Correspondence Concerning Women and the Army Air Forces in World War II

U.S. civilian women responded in many ways the crisis of World War B. Especially notable were their well-heralded efforts in performing jobs vacated by men who entered the military. A lesser known war-related duty performed by female civilians was their service as pilots for the Army Air Forces. They ferried planes within the United States and conducted other tedious domestic flying duties. These tasks were sometimes dangerous, even fatal. While the role of women in the U.S. military and on the homefront during World War II has received increased attention in recent years, the service of civilian women pilots has not been adequately recognized.

The featured document attests to women’s willingness to serve in the U.S. military, even if they were not U.S. citizens or of legal age. The correspondence between 14-year-old Priscilla Mathews and Capt. Joseph S. Edgerton, chief of the Press Relations Section of the Army Air Forces Public Relations Branch, exemplifies women’s interest in service. It is found in the Records of the Army Air Forces, Record Group 18.

Priscilla, a British girl living in Pennsylvania "with an aunt and uncle for the duration" had a brother training with the Royal Air Force. She wrote a letter addressed to Lieutenant General Henry H. Arnold five weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, "wondering if you intend to form a Women’s Auxiliary Air Force over here." She notes that "In the English Auxiliary Air Force, they [women] do practically everything, except fly the ’planes."

General Arnold’s office referred Priscilla’s letter to the Public Relations Branch for reply. Captain Edgerton noted that her interest was "truly appreciated," and he "hoped that by the time you are old enough to take an active part, there will be real work for you to do." Within one year of this correspondence, U.S. women found real work as pilots performing missions having a direct impact on the Allied effort to win the war.

THE WOMEN’S PILOT PROGRAM

As early as 1930, the War Department had asked the Army Air Corps about the possible use of women pilots. The Office of the Chief of the Air Corps considered the proposal "utterly unfeasible" because women were "too high strung for wartime flying." A decade later, when U.S. entry into World War II seemed inevitable, an idea to use women as copilots in transport squadrons and to ferry single-engine aircraft was rejected by General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, who had become Chief of the Air Corps in 1938. In August 1941 he again spurned the suggestion, stating that the Air Corps had adequate existing manpower.

In 1939 Jacqueline Cochran, heir to Amelia Earhart’s title as most popular female pilot, made one of the many proposals from outside the air corps to allow women pilots to serve their country. Writing to Eleanor Roosevelt regarding the need to plan to use women pilots in a national emergency, Cochran envisioned a large demonstration project with an extensive training program, which would allow women to learn many types of noncombat flying duties and thereby free thousands of men for combat missions.

At the outbreak of World War II, aviator NancyHarkness Love proposed a different and more modest plan than Cochran’s. While employed by the Air Corps Ferrying Command in a nonflying job, Love recognized the urgent need to find capable ferry pilots to shuttle aircraft from factories to bases and between bases. She recommended that licensed women pilots, who would require little additional training, be used immediately to shoulder some of that burden.

By the fall of 1942, General Arnold, who had taken flying lessons from the Wright brothers in the first decade of the century and was then commanding general of the Army Air Forces (AAF), faced acute pilot shortages and ordered both plans implemented almost simultaneously. In September the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) began operating at New Castle, DE, under Love’s command; one month later, Cochran was made head of the Women’s Flying Training Detachment established at Sweetwater, TX.

The use of women pilots was imperiled at the outset because of differences between the programs proposed by Cochran and Love. Love’s plan called for a small but elite group of trained pilots, who could bolster the ferry pilot ranks almost immediately. Cochran wished to conduct a large-scale training program, resulting in numerous women pilots capable of performing a wide range of duties. General Arnold, declaring that he would not have two separate women’s pilot organizations in the AAF, merged Loves ferrying squadron and Cochran’s women pilot trainees into one organization, with Cochran’s concept given priority. In August 1943 the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) was created with Cochran as Director of Women Pilots and Love named WASP executive with the Ferrying Division of the Air Transport Command.

THE WASPS

Wasps, although experienced pilots, were initially limited to ferrying the PT-19, a pilot training aircraft manufactured in Hagerstown, MD. Once they proved themselves to the satisfaction of skeptical males, the AAF lifted restrictions on the types of aircraft they could fly. When the WASP program ended in December 1944, women pilots had ferried 77 types of aircraft, including the P-39, P-40, P-47, P-63, C-54, C-46, and B-24. They also flew the B-25, the medium bomber used by Doolittle’s Raiders on their run to Tokyo.

Some Wasps were given particularly harrowing duty in the summer of 1943. They flew ex-Navy combat planes to tow targets for antiaircraft and aerial gunnery training. The planes were no longer combat-worthy and hence were difficult to fly, especially when filled with low octane fuel allotted for noncombat use. The women pilots trailed target sleeves only 20 to 30 yards behind the tail as recruits fired shells and 50mm rounds at them. Landing was nerve-wracking, too, because worn tires, pressed into extended service due to the rubber shortage, suffered frequent blowouts.

Men were frequently hostile to the women flyers. One Wasp recalled an airbase commanding officer telling her, "I don’t like women in general and women pilots in particular. You are not needed here. You are not wanted here and I will personally see to it that you don’t get into an airplane." The Wasp who recounted that incident noted that she was trained to respond to superiors with "Yes, sir" and "No, sir." In this instance, she answered with silence.

Because they were civilians, Wasps suffered an enduring injustice. Although they expected to be militarized, they were not during the war. When Wasps died in service, as 3 7 did, they had no military insurance, and there were no survivor’s benefits. In fact, they had to collect money among themselves to provide transport for sending a colleague’s body home for burial. Not until 1977 did Congress confer military veterans status upon them. In remarks at that time, Antonia Chayes, Under Secretary of the U.S. Air Force, said

The efforts and sacrifices of a talented and courageous group of women have been recognized and the pilots accorded status as military veterans. All volunteers for hazardous and non-traditional duties, these1,100 WASPs proved . . . that military women are more than able and willing to share the burden of National defense.

In mid-1941, 2,733 U.S. women held pilot’s licenses, yet some 25,000 women applied for admission to the WASP training program. From that pool of applicants, 1,830 were admitted, and 1,074 completed training and received operational duty. Although Priscilla Mathews could not serve because of her country of origin and her age (among the service eligibility requirements were possession of U.S. citizenship and a minimum age of 18 years), the women who became Wasps served their country with valor and distinction. The official history of the Army Air Forces in World War II ends the section on the Wasps as follows:

The WASPs had flown approximately 60 million miles on operational duties, with an average for each pilot of 33 hours a month. Through no fault of theirs, by the time the women pilots were ready to make their chief contribution to the war effort, their services were no longer vitally needed. As an experiment to determine the capabilities of women pilots, the program was impeded by the limited opportunities for adequate testing, since wartime pressures gave top priority to operational missions .... The results of the experiment, therefore, cannot be considered conclusive. But at least the program demonstrated that women are capable of carrying out a variety of flying and aviation administrative duties. It was also demonstrated that some American women were willing to risk their lives in wartime flying assignments even though they and their families were being discriminated against in the matter of compensation and benefits.

TEACHING ACTIVITIES

Document Analysis

1. Distribute copies of the documents to your students, and ask them the following questions:

a. What type of documents are these?
b. Who are their creators?
c. When were they written?
d. To whom did Priscilla Mathews write?
e. What is the tone of her letter?
f. Why did she send the letter?
g. Who replied to her letter?
h. What is the tone of the response?

2. Ask your students to place themselves in Priscilla Mathews’s situation and explain how they would feel to receive a reply like the one Priscilla received. Ask your students to speculate why Priscilla was in the United States and if they consider her desire to serve the U.S. Government more an expression of gratitude for being in the United States or a way to honor or emulate her older brother.

Class Discussion

3. After sharing the background information about the Wasps provided above, from your own research, or from the PBS documentary Silver Wings and Santiago Blue, discuss with your students the role of women pilots in World War II. Include questions such as the following:

• What do you think the minimum qualifications were to be a woman pilot?

• Why were women pilots frequently viewed with disdain by male service members?

• Why did more than three decades elapse before the Wasps were granted veterans status? Why was that status granted in the 1970s?

• Why were the Wasps restricted to noncombat duty?

• How would you have reacted to the harsh and discriminatory climate if you were a Wasp during World War II?

4. Ask your students to speculate what the response might have been if a similar "tender of service" letter were written by a female U.S. citizen of legal age in late 1942, 1943, 1944, or 1945.

Writing Activities

5. Ask volunteers to investigate and prepare reports on one of the following topics: British children war refugees in America, theWomen’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS), the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), General "Hap" Arnold’s role in allowing women to serve, Jacqueline Cochran, Nancy Harkness Love, and the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF).

6. Ask your students to draft a group letter to the U.S. Air Force requesting information about service opportunities for women today.

Research Activities

7. Divide your students into research groups, and ask them to select a research topic from this list or others you may add:

a. Research press coverage of the women pilots in late 1942, 1943, and/or 1944 by reading newspapers or viewing newsreels of the time. Write a report analyzing the way in which the women are portrayed, and suggest how they might be depicted had these events happened today.

b. Research the congressional hearings that took place in 1977, and write a report that summarizes the effort to grant the Wasps veterans status. Include information about the context of the era in the mid-1970s.

c. Research the Wasps by referring to sources such as those referenced below, and prepare an exhibit about the women pilots for your classroom, media center, or other exhibition space at your school. Include information from other sources about women aviators today.

d. Attempt to locate a member of the WASP, and conduct an interview over the telephone or in person. Include questions such as: Why did you become a Wasp? How were you treated? How did you feel in 1977 when you were granted veterans status? Make certain that you provide ample opportunity for the interviewee to share anecdotal information. Present a report to the class about the interview, and/or arrange to have the interviewee speak to the class.

e. Determine if there is an airbase used during World War II near your location. If so, investigate what role it played and if Wasps flew there. Ascertain if there are any commemorative memorials to their service. If so, arrange to visit and photograph it. If not, lead the class in an effort to place a commemorative plaque or exhibit at the site.

REFERENCES

Craven, Wesley Frank, and James Lea Cate, eds. The Army Air Forces in World War II. Vol.7 of Services Around the World. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1958. (An official history as written in 1958. New imprint by the Office of Air Force History, Washington, DC, 1983.)

La Farge, Oliver. The Eagle in the Egg. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1949. (A contemporary history written in a manner that reflects the attitudes toward women at that time.)

King, Katherine, and Nelson Adams. Silver Wings and Santiago Blue. PBS, 1980. Videotape. (A compelling one-hour documentary about the Wasps. To order, call PBS at 1-800-424-7963.)

Seeley, Charlotte Palmer, comp. American Women and the U.S. Armed Forces: A Guide to the Records of Military Agencies in the National Archives Relating to American Women. Revised by Virginia C. Purdy and Robert Gruber. Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration, 1992. (A finding aid to records related to the title topic.)

Poulos, Paula Nassen, ed. A Woman’s War Too: U.S. Women in the Military in World War II. Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration, 1996. (A compilation of papers presented at a conference of the same title in March 1995.)