Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP)

For over thirty years, WASP were the forgotten heroines of WWII. These women lived during a time

where, for the most part, few people imagined that women should‚ or could‚ fly aircrafts. However, an opportunity arose in1941 that gave these flygirls a chance to do something with their lives that involved their passion for flying. The government was in short supply of male pilots needed for combat in WWII. They desperately offered female pilots, who were not legally allowed to be in battle at this time, a chance to temporarily take over the men’s noncombat jobs in order to free male pilots for combat service and duties. Twenty-five thousand women with pilot's licenses applied for the WASP and only 1,900 were accepted. Even though the main mission that these women were trained do was to ferry aircrafts from factories and airfields to military bases nationwide, they ended up doing so much more. As the WASP program proved successful, assignments expanded beyond ferrying. They began performing more dangerous jobs such as towing targets for the men’s gun training. The male trainees on the ground would shoot live ammunition at a large target being dragged 25 feet behind the plane that the women would be flying. Women pilots were also used to ease fears of airplanes with bad reputations. For example, the B-29 was thought to be a dangerous plane after word got around about the engine catching fire often during flight. The Air force had the women fly these infamous planes to prove to the men that these were not only safe, but not difficult to fly because even women could handle them. Lastly, the WASP tested newly overhauled planes before the men flew them. Unfortunately, the consequence of carrying out such dangerous jobs was the loss of 38 flygirls. Even more unfortunate was the fact that each woman was simply looked at as a civilian and was not accepted as part of the Air force. Therefore, the military was not required to pay for their funeral or pay for their remains to be sent home. The WASP women who died for their country could not even have American flag be draped over her coffin. The WASP expected that as a result of their bravery and answering to the call of their nation, they would become part of the military. However, they were wrong. After two short years of service, the WASP were dismissed from her base, without even the smallest ceremony or veteran rights. Most of the women stayed in touch as they continued on with their lives. Thirty two years after the disbandment of their group, the Air force made a statement that said they were going to allow women to fly for them for the first time. the WASP were so upset by this, because they were the first ones. The fact that the WASP were forgotten by their own Air Force brought the women back together again. They gathered and convinced Sen. Barry Goldwater in 1977, to finally grant WASP military status. It wasn’t until 2009 that they gained their well earned recognition when President Barack Obama awarded them the Congressional Gold Medal.

Many people still question why it took the government almost thirty-five years to consider these women apart of the Air force along with why were they deprived of the privileges that they so clearly deserved. This is because over the years it has been reported that the WASP records were stamped classified and unavailable to historians who wrote histories about WWII. According to archivists the WASP records weren't open to researchers for 30 years and the story was rarely told or reported until the 1970s. The reason WASP files were sealed, causing these women’s accomplishments to go unknown, was because these female pilots were underappreciated and often resented by the government and the men in the Air force. WASP played out their duties without the pay and entitlements enjoyed by men in the same positions all because of the fact that they were women. If the WASP had been granted part of the Air force and people of the country were aware of the courageous acts that they performed, imagine how differently women would have been looked at. There is an ongoing argument over whether or not women would have been accepted more simply if the country knew of their activities in the Air force. Some people believe that this story would not be relevant because during this time in history, women’s rights movements were becoming popular all over the country. They think that the WASP story would just be another tale of women who were proving they could do something men could do. However, the WASP women were so much more than that. WASP went beyond what the other women rights movements were doing in the way that they were not doing their acts to prove that women were equal. They did their duties in the Air force to serve their country. They also were risking their lives everyday and doing things that many men would never even think of doing. That is the reason why if these files had not been hidden, women’s rights would have flourished much sooner. It wasn't until over thirty years after the women had begun their services that congress began to see that women were as intelligent as men and therefore put an end to sex discrimination in schools. Had the WASP story been public, laws such as this (IX of the Education Amendments) would have been passed sooner than thirty years after the WASP and the time of equality between both sexes would have been closer. There are also many mysteries as to why these files were hidden in the first place. On these files it was recorded that the women who carried out the same jobs as the male pilots actually had better and more accurate records. It would seem logical that the government didn’t want this information to get out; otherwise their men would be replaced by women. It is difficult to comprehend that women who risked their lives could be forgotten and hidden by the government they loyally helped protect. Discouragingly, it did happen and over 65 years later, they were awarded of their duties.