The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), a quasimilitary civilian organization that worked for the U. S. Army Air Forces during World War II, provided an example of the unprecedented ways women contributed to the war effort—and of the difficulties that they often faced in making those contributions.
The WASP was created in July 1943. Two prominent women aviators, Jacqueline Cochran and Nancy Hark-ness Love, had maintained since 1939 that women pilots should be used in noncombat roles, but not until the army air forces ran short of male pilots for such duties did the War Department take steps in that direction. In September 1942, Cochran was authorized to form the Women’s Flying Training Detachment and Love to form the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron. In July 1943, those two organizations were merged to form the WASP, which was headed by Cochran.
Some 25,000 women applied to the WASP (for fewer than 2,000 places), and they faced stringent requirements. In addition to being high school graduates between the ages of 18 and 34, they had to have accumulated 200 flying hours, possess a pilot’s license, and pass an interview with a recruiting officer. The initial high number of flying hours required (the requirement was eased later) helped to alleviate some of the criticism the program would have received for using women pilots. Ironically, the WASP, which encountered disparities in pay and treatment as compared to men, discriminated against African Americans, and the organization remained all white.
WASP aviators at first ferried planes from factories or bases to pilots waiting at embarkation points, but they subsequently assumed other responsibilities. They towed targets so recruits could practice shooting at moving objects and performed searchlight and tracking missions. Despite being told at first that bombers were too big and too difficult for them to operate, they flew the B-17 Flying Fortress, the B-25, and the B-26, sometimes as test pilots. They engaged in smoke laying, participated in radio-control flying, and taught basic instrument instruction. They were sometimes responsible for test-flying previously damaged planes for pilots who would use them in combat—an extremely hazardous assignment, in which the women would put great stress on the planes to ensure they were ready for combat. They also test-piloted unproven and often dangerous new planes, including fighters. In performing such tasks, the women compiled more than 60 million miles in the air. Thirty-eight of the roughly 1,000 women who ultimately served in the WASP died, although the women’s accident rate was somewhat lower than that of comparable civilian male pilots.
Despite their contributions and accomplishments, the WASP never gained military status. Wanting to keep the WASP a separate unit, Cochran resisted having it become part of the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) when the WAC was given full army status in 1943. Then in 1944, when the army air forces requested that Congress give the WASP full military status, circumstances worked against the women. Thousands of male flight instructors and trainees called to active duty wanted to be pilots, not crew members, and many combat veterans wanted the stateside ferrying jobs that women held. Petitioned by male trainees and pilots, and lobbied by the aviation industry and the American Legion, Congress defeated the WASP militarization bill and chose instead to disband the organization. WASPs did not receive veteran status or benefits until a special act of Congress in 1977.
See also women’s status and rights.
Further reading: 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).
—Amanda Lea Miracle
World History
