Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP)
Who were the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP)?
During World War II, the U.S. Army Air Corps hired civilian women to fly military planes on the home front.
Over 1,074 women flew over 60 million miles ferrying aircraft and personnel, towing targets, and other transport duties as part of the WASP. The WASP flew every military aircraft. They even trained male pilots to fly the aircraft.
By flying these missions, they released more than 1,100 male pilots for combat missions abroad.
How Were the WASP Formed?
As World War II approached, two experienced women pilots recognized the coming shortage of military pilots as the men would be sent off to fly in the war. They separately worked with the military to begin using women as ferry pilots.
Nancy Love’s Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS)
Love recruited 27 highly-experienced women pilots. After their flight checks, the WAFS immediately began moving military aircraft from manufacturing plants to bases and demarcation depots.
Requirements to join the WAFS included:
✔ High school diplomas
✔ Commercial pilot’s license
✔ Minimum of 500 hours of flight time
✔ Age 21 to 35
Jacqueline “Jackie” Cochrane’s Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD)
Cochrane recruited women pilots who then went to a 23 to 30-week flight training program, the same as male cadets and with military instructors. The first WFTD class graduated in December 1942. Initially, these classes graduated into the WAFS.
Requirements to join the WFTD included:
✔ Pilot’s license
✔ Minimum of 200 hours of flight time (Later lowered to 35)
✔ Age 21 to 35 (Later lowered to 18 to 35)
The Two Organizations Merge to Create the WASP
General Hap Arnold approved and supported the merger of the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) and Women's Flying Training Detachment (WFTD) to create the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP).
Cochran was the director. Love remained in charge of the initial WAFS unit, although under Cochran.
Meet Members of the WASP
Fort was flying with a student pilot on the morning of December 7, 1941, when they nearly collided with a Japanese aircraft leaving the scene at Pearl Harbor. Fort was the second woman to volunteer for Nancy Love’s WAFS. On a routine ferrying flight in 1943, Fort died at the controls of an aircraft when another plane struck hers.
Haydu logged 210 hours in aircraft including the PT-17 Stearman, BT-13 Valiant, AT-6 Texan, and the AT-17 Bobcat after joining the WASP in 1944.
After the war, she built a career flying. In the 1970s, she led her fellow WASP in the fight for veterans status.
Lee was one of two Chinese American women accepted into the WASP. Among the aircraft Lee flew as a WASP were the P-51 Mustang and P-63 Kingcobra. Tragically, Lee died in the line of duty when she collided with another plane while delivering a P-63 to Great Falls, Montana.
Noggle joined the WASP in the summer of 1943. After the WASPs deactivated in 1944, Noggle flew as a crop duster, a stunt pilot in an aerial circus, and served as a Captain for the Air Force during the Korean War. A photographer, she took a series of photographs of women World War II pilots.
Who Could Be a WASP?
25,000 women applied.
1,830 were accepted.
1,074 earned their wings.
1,830 were accepted.
1,074 earned their wings.
Requirements
✔ Age 21 to 35 in good health
Later expanded to 18 to 35
✔ At least 5'2" tall
✔ Pilot's license
✔ 35 hours of flight time
Race and the WASP
The WASP accepted few non-white pilots. They accepted two Chinese American pilots, two Latina pilots, and a member of the Olgala Sioux tribe.
The WASP did not accept any Black pilots. Accomplished Black women pilots like Willa Brown and Janet Bragg applied and were turned down, despite having trained white women who were accepted.
Black women pilots could not fly for the the Tuskegee Airmen either. Only Black men flew as Tuskegee Airmen. However, there were a number of women who worked in support roles for them.
Training
560 hours in ground school
Training included “studying navigation, flight training, physics, aerodynamics, electronics, mathematics, weather, communications, meteorology, Morse code, military law, and aircraft mechanics" according to Texas Women’s University.
210 hours in flight training
Learning "the Army way" to fly. WASP learned to fly every Army airplane.
Military Missions, But Not Members of the Military
Despite flying military missions in military planes, the WASP were not considered part of the military. This meant they didn’t receive military benefits during the war, or after.
During the war ...
The WASP didn’t receive the support their male counterparts did.
When a WASP was killed in the line of duty, her family or fellow WASP were left to pay for funeral expenses. Her family only received a $250 civil service death benefit, instead of the $10,000 Army Air Forces benefit.
One WASP was still paying off her hospital bill from an injury in the line of duty three decades later.
After the war ...
WASP didn’t benefit from any of the post-war programs for veterans.
They could not go to college or buy a home using the GI Bill.
They couldn’t go to a military hospital for health care, even though many experienced hiring loss after flying military aircraft.
If they joined the military in a non-flying role, the time they served during the war didn’t count towards retirement.
Fighting for Veteran Status
At their 1972 reunion, attendees resolved to restore their legacy by applying for official veteran recognition.
The women launched a public relations campaign. They developed powerful allies in Congress and the military, including Senator Barry Goldwater and Colonel Bruce Arnold (son of General “Hap” Arnold who helped form the WASP). They collected thousands of signatures in a petition. They testified before Congress.
WASP were legally recognized with partial veteran status in 1977. Other recognition followed, including:
- In 2009, they were honored with the Congressional Gold Medal.
- In 2016, they were granted permission to have cremated remains in the columbarium at Arlington National Cemetery. They are still barred from being buried there.
The WASP Were Part of the Story of Women in the Military
Joeseph Joffre, a French leader in World War I, aptly commented “If the women in the factories stopped work for twenty minutes, the Allies would lose the War.”
After World War I, many women believed they could serve in times of national emergency on both the home front and overseas by piloting ambulance and auxiliary aircraft to free male pilots for combat duty.
American women didn’t fly combat missions in World War II, however, in the Soviet Union women pilots did. They earned the nickname the “Night Witches.”
The U.S. Air Force began accepting women pilots in the 1970s, but women could not fly combat missions until the 1990s. U.S. Navy Lt. Kimberly Dyson was the first American woman to fly a combat mission.
