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA). The ATA had been using female pilots since January 1940 and was starting to train new ones as well. The American women who flew in the ATA were the first American women to fly military aircraft. They flew the Royal Air Force's front-line aircraft—Spitfires, Typhoons, Hudsons, Mitchells, Blenheims, Oxfords, Walruses, and Sea Otters—in a non-combat role, but in combat-like conditions. Most of these women served the war in the ATA. In fact, only three members of the ATA returned to the U.S. to participate in the WASP program.
The U.S. was building its air power and military presence in anticipation of direct involvement in the conflict and had belatedly begun to drastically expand its men in uniform. This period had led to a dramatic increase in activity for the U.S. Army Air Forces, and there were obvious gaps in "manpower" that could be filled by women. However, it was not until after the attack on Pearl Harbor brought U.S. armed forces into the war that it became evident there were not enough male pilots.
To those most involved within the USAAF, especially in the new Ferrying Division of the Air Transport Command (ATC), the numbers were painfully obvious. Ferrying Division commander Brig. Gen. William H. Tunner, in charge of acquiring civilan ferry pilots, decided to integrate a civilian force of female pilots into the AAF after speaking with a fellow ATC staff officer, Major Robert M. Love and his wife Nancy. Convinced of the feasibility of the program by Mrs. Love, who had a Commercial Pilot Licence, he asked her to draw up a proposal, unaware that Arnold had shelved a similar proposal by Tunner's superior, Maj. Gen. Robert Olds.
Cochran had committed to go to Great Britain in March 1942 for a trial program of female pilots with the ATA, and used her association with President and Mrs. Roosevelt to lobby Arnold to reject any plan that did not commission women and set up an independent organization commanded by women. Ironically, Tunner's proposal called for commissioning women in the WAACs, which was turned down after review by Arnold.
By mid-summer of 1942, Arnold was willing to consider the prior proposals seriously. Tunner and Love's plan was reviewed by ATC headquarters, and forwarded by now-commander Gen. Harold L. George to Arnold, who was fully aware of it and gave it his blessing after Mrs. Roosevelt suggested a similar idea in a newspaper column. The Women's Auxiliary Ferry Squadron (WAFS), headed by Mrs. Love, went into operation on September 10, 1942. Soon the Air Transport Command began using women to ferry planes from factory to air fields.
Cochran returned to the United States on September 10 as the new organization was being publicized, and immediately confronted Arnold for an explanation. Arnold claimed ignorance and blamed the ATC staff, in particular George's chief of staff, Col. (and former president of American Airlines) C. R. Smith. With the publicity involved, the WAFS program could not be reversed, and so on September 15 Cochran's training proposal was also adopted. Cochran and Love's squadrons were thereby established separately: as the 319th Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD) at Municipal Airport (now Hobby Airport) in Houston, Texas, with Cochran as commanding officer, and the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron, 2nd Ferrying Group, at New Castle (Delaware) Army Air Base (now New Castle Airport).
Though rivals, the two programs and their respective leaders operated independently and without acknowledgment of each other until the summer of 1943, when Cochran pushed aggressively for a single entity to control the activity of all women pilots. Although Tunner in particular objected on the basis of differing qualification standards and the absolute necessity of ATC being able to control its own pilots, Cochran's pre-eminence with Arnold prevailed, and in July 1943 he ordered the programs merged, with Cochran as director. The WAFS and the WFTD combined to form the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP).
Initial WASP training
WASP training spanned 19 groups of women including The Originals, or WAFS lead by Nancy Love, and The Guinea Pigs, Jacqueline Cochran's first of 18 classes of women pilots.
The WASPs, each with an average of about 1,400 flying hours and a commercial pilot rating, received 30 days of orientation to learn Army paperwork and to fly by military regulations. Afterward, they were assigned to various ferrying commands. (Lois Hailey was one of the 83 who did not accept the invitation to join the WAFS, but later became part of Houston class 43-W-3.)
The Guinea Pigs started training at Houston Municipal Airport on November 16, 1942, as part of the 319th Army Air Force Women's Flying Training Detachment (AAFWFTD). This was just after the WAFS had started their orientation in Wilmington, Delaware. Unlike the WAFS, the women that reported to Houston did not have uniforms and had to find their own lodging. The "Woofteddies" (WFTD) also had minimal medical care, no life insurance, no crash truck, no fire truck, a loaned ambulance from Ellington, insufficient administrative staff, and a hodgepodge of aircraft—23 types—for training. As late as January 1943, when the third class was about to start their training, the three classes were described as "a raggle-taggle crowd in a rainbow of rumpled clothing."
This lack of resources was combined with the foggy and wet Houston weather, which delayed the graduation of the first class from February to April. Conditions included the wet sticky clay soil everywhere, and a scarcity of rest rooms; the potential for morale problems was significant. To minimize this, the Fifinella Gazette was started. The first issue was published February 10, 1943. The female gremlin Fifinella, conceived by Roald Dahl and drawn by Walt Disney, was used as the official WASP mascot and appeared on their shoulder patches.
The first Houston class started with 38 women with a minimum of 200 hours. Twenty-three graduated on April 24, 1943, at the only Houston WASP graduation at Ellington Army Air Field. The second Houston class, starting in December 1942 with a minimum of 100 hours, finished their training just in time to move to Sweetwater and become the first graduating class from Avenger Field on May 28, 1943. The third class completed their advanced training at Avenger Field and graduated July 3, 1943. Half the fourth class, 76 women, started their primary training in Houston on February 15, 1943, and then transferred to Sweetwater.
On March 7, 1943, the Houston classes incurred their first fatality. Margaret Oldenburg of 43-W-4 and her instructor, Norris G. Morgan, crashed seven miles south of Houston and were killed on impact.
By the end of May 1943, the Houston 319th AAFWFTD was history. Later, in the summer of 1943, both the WAFS and WFTD were renamed WASP.
Duties of the WASP
The WASP women pilots each already had a pilot's license. They were trained to fly "the Army way" by the U.S. Army Air Forces at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas. More than 25,000 women applied for WASP service, and less than 1,900 were accepted. After completing four months of military flight training, 1,078 of them earned their wings and became the first women to fly American military aircraft. Except for the fact that the women were not training for combat, their course of instruction wa
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