WASP: Women's Air Service Pilots

In 1942, the 318th AAF Flying Training Detachment was formed at Hughes Field in Houston, TX, headed up by famous American flyer Jacqueline Cochran. Cochran had already supplied a handful of American women pilots to the UK as part of their Air Transport Auxiliary, and hoped to create a similar ferrying program in the US. General Hap Arnold saw a need for such a program. The WAFS, under the direction of Nancy Love (having been established around the same time Cochran was in Britain) and WFTD were merged into the Women's Air Force Service Pilots, and the training facility moved to Avenger Field in Sweetwater, TX. Although they were under military authority, the WASPs were considered Civil Service employees and were paid less than the standard pilots pay. (continued below).

37 WASPs were killed and 36 were injured during the group's existence between 1942 and 1944. 25,000 women applied to join the WASP program, and only 1,830 were admitted with just over half of the admitted pilots - 1,074 women total - completing the training program. The original idea was for women to ferry training aircraft. However, between 1942 and December, 20, 1944, the WASP's racked up more than 9,000,000 miles in the air, and had flown seventy seven different single and twin engine airplanes, including the famed B-17, P-51, and P-38.

The WASP were disbanded in December of 1944, before General Arnold could get them militarized. Some sources reported that Jacqueline Cochran felt that being a part of the WAC was an insult to the WASP pilots, and convinced Hap Arnold that when the WASP was militarized, it should be part of the Air Force, not the WAC. General Arnold, himself, felt strongly that the Air Force should be its own branch separate from the Army, and the two agreed to postpone the WASP's full integration into the Air Force. So, the WASP were not included in the 1943 merger of the WAC into the regular army. By, late 1944, the 25 mission rule in the ETO had sent a surplus of pilots back to the US, and the USAAF felt that they could not justify keeping women pilots when they had men to do the job. Militarization was a mute point, the WASP program disbanded and the 960 active WASP pilots were left to find themselves a way back home.

For information about putting together a WASP living history impression or what WASP pilots wore, visit the WWII reenactor's guide.

Recommended Reading on Women Pilots in WWII: