When WASPS took over Avenger Field
I enjoyed Pam Leblanc’s story when I read it in another magazine. I asked, and she graciously allowed us to reprint it here. Enjoy – RM
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By Pam LeBlanc
They had to cinch up the waistbands of their oversized, hand-me-down flight suits, and they weren’t allowed to climb out of a cockpit without applying fresh lipstick. The women who trained at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas, stepped up in a serious way.
They volunteered when more pilots were needed to fly vital stateside missions during World War II.
The National WASP WWII Museum, which opened in 2005 in a circa 1929 hangar at Avenger Field, celebrates the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs, who trained at the remote airbase, about 40 miles west of Abilene, as part of an experimental wartime program designed to free up male pilots for combat.
“A lot were young and single and free, but some were married—and some had children,” says Lisa Taylor, executive director of the museum, located across Avenger Field from what is now Texas State Technical College, where the female trainees once lived in barracks.
“The feeling was, ‘We have this skill, and there’s a need for us.’ They adored flying and were thrilled to fly, but they were also thrilled to be needed.”
Applicants to the program, which ran for two years, had to have high school diplomas or the equivalent and be between 18 and 35, although at least one 17-year-old lied about her age to get in. They had to be at least 5 feet 4 inches tall, have a pilot’s license, and pass a physical exam and interview to get a spot.
About 25,000 women applied, and 1,830 were accepted.
They came from all 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii. They were overwhelmingly white, but there were at least two Chinese Americans, a Native American and two Latina women. The program rejected Black applicants. They were high school dropouts and debutantes, blackjack dealers and teachers. One was a pinup girl. Some had worked as crop duster pilots or barnstormers, performing stunts in traveling shows.
The program officially started in Houston in November 1942 under the direction of pioneering aviators Jacqueline Cochran and Nancy Harkness Love. It quickly outgrew its space in Houston and moved to Avenger Field, where the women could live in bunks in on-site barracks.
The new location worked well. The airfield had two runways plus classroom space. The sparsely populated area’s big skies and open fields suited the flight school’s needs, and the stiff West Texas wind provided ample training opportunities.
The women spent half their days in ground school, learning meteorology, navigation, first aid, military law, Morse code, mechanics and parachute packing. The rest of the working day was spent learning to fly various military aircraft.
Many of the women were small and had a hard time reaching the pedals on aircraft designed for men. They used blocks of wood and parachute packs as cushions to make it work. One bragged that she was a “three-cushion pilot,” meaning she stuffed three packs behind her back so she could operate the controls.
For their efforts, the women earned $174.50 per month (about $3,250 today), deducting $1.65 for room and board. Because they were civil workers and not officially part of the U.S. military, they even had to buy their own uniforms.
Training lasted at least seven months, and about 40% of the recruits washed out before earning their wings. But ultimately, 1,102 women completed training.
Those who graduated were assigned to air bases around the country, where they went to work shuttling military personnel and ferrying aircraft from base to base. The WASPs flew 78 different aircraft, including pursuit planes and bombers, and flight-tested others, flying more than 60 million miles.
Some of the women served as tow pilots, dragging targets 1,000 feet behind their planes so soldiers on the ground could practice firing at them with live ammunition. Others worked as instructors or practiced concealment, learning to lay smoke that would hide personnel on the ground.
Thirty-eight WASPs were killed during their service, including 11 who died in training accidents. The military didn’t pay for their funerals, so fellow WASPs took up collections to send the women’s remains home to family.
About 14,000 people visit the museum in Sweetwater every year, exploring two hangars filled with everything from flight suits to logbooks, part of a tow target, a flight simulator, medals, parachutes and four complete aircraft of the type the women used for training.
Visitors can take a turn at a chin-up bar like one the women used during daily calisthenics or grab a seat in a re-creation of a classroom, where a film leads them through what it was like as an incoming recruit reporting for duty. They can peer into a mock-up of a room in the barracks too.
Mostly, though, visitors can learn who the WASPs were as individuals. “They’ve all got really amazing stories,” Taylor says, sharing a few as she walks through the museum.
When one group of WASPs traveled to California on a mission, they were arrested and briefly jailed for impersonating military pilots, Taylor says. Another WASP made an emergency landing in a farmer’s field, and the family who owned the land fed and housed her for the night. Other stories describe WASPs who had to parachute to safety from their airplanes and WASPs who tested aircraft with engines prone to catching fire.
The names of all the WASPs, including those who didn’t complete training, are listed on one wall of the museum, and visitors can access a database that includes information about each one. There are photos and handprints of many of the women.
Each April, the museum hosts a Homecoming Celebration & Fly-In, set for April 25–26 this year. While most of the WASPs are now gone, their families, as well as members of the public, still attend.
At the 2012 homecoming, WASP Nell “Mickey” Stevenson Bright, who is now 103 years old, explained that she skipped meals as a teenager to pay for flying lessons. After becoming a WASP, she remembers standing in a shower wearing her flight suit to clean it.
“The thrill of flying those wonderful airplanes and getting paid for it—that was worth it,” Bright, who is from Canyon, said at the time.
The WASPs were deactivated in December 1944, but it took more than 30 years before President Jimmy Carter signed a bill recognizing them as military veterans. In 2010, President Barack Obama awarded the WASPs Congressional Gold Medals, the oldest and most prestigious civilian award in the U.S.
Today, museum officials hope the institution can inspire the next generation.
“These women went to a lot of time and trouble to learn how to fly in a world that wasn’t going to let them in,” Taylor says. “So, what is it that you want to do and try, and what barriers will you need to overcome to leave a good legacy for yourself?”
(photos courtesy National WASP WWII Museum)
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My Mom was a WASP and we grew up with a lot of pride in her service. She used to take us to the local Air Force Base in North Georgia and as planes took off over-head she would tell us what it was and wistfully add “those luck so and so’s” When my mother (then Mary Reineberg) graduated from Temple University School of Podiatry and set up her own practice in York, PA she and another woman pooled their money and bought an airplane and hired a local pilot to teach them to fly. She describes seeing an article in the local newspaper about a newly formed military unit The Women’s Air Force Service Pilots. She called my grandfather and declared her intention to apply to be a WASP. “What will you do with your medical practice?” he asked her. “I will put a sign on the door, GONE TO WAR!” she replied. // When sadly the WASP were ordered to disband her response was “the war is still going on and I need to be part of it”. So, she enlisted in the US Red Cross and was sent to Naples Italy which was the debarkation point for our troops as they fought their way up The Boot and were demobilized. That is where she met my dad who was an officer in the Army Corps of Engineers. They were on the same troop ship back to the States … and the rest is, as they say, history.
Thanks for your article and thanks for mentioning that the program started in Houston in 11/1942.
President Obama did NOT “present” the CGM to the WASP. The presentation was by the leaders of Congress. (I was there to accept the medal on behalf of my mother and President Obama never appeared.) Thus the name Congressional Gold Medal. Obama signed the Congressional bill to make it law. His signature was his main contribution.
My mother joined the Army’s WFTD (WASP) in January 1943 in Houston.
LuckyLindy Segall here, proud Texas KOW (Kid of WASP) Muriel Lindstrom. My mother secured her private pilot’s license while attending USC, the only woman in the Civilian Pilot Training Program offered as an elective. She met my father on a blind date in 1942, shortly before entering the WASP program. He shipped out to North Africa flying air support for General George S. Patton while she drove from LA to the “Rattlesnake Capital of the World” to begin WASP training. She flew all the missions described in the story and was summarily dismissed along with her fly girl sisters on December 20, 1944 when Congress, in their infinite wisdom, decided the women were no longer needed. My parents finally tied the knot in 1950 and flew together for 55 years in a restored Cessna 180. Mom worked tirelessly with Texas Senator John Tower to secure veterans status and benefits for the WASP (no S) during the Carter Administration as mentioned. I’ve spent the past 25 years telling their story, most recently collaborating with the Zonta Club of Fredericksburg (TX) to install a commemorative plaque honoring the WASP in the Memorial Courtyard of the National Museum of the Pacific War–the first of some 3300 plaques to honor an all-women’s service organization in WWII.