The first woman to train as a pilot with the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron, and graduate in the first class of WASPs, was Betty Gillies. Women Airforce Service Pilots program, the WASPs still officially held civilian status. When these two groups merged to form the WASPs in the summer of 1943, Cochran led the program and Love served as the head of the ferrying division. Pilot Jacqueline Cochran also gained military approval to start the Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD) to train classes ofįemale pilots to serve in domestic non-combat missions.
(WAFS), in which a small number of female pilots transported military planes from factories to Army Air Bases. In 1942, pilot Nancy Harkness Love started the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron
The Women Airforce Service Pilots program formed in 1943 by combining two separate but related civilian pilot programs for women within the Army Air Forces. Nancy Harkness Love and Jacqueline Cochran (circa 1940s) However, it wasn’t until two other pioneeringįemale aviators formally pushed for official military-affiliated programs that more women began to train and serve as pilots in the war effort. Government had created the Civilian Pilots Training program at colleges and flight schools across the country in 1938, enabling young men and even a few women to gain flight time and experience. War II in December 1941, the military needed more pilots for domestic duties, such as flight-testing and ferrying aircraft, in order to send male combat pilots overseas to fight in Allied efforts in the European and Pacific theaters. Women had been flying planes since the early 20th century, like Bessie Coleman, the first African American and Native American female pilot, and Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. World War II and the Beginning of the WASPs WASPs leaving their ship, the Pistol Packin Mama (1944)īy US Air Force, Record Group 342, National Archives The way for women to serve equally in the US Air Force. They were the first women to fly for the US military, paving Referring to themselves as “Avenger Girls,” the Women Airforce Service Pilots were superheroes of aviation. WASP Joann Garrett flew twin-engine B-26 planes and C-60 transportĪircraft at Army Air Bases in Texas and Kansas in service to her country. The WASPs completed a rigorous training program atĪvenger Field in Texas, then served in non-combat military missions across the US during the war, such as ferrying planes from factories to bases and flight-testing aircraft. She was one of 1,074 women who served in the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs, during World War II. Seated in the cockpit of a PT-19 military plane, Joann Garrett was ready to fly. WASP Joann Garret at Avenger Field (September 1943) Learning Resources on Women's Political Participationīy United States Air Force, Record Group 342, National Archives.Women Writing History: A Coronavirus Journaling Project.