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Sep 25, 2008 8:46 pm US/Central
WWII Female Pilots Take Flight Again At Reunion
Seema Mathur
FORT WORTH (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
For about a year and a half, during World War II, while most of the men were at war, the United States military decided to recruit women and train them as pilots.
About 25,000 women tried out for the program and 1,074 made it. Today there are about 300 of them still living.
A group of the female pilots who flew during the height of World War II took a reunion flight out of Alliance Airport to Sweetwater Thursday.
B-25s, T-6s, they're all planes all familiar to the Women Airforce Service Pilots or WASP.
Betty Jo Reed, 85, might have needed help getting in the plane, but don't let that fool you. "We did all kinds of things - tow targets, instruct instruments," she remembered.
In 1943 she was an engineer test pilot and knew the AT-10 inside and out.
Once 87-year-old Jan Wood got settled Thursday she was instructing the pilot up in the air. "Give me a snap slow roll and a point roll," she ordered.
Despite the WASP plane expertise, the program was discontinued in 1944 and the women were not recognized as part of the Army Air Corps at that time.
"When I heard that I was so hurt and so discouraged because the war was still going on," Wood explained. "The men were coming back from Europe and they were complaining that women were flying their airplanes."
The social stigma went beyond the military. Elaine Harmon's mom refused to talk to her. "People sort of thought it was not because they wanted to help with the war, but because they wanted to follow the men around," says Harmon. "I think my mom thought I was becoming a loose woman!"
Humor aside, it wasn't until changes in 1977 that even allowed the women to get military benefits.
But this weekend, it's a reunion for the some 300 remaining WASP during which Reed laughs about the hand-me-down mechanic suits they wore and pilots with a special bond hug and reminisce knowing they've navigated to a special place in history.
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