Top Photo: Barbara “B.J.” Erickson and Evelyn Sharp were the second and third women, behind Nancy Harkness Love, to qualify in the P-51 Mustang. Sharp joined the WAFs in 1942 at the age of 22 and was killed in a plane crash in 1944.  Image Number 4A-22679-K619, Record Group 342, National Archives and Records Administration at College Park

When the United States entered World War II in December 1941, it quickly became apparent that the US Army Air Forces needed more pilots. Jacqueline “Jackie” Cochran and Nancy Harkness Love, both extremely talented aviators, suggested using women to fly noncombat missions, which would free up men for combat. During the war, nearly 1,100 highly trained women tested, flew, and ferried 12,650 aircraft over 60 million miles as Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP).1  Despite their service, the WASP was the only women’s branch that was not granted military status during World War II. Their recognition did not come until 1977. 

Women Pilots before WWII

Women have participated in aviation since its beginnings in the 18th century: in 1784, Marie Élisabeth Thimble was the first woman to ride in a hot air balloon. In nearly every decade since, women have made strides in aviation. 

In addition to civilian aviation, women also flew for the military. In 1915, Marie Marvingt of France was the first women to fly in combat when she volunteered to pilot bombing missions of German-held territory in World War I, receiving the Croix de Guerre for her aerial bombing of a German military base in Metz.2 

By the 1920s, women all over the world were earning pilot’s licenses and traversing the globe. In 1929, a group of women aviators, including famed pilot Amelia Earhart, formed the Ninety Nines, an international organization for female pilots dedicated to supporting women in aviation.

Women Pilots during WWII

In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the federally funded Civilian Pilot Training Program. The program trained 400,000 men, most of whom flew military aircraft in World War II. The program also admitted women in a one-to-10 ratio to men between 1939 and 1940, and most of those women also flew military aircraft during the war. 

As war loomed, efforts to integrate women into military aviation gained momentum. In 1939, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt introduced pioneering aviator Jacqueline Cochran to General Henry “Hap” Arnold, chief of the US Army Air Corps, and General Robert Olds, future head of the Air Transport Command (ATC). Roosevelt hoped to persuade them that female pilots could play a vital role in military aviation, as they did in Great Britain3 and the Soviet Union4, where governments successfully employed female pilots. The European Allies, desperate for pilots, utilized every resource available, including women. 

American leaders like Arnold were aware of other countries’ use of female pilots but had not yet pursued them. In 1941, Arnold tasked Cochran with ferrying a Lockheed Hudson V bomber to England to gauge public and military support for women flying military aircraft, which she successfully did. While in Britain, she joined the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) and recruited 25 qualified American women to serve alongside her there. 

Pilot and aviation business owner Nancy Harkness Love likewise convinced Colonel William H. Tunner, commander of the Operations Office of the Ferrying Command's Northeast Sector, Domestic Division, to supplement the US Army Air Forces with women. Tunner asked Love to write a proposal for a women’s ferrying division, and recommended that Love and other female pilots who had by this point volunteered be commissioned into the Women’s Army Corps. Tunner’s recommendation was denied, so he appointed Love as the Executive of Women’s Pilots on his staff. 

In 1942, Cochran and Love independently submitted proposals to the Army Air Forces advocating for women pilots in noncombat roles. Their plans aimed to free male pilots for combat by assigning women to ferry aircraft within the United States. Arnold initially rejected their proposals but later approved them when a pilot shortage emerged.5 

Jacqueline Cochran, Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). National Archives

Two organizations emerged from Cochran’s and Love’s proposals. Love led the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS), a group of experienced pilots, each with at least 500 flying hours, who could begin work immediately. Within the first few months, Love recruited 30 more women pilots to join the newly created WAFS. 

Cochran, who had been in England, returned to the United States the day before the WAFS program was announced. Upset that Love’s proposal had been accepted while hers was overlooked, Cochran tried to confront Arnold but was directed to General George E. Stratemeyer, a senior commander in the Army Air Forces, because Arnold was on medical leave. On September 13, 1942, Stratemeyer appointed Cochran as the director of the Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD). On October 7, Arnold formally announced that Cochran would lead the WFTD, initially training 500 women to ferry military aircraft. By June 1943, the WAFS’s numbers were rising quickly as more women graduated from the WFTD.

As part of the 319th Army Air Forces Flying Training Detachment, the WFTD trained at Howard R. Hughes Field beginning on November 16, 1942. They trained in old planes and wore khaki coveralls, any shoes they had, and hairnets. Because they never achieved military status, the women in the WFTD were considered civilians and had to find their own housing and transportation to and from training. They also had minimal medical care, no life insurance, and had to fund funeral expenses for the pilots who died during training, like Margaret Oldenburg, who was the first WASP trainee to die on March 7, 1943.6  

Cochran pushed for the different women pilot organizations to be consolidated into one entity. Tunner objected to the merger, but Arnold agreed. On August 5, 1943, the WFTD and the WAF were combined into the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots, or WASP, with Cochran as its director. The first WASP group began to train and was designated Class 44-W-1. Love became the leader of WASP ferrying missions. Under her command, the pilots flew nearly every type of military aircraft in the Army Air Forces’ arsenal. 

The WASPs and Their Mission

Ads to join the WASPs were much less common than those for WAVES or WACs. But over 25,000 women applied to join, and only 1,830 WASPs were accepted into the program. After four months of training “the Army way,” 1,074 earned their wings. These women were between 21 and 35 years old, over five feet, four inches tall, and all had graduated from high school. Each had her pilot’s license but was trained by the Army Air Forces in Sweetwater, Texas. They learned everything male Army pilots learned except combat training and aerobatics, and completed the same basic training as men. By graduation, they each had completed 560 hours of ground school and 210 hours of flight training, learning Morse code, meteorology, military law, physics, aircraft mechanics, and navigation.7

WASPs in a classroom at Romulus Army Airfield, Michigan, 1943. Courtesy of the US Air Force.

Bernice “Bee” Haydu recalled that WASPs did about 22 jobs at 122 bases across the country. They flew about 80 percent of US military ferrying missions, delivering 12,652 aircraft of 78 different kinds.8 WASPs also towed targets for simulated strafing missions and antiaircraft artillery training. Cochran announced this target practice as a secret mission that any WASP could opt out of, but none did.9  

“Join Us in a Victory Job.” Illustration by Maurice Bramley, Department of National Service, 1944. Courtesy of the Department of Defense.

They transported new aircraft from factories to military bases across the United States, flew planes with combat wounds “that many flyboys refused”10 to fly, and collectively flew over 60 million miles. Norma Halberg, a WASP test pilot, recalled that WASP test pilots had to determine what was wrong with planes that were having trouble, bring them to a mechanic, and then had to fly the planes again to make sure they were fixed. Florene Miller Watson recalled not having access to radar or navigation, so they had to stick their heads “out the window and [look] down at the ground, [see] what you could see and [hope] you got the wind direction right.”11 Shirley Kruse likewise remembered having to fly low to find barns with their towns’ names on them to determine where she was.

WASPs on the runway in Laredo, Texas, 1944. Courtesy of the US Air Force.

No Black women flew for the WASP, but two Asian American women, one Native American, and two Hispanic American women did. Cochran felt that the WASPs were already pushing boundaries by becoming pilots and did not want to push those boundaries any further by allowing Black women to fly.12 

In the same way that pilots in the WFTD did not receive military compensation for funeral expenses, WASPs and their families were responsible for funeral expenses of pilots who lost their lives in service to their country. During their service, 38 WASPs died, including the first female Chinese American pilot in the WASP, Hazel Ying Lee. One, Gertrude Tompkins Silver, went missing.
The WASP chose Fifinella, Roald Dahl’s female gremlin, as their mascot. In 1942, WASP Byrd Howell Granger, seeking to boost morale, wrote to Disney to ask permission to use the name Fifinella because Disney held the rights and was turning Dahl’s story into an animated film. Disney not only granted permission but also sent an illustration from pre-production that became the official WASP Mascot.13  

Challenges, Discharge, and Return to Civilian Life 

Despite their bravery and willingness to perform tasks that others would not, WASPs were not always treated with the respect they deserved. Florence Reynolds remembered an instance in which she questioned the safety of a plane she was tasked with flying. Reynolds was told by a male officer that if she did not do it, she was out of the program, despite only asking him if the plane was safe. 

WASPs were unique because they held positions that were “desired and admired by men” and male pilots. Often called “flyboys,” pilots were considered to be the elite of the US military during World War II.14  During their service, WASPs operated in aerial terrain that was very much a proving ground of masculinity.”15 They directly challenged the “natural” and “expected” status of military men “by serving in one of its most desired roles—desired both because pilots were the elite of the military and because the WASPs were assigned to domestic, noncombat positions, which were [often] the safest flying positions in the Army Air Forces.”16 In doing so, they challenged assumptions of wartime male supremacy and many male pilots resented them for it, to the point of sabotage. 

Nancy Harkness Love in the cockpit of an Army plane, ca. 1942–45. National Archives. NAID: 535775

In other branches of the military, women served in traditionally feminine roles like stenographers, phone operators, nurses, and weather forecasters, tempering the threat that female servicemembers posed to the traditionally masculine sphere. WASPs, however, were pilots, and, despite their civilian status, many Americans believed that they posed an immediate threat to the most elite of American soldiers, eventually leading to their disbandment before the end of World War II. 

US Representative John Costello introduced HR 4219 in the spring of 1944 to militarize the civilian WASP as part of the Army Air Forces, but in July, the bill narrowly failed 188 to 161. As more male pilots appeared for stateside training and transport duties, the need for WASPs decreased. And because HR 4219 failed, Cochran suggested that the WASP be disbanded if it would not be militarized because her pilots would not have access to military benefits or veteran status after the war. Despite the WASP’s struggle for militarization, there was virtually no publicity about them before, during, or after the war. 

Cochran and Love hoped that the WASP would eventually be militarized as WASPs proved their aviation abilities. General Arnold planned to commission WASPs as Second Lieutenants in the Army Air Forces, but his plans were met with much resistance. Many male civilian pilots lobbied against the WASP’s militarization, claiming that female pilots received preferential treatment to their male counterparts. Like the WAC and the WAVES, WASPs were the subject of a negative media campaign. Syndicated columnist Drew Pearson wrote on August 6, 1944, that Cochran’s “lady flyers” replaced, instead of released, men and that 5,000 trained male pilots sat around idly while WASPs continued their work.17 

Arnold announced in October 1944 that the WASPs could no longer be justified because the Army Air Forces had enough male pilots. At the same time, General Tunner wrote a letter commending the WASP, saying, “The WASPs of the Ferrying Division leave behind a truly impressive record, one with which I am sincerely proud to have been associated. They have accomplished far more than the safe and efficient delivery of hundreds of vitally needed aircraft; they have proved beyond all doubt that in times of national emergency, America can give its women the most challenging assignments with complete confidence.”18 Two months later, on December 20, 1944, the WASPs were sent home.  

WASPs were not recognized for their service until 1977, when President Jimmy Carter granted them full veteran status. In 2009, they were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. Despite the challenges and opportunities that WASPs faced, many, like Shirley Kruse and Helen Snapp, felt that their service changed their lives and felt honored to have had the experience.

• 1

  Staff Sergeant Abby Ferrill Sittler, “The Women’s Airforce Service Pilots: WASPs in World War II,” U.S. Air Forces Central, March 1, 2023.

• 2

  Rosalie Maggio, “Masquerade in Uniform,” Marie Marvingt, Fiancee of Danger: First Female Bomber Pilot, World-Class Athlete and Inventor of the Air Ambulance (Jefferson: McFarland 2019), 78.

• 3

  “ATA Personnel,” Maidenhead Heritage Centre and ATA Exhibition and Archive. Accessed April 25, 2025. https://archive.atamuseum.org/personnel.php.  

• 4

  Rochelle Nowaki, “Nachthexen: Soviet Female Pilots in WWII,” University of Hawai’I at Hilo, Vol. 13 (Honolulu 2015). 

• 5

  Andrew T. Wackerfuss Andrew Wackerfuss, “Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASP),” Air Force Historical Support Division. Accessed April 14, 2025. https://www.afhistory.af.mil/FAQs/Fact-Sheets/Article/458964/womens-airforce-service-pilots-wasp/. 

• 6

  Margaret Burrows “Margy” Sanford Oldenburg. Find A Grace. Accessed April 25, 2025. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/70675893/margaret-burrows-oldenburg. 

• 7

  “Training,” Women’s Airforce Service Pilots Official Archive, Texas Women’s University. Accessed April 22, 2025. https://twu.edu/library/womans-collection/collections/women-airforce-service-pilots-official-archive/history/training/. 

• 8

  Molly Merryman, Clipped Wings: The Rise and Fall of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) of World War II (New York: New York University Press 1998) [page(s)?]. Accessed March 18, 2025. https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=8377977a-144c-34d4-8941-0d374071eb8c. 

• 9

  Evelyn Monahan and Rosemary Niedel-Greenlee, A Few Good Women (New York: Knopf Doubleday 2010), 132.

• 10

  Greg Dawson, “‘Women of Courage,’ takes overdue look at the women pilots of WWII,” Santa Maria Times (Santa Maria, CA) May 31, 1993.

• 11

  Florene Miller Watson, quoted in Dawson, “Women of Courage.”

• 12

  Merryman,

• 13

  Julia Lauria-Blum, “The Infamous Fifinella,” National WASP WWII Museum. October 1, 2024. Accessed April 24,2025. https://www.waspmuseum.org/avenger-news/the-infamous-fifinella-by-julia-lauria-blum/. 

• 14

  Molly Merryman,  Clipped Wings: The Rise and Fall of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) of World War II (New York: New York University Press 1998) [page(s)?]. Accessed March 18, 2025. https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=8377977a-144c-34d4-8941-0d374071eb8c. 

• 15

  Merryman.

• 16

  Merryman.

• 17

  Drew Pearson, “The Washington Merry-Go-Round,” August 6, 1944. Accessed April 25, 2025. https://digitalcollections.american.edu/Documents/Detail/the-washington-merry-go-round-august-6-1944/137005. 

• 18

  Letter, Brigadier General W.H. Tunner, Commanding General, India/China Division, ATC to CG Ferrying Division ATC, “Commendation,” October 16, 1944, quoted in Sarah Byrn Rickman, “Foreword,” WASP of the Ferry Command: Women Pilots, Uncommon Deeds (Denton: University of North Texas Press 2016), xv-xvi.