The Flying WASPs: The Story of the American Military’s First Female Pilots

by Adriel Sanders

It was 1941. In the United States, the Great Depression had strangled the economy and left millions out of work, but America endured. Patriarchal family structure dominated life within almost every American household; men worked and provided for the family while the women tended to the home and the children. It was the standard of life, one that few people challenged. Almost no one believed in a woman’s ability to pilot airplanes as competently as men, and fewer still could ever entertain the notion of a woman flying for the military. There were some, however, who did. Famed aviatrixes Jacqueline Cochran and Nancy Love were certain that women could not only fly as well as men, but that they could also serve their country by flying military aircraft in important operations.

Meanwhile, in Europe, France and Poland had fallen before the might of the German Wehrmacht. And although the United States had instituted lend-lease with the United Kingdom, Britain was still under siege. With American involvement in the Second World War seeming increasingly unavoidable, the Army Air Force (AAF) began making the necessary preparations. As more male pilots were sent overseas, General Henry Harley “Hap” Arnold, commanding general of the AAF, realized a growing shortage of qualified pilots for use in the domestic flying program.

Cochran and Love, realizing how potentially devastating this shortage would be at home, each offered a solution. Cochran wanted to recruit women to fly the Army’s various domestic missions, such as towing air target sleeves for aerial and antiaircraft gunners, and testing recently repaired aircraft.

Love, wife of Major Robert Love of the Air Transport Command’s Ferrying Division, opted to assemble a group of highly qualified women pilots that would exclusively perform ferry duty.

Love and Cochran’s programs differed only slightly, primarily around the issue of militarization. Cochran, unlike Love, wanted her female pilots to be militarized and subjected to the same training as male cadets. Although this difference may have initially seemed minute, it became a serious issue as the program progressed and the women were successful.

Eventually, in the fall of 1942 both Love and Cochran’s programs were introduced. Love’s program was termed the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Service (WAFS), based at New Castle Army Air Base in Delaware. Cochran’s program was called the Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD); initially based at Howard Hughes Field in Houston, it relocated to Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas shortly thereafter.
The WAFS and the WFTD operated independently until 1943, whereupon the U.S. War Department fused the two groups into the Women’s Air Force Service Pilots (WASP). Jacqueline Cochran was named the director of women pilots while Nancy Love continued to specifically direct the ferrying division.

Shortly after this announcement, Lorraine Rodgers—then Lorraine Zillner—heard of the program.

“Every Friday I’d get my paycheck and I’d go to the little local grass airport and I’d learn to fly. And one day, somebody said, ‘Do you know Jacqueline Cochran is coming into Chicago to interview women to see if they want to fly Army planes?’ My gosh, here I’m flying a little [Piper] Cub all around Chicago and I thought ‘Army planes!’ So, I went down and called her and had an interview with her,” said Rodgers.

By this time, America had entered the war and Rodgers was a recent graduate of the University of Illinois with a degree in psychology and language. Residing in Park Ridge, a suburb of Chicago, with her family, Rodgers got a job in the personnel department of Douglas Aircraft Factory. Rodgers’ fascination with planes was one of the many things that spurred her love of flying.

“Where I lived in Park Ridge the planes from Chicago Municipal would fly over when I’d be out in the yard,” Rodgers recalled. “I’d look up and think ‘Where are they going, how does that big thing stay up there?’”

After her interview with Cochran, Rodgers was well on her way to answering both of those questions. Soon, she would be responsible for flying planes around the country, ensuring that both she and the plane reached their destination safely. But, before she could undertake this huge responsibility, she first faced the challenge of being inducted into the program.

“Over 3 years, 25,000 women applied. After applying, we had an interview with Jacqueline Cochran or one of her representatives. If the interview went okay, we had to go in for an Army physical and mental exam. Of the 25,000 women that applied, 1,830 were accepted for training, and of the 1,830 that were accepted, 1,074 earned their wings,” stated Rodgers.