Clipped Wings

The Rise and Fall of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPS) of World War II

Molly Merryman

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 1997
• ISBN:
  9780814796474
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Études relatives au genre

During World War II, all branches of the military had women's auxiliaries. Only the Women Airforce Service Pilot (WASP) program, however, was comprised entirely of women who flew dangerous missions more commonly associated with and desired by men.

Within military hierarchies, the World War II pilot was projected as the most dashing and desirable of servicemen. "Flyboys" were the daring elite of the United States military. More than the WACs (Army), WAVES (Navy), SPARS (Coast Guard), or Women Marines, the WASPs directly challenged these assumptions of male supremacy in wartime culture. WASPs flew the fastest fighter planes and heaviest bombers; they test-piloted experimental models and worked in the development of weapons systems. Yet the WASPs were the only women's auxiliary within the armed services of World War II that was not militarized.

In Clipped Wings, Molly Merryman draws upon military documents (many of which were declassified only in the 1980s), congressional records, and interviews with the women who served as WASPs during World War II, to trace the history of the over 1,000 pilots who served their country as the first women to fly military planes. She examines the social pressures which culminated in their disbandment in 1944—even though a wartime need for their services still existed—and documents their struggles and eventual success, in 1977, to gain military status and receive veterans benefits.

1 Introduction

This book examines the accomplishments and struggles of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) of World War II—their service, their premature disbandment, and how they finally got some of the recognition they deserved. The events, perceptions, and opinions that culminated in the disbandment of the WASPs are contextualized within theories of feminist history and gender construction in order to reveal how cultural constructions of gender, specifically assumptions about the roles of women in war, impacted the fate of the 1,074 pilots who served their country as the first women to fly military planes.

The purpose of this book is to provide answers to questions that have been raised for more than fifty years: Why were the WASPs disbanded when there was still a wartime need for their services? Why did the top officials of the Army Air Forces allow the disbandment to occur? Why did Congress, which authorized militarization for the women’s branches of the Army, Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard, not only refuse to do so for the WASPs, but also vote to disband the entire program, even while the United States was still fighting a world war?

In order to address these questions and reveal important details about the WASPs, military documents from four archives, many of which were not declassified until the 1980s, were examined. These documents include memorandums and proposals for the program, which began as a top secret initiative; reports from numerous bases at which WASPs served, which detailed their status in a range of missions and offered overall evaluations of the program; and legal treatises that revealed the Army Air Forces’ stance on the congressional hearings regarding the militarization of the WASPs. Print media sources, including articles specific to the WASPs as well as wartime issues of popular magazines, were examined to assess how the WASPs and other women in the wartime effort were being presented to and perceived by the public. Congressional records were obtained for 1941 through 1977 to document not only how Congress voted on the WASP issue, but also how it debated and voted on other women’s military auxiliaries during and after the war. Finally, women who served as WASPs during World War II were interviewed to confirm documented sources and to obtain firsthand accounts of how the program and its subsequent disbandment impacted their lives. Unfortunately, the key players involved in the development of the WASP program, as well as those behind its disbandment, were deceased before the research for this book began. However, Jacqueline Cochran, the WASP director, and General Henry H. Arnold, Commanding General of the Army Air Forces during World War II, wrote accounts about their involvement with the WASPs, and General Arnold’s son, Major Bruce Arnold, provided further insight into his father’s opinions about the program during the 1977 congressional hearings that revisited militarizing the WASPs.

The Importance of the WASP Program as a Subject of Historical Inquiry

The historical subject is defined through her relationship with her culture and all that inhabits and constitutes it. Indeed, history is a shifting phenomenon understood only within the contexts of its associations with the various components of its culture. History is a representation of multiple meanings, in which the subject must be assessed with the understanding that it can never truly be discovered. Just as the most detailed road map never looks like the road, the most thorough accounting of a historical subject can never exactly look and respond like the subject it intends to represent.

The study of the WASPs contributes to a gathering of evidence about notions of women and war as well as notions about gender constructions and their enforcement. The WASPs were the first American wartime service unit comprised entirely of women who performed functions traditionally associated with men. WASPs were involved in activities considered both dangerous and adventurous for the men who performed them; thus, a high level of status was associated with their roles and missions.

Although women have been active participants in all wars in which the United States has been involved,¹ and although all branches of the U.S. military had women’s auxiliaries in World War II, the WASP program remained unique because all of the women who served were pilots; thus they all served in positions desired and admired by men. Within military hierarchies, the World War II pilot was constructed as the most dashing and desirable among soldiers. The “flyboys” were the elite of the U.S. military. Cinematic and literary productions from the World War II era include a number of representations of the jealousy that infantrymen felt toward military pilots. For example, in Audie Murphy’s autobiography To Hell and Back, the highly decorated World War II soldier recounts the brawls that occurred in towns near which both infantrymen and pilots were stationed—brawls which Murphy attributed to local women being more attracted to the pilots than they were to the foot soldiers.

During their years of wartime service, the WASPs flew a terrain that was very much a proving ground of masculinity. More than the WACs (Army), WAVES (Navy), Spars (Coast Guard), or Women Marines, the WASPs directly questioned the purportedly natural and expected status of men within the military 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 the safest flying positions in the Army Air Forces. The WASPs performed missions that were both exciting and valuable. Much of what they did was top secret, and a great deal of it involved risk, such as towing targets at which live ammunition was fired. By taking on roles and missions previously associated with the masculine, WASPs challenged assumptions of male supremacy in wartime culture.

The women in other branches of the military largely served in roles that had been culturally constructed as natural for women. This does not negate the tremendous contribution of American women in these military divisions, but it did temper the threat these female soldiers posed to male soldiers. During World War II, 350,000 women served in the U.S. military,² providing necessary and demanding service to their country. Many women served overseas, some of them in combat situations; many were injured; some became prisoners of war; and some were killed. Many women in other branches served in roles generally associated with men, such as truck drivers and mechanics, but the majority served in roles culturally associated with women, such as clerical workers and nurses, thus deflecting attention away from those who served in roles typically associated with men.

All WASPs were pilots or pilot trainees. Therefore, the threat that these women posed to cultural constructions of gender identity can be more clearly assessed than can the threats posed by women in other World War II military branches. Within the WASPs, there were no positions of “women’s work” toward which media, congressional, and public attention could be directed. Although women in the other branches served under combat conditions, were injured, and even died in the line of duty, the standing of these female soldiers has been for the most part ignored, erased, or altered to fit the cultural as sumptions of the time. The narratives of war capture cultural constructions more than facts. Therefore, more attention was focused on women’s roles in the home front than on their participation in the battle front, and the stories of women soldiers were mediated to fit existing and acceptable notions of gender, despite the efforts and dangers that constituted their lives. So while the Women’s Army Corps was the largest women’s division and included women who went overseas, served as mechanics, and worked with weapons, Army public relations disseminated stories that focused on those WACs based in the continental United States who handled work traditionally associated with women, such as secretaries and sales clerks, and the media featured stories on the feminine touches WACs brought into their barracks, such as curtains and flowers.³ As a result, the impact that these military women had on cultural assumptions about the constitution of the female soldier was mitigated by constructions from the War Department and the media that feminized military women, tempered the threat posed by women in uniform, and insisted that these were indeed women first and soldiers later.

The WASPs are valuable in analyzing the threat that World War II military women posed to cultural assumptions about the construction of gender because their specific, masculine-valued, and frequently dangerous roles offered no means through which the message could be mediated. Unlike the majority of women serving in the other military branches, the WASPs were not taking on jobs that men did not want to perform. Instead, they were flying the newest and best planes the U.S. military had developed, the fastest fighter planes and heaviest bombers. They test-piloted experimental models and worked in the development of weapons systems. Yet, although the missions performed by the WASPs were often dangerous, they were still safer than the combat missions that men released from domestic duties by the WASPs were sent overseas to perform. Many male pilot trainees came to resent the female pilots for this reason and, in face of being sent overseas, created a significant media and public opinion campaign against the WASP program.

The existence of a military unit populated entirely by female pilots ran counter to popular assumptions regarding the capabilities and limitations of women, and the presence of women as pilots of military planes questioned assumptions of masculinity. Because of this, efforts by the Army Air Forces to militarize the WASPs met fierce resistance. Consequently, the WASP program was the only World War II women’s auxiliary that was not militarized. Instead, it was a civilian volunteer group, with members paying for their initial training, transportation, and room and board. Because they were civilian volunteers, WASPs who died in service were not recognized as wartime casualties, and their colleagues often had to raise money among themselves to send their bodies home. Lacking veterans’ status after the war, WASPs were unable to participate in the GI bill and other reward programs for veterans. Besides being the only women’s auxiliary to be refused militarization over the course of the war, the WASP program was the only nontraining component of the military to be fully disbanded and its personnel sent home before the war was over. The WASPs were disbanded in December 1944, eight months before the war ended.

Previous historical assessments of the WASPs have not adequately answered the question of why these pilots were removed from active service before the war’s end, despite the request for their services by the leading officers of the Army Air Forces. It is no small question to ask why a unit of 1,074 women, each trained at a minimum cost of twelve thousand dollars, was demobilized before the end of the war. Previous authors have assumed that the WASPs were disbanded because they were no longer necessary to the war effort; because the WASP director ineptly bungled the program into oblivion; or because conflicts between the two subgroups that constituted the WASPs (the Women’s Ferrying Squadron and the Women’s Flying Training Detachment) were so strong as to destroy the foundations of the program.⁴ These assumptions are not supported by the facts, but instead arise from historians’ attempts at establishing a rationale for the demise of the WASPs within the program itself, when the cause is found at the intersection of various cultural constituents in the United States and its military during World War II.

2 The Development of the Women Airforce Service Pilots

From Guarded Experiment to Valuable Support Role

The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) of World War II performed an essential role in the United States’ war effort. The nation’s first women pilots of military planes, WASPs flew every model in the Army Air Forces’ (AAF) arsenal, including multi-engine bombers, pursuit (fighter) planes, cargo planes, and even the first American military jet planes. “We did whatever we were asked to do to free men for combat—we were very short on combat pilots,” recalled WASP Thelma K. Miller.¹

WASPs flew a variety of missions, including ferrying aircraft from factories to bases; towing targets for gunnery practice; test-piloting new and refurbished planes; flying military personnel; training male pilots; and piloting bombers to train navigators, gunners, and bombardiers. WASP Ethel Finley said: “We were utility pilots. We flew every airplane that the Army Air Corps had at the time. We flew everything but combat. And we flew only in the continental United States and a little bit into Canada. . . . There were so many jobs in the United States that had to be done to release men for combat, and it was never even considered that we fly in combat, although the Russians did have three squadrons of women combat fliers.”²

Despite the range and difficulty of the missions flown by its pilots, the WASP program maintained civilian status throughout its two-year existence. “We had no insurance. We got $250 a month to fly the most dangerous and heaviest airplanes that were deployed by the United State Air Forces. We had to pay our own board bill; we bought our own uniforms,” said WASP Madge Rutherford Minton.³

The WASP program arose as a top secret project that was not initially publicized and was not submitted for militarization until “enough experience had been obtained to determine the usefulness of the women pilots.”⁴ The program had its roots in the formation of two organizations in September 1942 that would later merge to form the WASPs. The first organization was the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS), developed on September 10 and led by pilot Nancy Harkness Love.⁵ Initially comprised of ten pilots, the WAFS grew to include twenty-eight pilots by January 1943.⁶ On September 12, the Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD) was created when AAF Commanding General Henry H. Arnold approved a memorandum from Major General H. L. George of the Air Transport Command requesting a training program for women pilots.⁷ General George modeled his request on a program proposed by famous aviator Jacqueline Cochran and suggested that Cochran be named director of the program. Implementation of the training program began three weeks after approval of the memorandum.⁸ The two programs consolidated in July 1943,⁹ and on August 20, the War Department announced that the title for the women pilots who served with the AAF would be the WASPs or Women Airforce Service Pilots.¹⁰

The WASP program expanded beyond all initial proposals, both in terms of missions performed and the number of women pilots. This expansion arose from the AAF’s need to place all qualified male pilots overseas or into combat positions. In the early stages of the war, the United States suffered significant losses among its air forces and ground troops. Army Air Forces Commanding General Arnold wanted all qualified male pilots released for combat duty, and he wanted to redirect male trainees to the Army’s ground forces. The AAF commanders also wanted to see the extent to which women military pilots could be used in the event that the U.S. mainland came under attack. General Arnold put forth three objectives in the formation of the WASPs:

1. To see if women could serve as military pilots, and, if so, to form the nucleus of an organization which could be rapidly expanded.

2. To release male pilots for combat.

3. To decrease the Air Forces’ total demands for the cream of the manpower pool.¹¹

The WASPs continued to grow until December 1944, when the program was disbanded following congressional opposition. In its two-year existence, the program graduated 1,074 women from Air Forces pilot training, 916 of whom actively served the Army Air Forces.¹² This compares with a total of 190,000 male pilots who served during World War II.¹³ The initial class of WASPs was trained at an airfield in Houston, Texas, but the majority of the 1,074 WASP graduates were trained at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas.¹⁴ Avenger Field continues to hold the distinction of being the only military flying school to have been specifically designated for women pilots. WASPs flew a total of 60 million miles in training and missions during the two years that they were operational.¹⁵ They delivered 12,652 planes on domestic ferrying missions¹⁶ and conducted a variety of operational missions at nine air forces and commands.¹⁷ These pilots served in a civilian capacity and thus received no insurance, no military benefits, and no veterans’ benefits.¹⁸ Thirty-eight WASPs died in service, twenty-seven in active service and eleven in training.¹⁹ Families of these thirty-eight pilots could not place military service stars in their windows, nor did the WASPs receive military burials. “If we got killed in action our friends passed the hat to get enough money to send our personal effects home to the family. We couldn’t have a military internment; we didn’t get a flag for the coffin; and we got no burial expenses,” Madge Rutherford Minton noted.²⁰

The Development of American Military Air ...