The WASP: The Women Who Flew Every Plane the Army Had — Then Got Sent Home

Opening Hook

They weren't allowed to be called soldiers. They bought their own uniforms. They paid their own way to training. When they died in the line of duty — and 38 of them did — the Army wouldn't even pay to send their bodies home. They flew every plane the Army Air Forces owned, including ones male pilots refused to fly because they were too dangerous. And then, when the war was nearly won, they were sent home, their records classified, their service officially erased for the next 35 years. They were the WASP — Women Airforce Service Pilots — and every American should know their names.

The Story

By early 1942, the Army Air Forces faced a math problem. America was ramping up aircraft production to unprecedented levels — B-17 bombers, P-51 Mustangs, transport planes — but there weren't enough male pilots to fly them from the factory to the point of deployment. Every man available was being sent to combat. Who would move the planes? Two women had the answer: Jacqueline Cochran, already the most famous female pilot in America, and Nancy Harkness Love, a Vassar graduate and veteran aviator. Both independently proposed the same solution: women.

In 1943 the two programs merged into the Women Airforce Service Pilots. Over the next two years, more than 25,000 women applied. 1,830 were accepted to training. 1,102 earned their wings. To qualify, applicants needed a private pilot's license before they even showed up — a steep requirement given that most women in 1943 had never so much as ridden in a plane. Training was held at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas. The washout rate was brutal. Those who made it through were handed the keys to nearly every plane in the Army's inventory and told to go to work.

And work they did. WASP pilots ferried aircraft from factories to airbases all over the country — more than 12,000 planes in total. They flew weather reconnaissance. They towed aerial targets for live-ammunition gunnery training, which meant Army men were shooting live rounds at sleeves attached to planes flown by women pilots. They tested repaired aircraft to confirm they were combat-ready. They flew the P-51, the B-26 Marauder (which male pilots had nicknamed 'The Widow Maker' and refused to fly), the B-17 Flying Fortress, and dozens of others. In total they logged more than 60 million air miles. Thirty-eight died in the line of service. Because the WASP were technically civilians — a status Congress refused to upgrade despite multiple attempts — their families received no benefits, no military funerals, no gold stars. Fellow WASPs often had to take up collections to pay to ship fallen pilots' bodies home.

The program was abruptly disbanded in December 1944. With the war nearly won and male pilots returning, male instructor pilots were in danger of losing their stateside jobs. The WASP — having proven women could fly every aircraft in the fleet — were told their services were no longer needed. Their records were classified and sealed. For more than three decades, most Americans had no idea they had ever existed. Then, in 1977, after years of activism by surviving WASPs, Congress finally granted them full military veteran status. In 2010, they received the Congressional Gold Medal. The president who signed that bill into law called it 'a long time coming.' It was.

Key Dates

• September 1942 — Nancy Harkness Love establishes the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS).

• November 1942 — Jacqueline Cochran's Women's Flying Training Detachment begins at Houston.

• August 1943 — The two programs merge to form the WASP under Cochran's direction.

• December 20, 1944 — The WASP program is disbanded.

• November 23, 1977 — President Carter signs legislation granting WASP members full veteran status.

• July 1, 2009 — President Obama signs S.614 awarding the WASP the Congressional Gold Medal.

• March 10, 2010 — Roughly 200 surviving WASP receive the Congressional Gold Medal at the Capitol.

Pivotal Figures

Jacqueline Cochran — The most accomplished female pilot of her generation. Won the Bendix Trophy, set more speed and distance records than any aviator of either sex, and was the driving force behind the WASP program. After the war she became the first woman to break the sound barrier.

Nancy Harkness Love — The co-founder whose Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron preceded the WASP. Quieter than Cochran, equally formidable. Personally ferried every class of aircraft assigned to women pilots.

The 38 — The WASPs who died in service. They included Cornelia Fort, the first American pilot killed in active duty during World War II, who had already had a ringside seat to history: she had been in the air over Honolulu during a civilian flight on the morning of December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor began around her.

Why It Matters

The WASP flew nearly every mission a male stateside pilot flew, in the same planes, at the same level of skill, for two years of the most consequential war in human history. They freed thousands of male pilots for combat duty. And they proved — definitively, with 60 million miles of flight data — that women could fly military aircraft at a professional standard. That finding got buried for decades, and the modern U.S. Air Force had to re-learn lessons the WASP had already taught. Every female military aviator since, and every little American girl who has ever looked up at a jet and thought that could be me — owes something to the 1,102 women who got their wings at Avenger Field when their country wasn't quite ready to thank them for it.

Did You Know?

When a WASP was killed in the line of duty, the Army would not pay for burial or transport. The surviving WASPs at her base would pass the hat, collect the money themselves, and often escort the coffin home. They were also forbidden from draping the American flag over their fallen sister's coffin — because, officially, the WASP were civilians. That single fact, more than any other, is why the women who survived spent 35 years fighting for veteran status. They weren't asking for honors for themselves. They were asking for a flag for the 38 who never came home.