Obama Awards Women Pilots A Congressional Gold Medal
Posted on | August 3, 2009 |
On July 1, 2009, President Obama signed S.614. The bill was a bipartisan effort led by Texas Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, and Maryland Democrat Senator Barbara Mikulski. It awards the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to the WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) from World War II. The bill comes 65 years after the WASP and WAFS (Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron) first piloted military planes in the United States. Three hundred WASP are still alive to experience this honor. If you’ve never heard of these remarkable women, read on.
The WASP was a non-military organization in the US during World War II, which Congress and the Pentagon considered an experiment. It wasn’t an experiment to the twenty-five thousand who women applied to the program, or the almost two thousand who qualified and trained. It certainly wasn’t an experiment to the successful graduates who tested and ferried military aircraft and completed other piloting jobs to free up men for active service. When the Allies took control of the war and American male pilots began returning home, the experiment ended, suddenly and with little notice.
It’s important that their accomplishments and their remarkable determination to fly be remembered and honored. During their brief existence, the WASP transported every make of airplane in the American armament, including training, pursuit, and transport planes, along with fighters, and bombers. WASP flew planes that males refused to fly, such as the B-26 Martin Marauder, also known as the ‘Widow Maker’.
Women Airforce Service Pilots served at one hundred and twenty bases around the country. They wore uniforms that followed strict military code and took orders as if they served in the armed forces, but the Army considered them civilian pilots. As civilians, they had no life or accident insurance, no death benefits and could not be buried in a military cemetery or receive a burial with flags and honors. They paid their own way to the base and if discharged, their own way home. Even when the program ended, the army expected the women to find and pay for their transportation.
WASP could achieve no rank of significance outside their organization, nor could they give orders to men. Federal law prohibited women from flying military planes into combat or outside the boundaries of the United States and still, thirty-eight WASP died serving their country. I read a number of disheartening facts about the treatment these women endured, but one that struck me as incredibly sad was that when friends and family members put flags on the women pilot’s graves, people removed them because they weren’t ‘really’ veterans.
When the war ended, men openly discussed the ‘problem’ of getting women to return to their housewife and mothering duties. They feared that women might believe they could continue to do the jobs meant for men. Most women did return to their lives at home, though some continued to work and some of the pilots continued to fly. As is usually the case, women’s roles barely rated a footnote in the volumes of history books written about World War II. It was even truer for the WASP. After the ‘experiment’ ended, the Pentagon ordered their files sealed and for over thirty years, no one talked, wrote, or learned about the pilots.
In 1977, Congress granted veteran status to the WASP. It was also coincidently when the first women graduated from the Air Force Academy. In 1979, the WASP received an official honorary discharge. Ask ten of your friends if they’ve ever heard of the WASP. If one has, you’re doing better than the average. Reading about the courage of these women makes their service even more valuable.
If you’re interested in learning more about these heroines of WWII, you’ll find a great deal of information at http://www.wasp-wwii.org
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Jean Sheldon makes her home in Oregon. She published ‘The Woman in the Wing’, in 2008 and recently released the audio book version. All articles © Copyright Jean Sheldon Website: http://www.jeansheldon.com
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