Women Air Force Service Pilots

By: Hella Goode

Although the term usually brings to mind images of pointy-headed individuals, WASP does not always refer to a White Anglo Saxon Protestant, but in this case, something way more exciting. WASP refers to the Women Air force Service Pilots who bravely served their country during World War II. When Rosie the Riveter was queen and women were taking the place of men displaced at war in factories, stores and offices, when supplies of men were drying up the government began looking for domestically licensed women to fill pilot’s seats.

Officially begun in September 1942, the program only lasted about two years. When the men began to return from war, they wanted their jobs back, the ladies were sent packing as if it had never happened. Even the dead were sent off without military monetary compensation for their funerals. Thirty-eight lost their lives in training or piloting orders. Those who survived were forever changed. They had collectively flown 78 different aircrafts and over 60,000,000 miles of flight time.

During their service the WASPs were given menial housework tasks when not occupied flying. They were usually not sent on major missions, but ferried planes back and forth, sometimes tested other planes, and were even used to prove to the men that the B-29 was safe to fly. One would think that men, thinking themselves so brave and strong, would be the ones wanting to prove this to the women, not the women proving it to the men.

Over 1,000 women graduated from the vigorous training of an Air Force Pilot during those two years. Trained in the sizzling heat of Sweetwater, Texas, they were made to be as tough if not tougher than the men.

It was an experience that united women who were from very different ‘walks of life’ who otherwise might not have associated with one another nor had a common springboard to bond. Most of the candidates were single, young women, however there were married women and a few mothers who were selected to apply for the task at hand. Although it would seem obvious that their families would worry, the ladies felt the same sense of duty that their male counterparts did when addressing whether or not they would go to war. To many at that time, each individual had an obligation to serve whether it be in the military, at the workplace, or in the home. Interestingly, although the gender divide was as large as the Grand Canyon in the military, the economic status divide narrowed for prospective WASPs. WASPs included rich heiresses as well as less well-to-do farm girls. Ironically, no matter how much money the heiresses brought forth, they could not have bought the chance to become a WASP. WASPs were recruited from a list of privately licensed female pilots who had a certain amount of flight hours. For once, economic status would not interfere and allow for a truly equal opportunity where all women, at least, were created equal.

They found and lived freely only to be forced to return to the forced roles of standard life in the 1940’s and 1950’s where despite all they had achieved, they were once again limited to the options of housewifery and motherhood. These of course, are not bad choices, but really were not much of a choice as there were no alternatives. They yearned for other opportunities. Some applied to become commercial pilots, but were instead offered positions as stewardesses. It was not their safety records, or lack of flight hours that kept them grounded with the airlines but the simple fact that they were women. What would other pilots or passengers think? Others taught new pilots or became crop dusters in order to be able to keep flying. Still others found their prior roles just as fulfilling in offices and at home. Most of these brave lady soldiers never got the chance to pilot again. It wouldn’t be until the year 1977 when women would get another chance to be invited to fly military aircraft and finally be recognized for it. This, however, was when the WASPs fought back and became known as the first true female military pilots.

Today, when only 316 of the original 1, 074 lady wonders remain, the WASPs and women in general still have many hurdles to overcome. It’s ironic that despite feeling as close to equal as many of us do in this day and age, that it wasn’t until our lifetime that these women were finally recognized by the military for their service. To date, despite even dogs who fought in Vietnam having a memorial monument before the WASP pilots do. Keep in mind these dogs served in a war that dated later than the one fought by the brave women of the WASP unit. One would think that if choosing between the contributions of these heroic women and the also heroic canine units, that women would win the respect of men first. The problem with that statement is that it involves thinking and what reasonably good excuse could there have been to prevent women from doing what the WASP did both before and after World War II? Inequality and discrimination are beyond reason and logic. Thankfully, there have always been those ready to challenge such biased beliefs and try to instill change. What I’m sure women would like is not to take the place of the dog as ‘Man’s Best Friend,’ but instead to become to be seen as his equally brilliant and beautiful counterpart.

What the WASPs do currently have in their honor are two smaller pieces of recognition. In the Arlington National Cemetery, there is a memorial display for the Women in Military Service for America, which features one section about the WASPs. In 1996, the Postal Service created a stamp for the WASPs with the image of one of their founding mothers, Jacqueline Cochran, also known as a Pioneer Pilot. She later became the first female pilot to break the sound barrier. Before 1996, wasn’t that still something worth commemorating?

To learn more about the WASP experience, visit the site of their training in Sweetwater, Texas, home of the WASP Museum, or read up on some of their more personal stories in such books as Flying For Her Country by Amy Goodpaster-Strebe, and Winning My Wings by Marion Stegeman Hodgson. For those who wish to help make a permanent memorial for the WASP, they can make donations to the Memorial Campaign at http://waspmuseum.org/donation-sub-nav-page/.

Editor’s note: Our very own Hella Goode has her very first book out (under her legal name, of course)! We couldn’t be more proud of her! You’ll check it out, won’t you? 101 Mexico City Travel Tips

Legends: Josephine Baker
Story: Hella Goode

When Frida Kahlo painted her double self-portrait, the Two Fridas, she couldn’t possibly have been imagining that she would meet another Frida one day that would enchant her so.

The other ‘Frida’ in the rumored love affair, was actually born Freda Josephine McDonald on June 3, 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri to Carrie McDonald and drummer Eddie Carson, who hesitated very little in abandoning the new mother and child. She would later choose to go by her middle name, Josephine. After a series of family changes and a few short-lived marriages, she would become the legend known today as Josephine Baker, sometimes called ‘Black Venus,’ ‘Black Pearl,’ or ‘Creole Goddess.’ Josephine was renown worldwide for many of her passions, dancing, singing, mothering a menagerie of unusual pets, rallying for Civil Rights and setting the example for such adoption-happy celebs as Mia Farrow and Angelina Jolie, with her dozen adopted multicultural children which she lovingly referred to as the “Rainbow Tribe.”

One might ask, how did a black woman shoot to such fame and success at a time when racial restraints would not let her so much as sit in the front of the bus in the United States? Josephine mentions, “One day I realized I was living in a country where I was afraid to be black. It was only a country for white people. Not black. So I left. I had been suffocating in the United States…A lot of us left, not because we wanted to leave, but because we couldn’t stand it anymore…I felt liberated in Paris.”

Before departing for Paris, she had performed in the first all-black Broadway musical, Shuffle Along in 1922 at the age of 16 in New York. In 1925, she joined La Revue Nègre in Paris. Her performance with her partner, Joe Alex in the Danse Sauvage made her a star. She then took on La Folie du Jour at the Follies-Bergère Theater. Meanwhile in 1926 she recorded music for the first time ever. She briefly returned to New York to perform at Carnegie Hall, where she never before would have been accepted, but after her success in Europe and social growth in the Civil Rights movement, she was given a standing ovation.

In France, she starred in movies and on stage. Off stage she lead her life the way she saw fit. She became iconic, known for her exotic beauty, although she mocked it, saying her good feature was her legs, and the rest of her body was simply ‘amusing.’ She had presence that few other stars had.

Her films included:
La Sirène des Tropiques (1927)
Josephine plays a tropical beauty who aspires to dance in Paris. She was used to overacting for the live stage and thus gave an exaggerated performance which later haunted her.

Zouzou (1934)
Josephine portrays Zouzou, a circus performer in love with the man who plays her twin brother, but leaves her for another woman.

Princess Tam Tam (1935)
Josephine takes on the role of a primitive woman again, introduced to the French culture by a man.

The French Way (1945)
Josephine plays a cabaret performer named Zazu.

One can speculate as to why, despite being such a proponent of equal rights, she would accept roles as a ’savage,’ however, she made sure that she was not pigeonholed as such. She was civilized in all other aspects of her life, after, her favorite food was spaghetti.

Josephine never left the United States behind completely. She kept vigilant watch over the events going on in the Civil Rights movement while enjoying her success in France. By the time she had amped her popularity in film and on stage in Europe, becoming one of the best if not, the highest paid performer of her time and ranking amongst the most photographed women in the world, she knew she had a new mission, to aid in the fight for Civil Rights in the United States. She was invited to speak at the 1963 march on Washington DC, where Martin Luther King Jr.’s infamous speech still runs shivers down the spines of those who hear it. “Until the March on Washington,” Josephine stated, “I always had this little feeling in my stomach. I was always afraid. I couldn’t meet white American people. I didn’t want to be around them. But now that little gnawing feeling is gone. For the first time in my life I feel free. I know that everything is right now.” Josephine continued to help the cause by refusing to perform or appear in places that did not allow blacks to enter or refused them seating. She was very public about her stance on equality, even when it meant open and public media battles.

How ironic for the spirit of political activism to come from the woman most known for the image of the costume she wore for the Danse Banane. It was nothing more than about a dozen bananas strewn together to make a less than skimpy skirt. Josephine gave new meaning to many things, but she topped the sweet cake by showing us what Chiquita Bananas really meant with this one. She wasn’t recognized for being very modest in her costumes, but often wore revealing and sensual digs, performing and posing topless as well, which was not nearly as scandalous in France in the 1920’s and 1930’s as it was in the United States. It took until the 1950’s in Las Vegas for American girls and venues to accept the daring challenge of having topless showgirls. She lit up the venue no matter what she did, taken over by the thrill of the stage. … “I improvised, crazed by the music… Even my teeth and eyes burned with fever. Each time I leaped I seemed to touch the sky and when I regained earth it seemed to be mine alone,” she said.

She died at the age of 69 on April 12, 1975 in Paris, France of cerebral hemorrhage, a recognized contributor to the victory of World War II on the French side, earning her a 21-gun salute, an American Civil Rights activist, the cause of the contagious jazz bug in Europe, amongst other achievements including giving hope to those who had none. She was honored with the presence of over 20,000 people in her funeral procession and status as a stage legend, inspiring women of her time and future generations to not let beautiful and bold be determined by the opinion of the masses, but to simply bleed it from the inside out.

For more: http://www.cmgww.com/stars/baker/