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Women Pilots in WW II

 

WASP Pilots

Although they were never in combat and their activities were confined to North America, meaning the United States and Canada. American civilian women pilots played a role in World War II. The idea of using women as pilots to support the military goes back to before the war. Famous aviatrix Jackie Cochran used her wealth and noteriety as a female pilot and competitor in air races to get close to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who had an interest in aviation and in equal right for minorities and women. The first lady followed Cochran's aviation exploits and wrote about them in her newspaper column, My Day, and in articles in certain women's magazines. In 1939, Cochran suggested to the first lady, who had no say in government herself but had influence over her husband, that the United States establish a corps of women pilots who would be trained to perform aviation services in "national emergency." 

Jackie Cochran

Cochran, whose real name was Bessie Pittman, grew up poor in Lower Alabama and the Florida Panhandle as the daughter of a sawmill worker. The family was constantly moving as her father followed the mills. When she was thirteen or fourteen, and probably pregnant, she married a young sailor from the Pensacola Naval Air Station, an aircraft mechanic named Robert Cochran. She had a son who died at age 5. She and Cochran were divorced but she kept the Cochran name. She became a hairdresser in Montgomery, Alabama and started reinventing herself. Although she did not distance herself from her family, she disowned them even though some of them would later live with her in California. She claimed they were her servants and it wasn't until after her death that the truth came out. At some point, she started calling herself Jackie. She got a job with Saks Fifth Avenue and worked in various Saks salons around the country. In 1932 she met tycoon Floyd Odlum in the Miami Saks and apparently began an affair with the married man who was fourteen years her senior. She convinced Odlum to back her in the cosmetics business and moved to New York. Odlum allegedly encouraged her to learn to fly and bought her an airplane to use for her travels. Odlum and his wife divorced in 1935 and he married Cochran the following year. The marriage not only gave Cochran money, it also gave her connections. Odlum was closely connected to the White House and would remain so.

 

Her interest in aviation led her to become interested in the new sport of cross-country air racing. She had the money to buy newer and faster airplanes and she had connections to the aviation industry through her husband then through her own prestige. She became friends with the Roosevelts and advocated to Eleanor that the United States form a corps of women pilots for "national emergencies". After World War II broke out, she started pushing for the use of female pilots to ferry airplanes. She bought her way onto the crew of a Lockheed B-34 Ventura - British Hudson - twin-engine bomber for a delivery flight to England. The publicity-conscious Cochran notified the press of her intentions and stated she was going to England to study the British female pilots in anticipation of establishing such an organization in the United States. She later claimed she made the flight at the insistence of Air Corps commander Hap Arnold but this is doubtful since it wasn't until after she had lunch at the White House with the Roosevelts where she told about her experiences in England that FDR told her he would put her in touch with the Army Air Corps. Roosevelt arranged for her to meet with Robert Lovett, the Assistant Secretary of War for Air, who arranged a meeting for her with Henry H. Arnold, then a major general, the chief of the Air Corps, and Col. Robert Olds, commander of the new Army Air Corps Ferrying Command, "at the direction of the President."  Olds stated that he saw no reason why Ferrying Command couldn't employ women to ferry trainers, and proposed that 50 women be hired. Arnold turned down the proposal.

 

The meeting was in Lovett's office. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the possibility of "using women to ferry primary, basic and advanced trainers from factories to Air Corps bases. However, Cochran had something bigger in mind. She wanted to establish a corps of government-trained women pilots to fly military airplanes, a corps she herself would head. 

 

Airplanes flown by WAFS - Piper L-4, Vultee BT-13 and Fairchild PT-19