442nd Airmen honor World War II WASPs

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Tracy Brown and Heidi Hunt
  • 442nd Fighter Wing Public Affairs
WHITEMAN AIR FORCE BASE, Mo. --  In today's Air Force, it isn't uncommon to see a female pilot boarding a fighter or cargo jet, suiting up and taking off - but it wasn't always that way.

Five Airmen from the 442nd Fighter Wing traveled to Washington, D.C. to serve as escorts to the Women Airforce Service Pilots and attended the Congressional Gold Medal ceremony, March 10.

The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest award Congress bestows to civilians in the U.S.

"These women finally received the long-overdue recognition they deserved, and it is just in time as it is nearing the end of the World War II generation," said Maj. Olivia Elliott,
442nd Fighter Wing A-10 Thunderbolt II pilot who attended the event.

More than 200 WASPs also attended the event, many of them wearing their World War II-era uniforms.

"Listening to the speakers gave me goose bumps and brought tears to my eyes," said Major Elliott.

Major Elliott escorted Elizabeth "Betty" Wall-Strohfus, 90, from Minnesota. Betty's nine family members were also in attendance at the ceremony.

"Betty and her family were absolutely amazing, and I will never forget them," Major Elliott said. "I made friends for life."

Additionally, Chief Carol Tripp, 303rd Fighter Squadron chief of aviation resources management, escorted Barbara Hart-Kennedy and echoed her experience with WASPs members.

"I have had many extraordinary experiences in my career, but the WASP ceremony ranks pretty high up there," she said. "It was really that rewarding and amazing."

Major Elliott said she is proud and honored to be able to stand on their shoulders, which allows her to do what she loves.

"The WASPs were the trailblazers and broke down many barriers for women in uniform," she said. "The WASPs clearly sacrificed and portrayed loyalty and patriotism with such grace. My life is easy compared to what these ladies had to go through. They did it without complaining and didn't expect to be applauded at the end of it all."

Adding to Major Elliott, many of the WASPs were not angry or disappointed about the long-overdue recognition.

"For a lot of these ladies, it's not that they didn't understand what was going on, but they didn't necessarily understand that it was such a big deal," Major Elliott said. "Betty's family understood that it was a big deal, but to her generation, what they did was for their county, not for recognition."

Joining Major Elliott and Chief Tripp were Tech. Sgt. Shannon Kennedy, Tech. Sgt. Nicole Willeford and Senior Airman Sarah Knauff.

Major Elliott and Chief Tripp said that from the conference, they took home with them a lifetime of memories.

The 442nd Airmen also left their mark.

"Our WASP gathering in D.C. was absolutely wonderful," Mrs. Wall-Strohfus said.

"Seeing so many of our gals again was such a blessing and forever treasured. The respect and care we received from our military escorts was outstanding. Thank you and may God bless each of you," she told them.

During World War II, female pilots were given the opportunity to become pioneers, heroes and role models to women throughout history.

These women were the Women Airforce Service Pilots. They were the first women in history to train and fly American military aircraft.

In 1942, Eleanor Roosevelt said, "This is not a time when women should be patient. We are in a war and we need to fight it with all our ability and with every weapon possible. Women pilots, in this particular case, are a weapon waiting to be used."

Prior to the war, women played the roles of nurses, teachers, stay-at-home mothers and librarians. During the time surrounding the creation of WASPs, many people could not imagine that women were capable of flying or that they should.

After Pearl Harbor, the United States government determined there were not enough male pilots to complete the necessary missions. In July 1943, the WASPs became official by the merging of two separate entities -- the Women's Auxiliary Ferry Squadron and the Women's Flying Training Detachment.

WASP training spanned 19 groups of women. Each WASP had an average of 1,400 flying hours and held a commercial-pilot rating. The women were given a 30-day orientation to learn Army paperwork and military regulations, although they were never recognized as being military members and never received any military benefits -- unlike their male counterparts.

Initially, there were 1,830 women accepted to receive pilot training at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas. Avenger Field was the first, and only, all-female Air Force base in history. The motivation for the creation of female pilots was to free the male pilots for combat missions and to use the females for ferrying aircraft from factories to military bases.

The WASPs became the first women to fly American military aircraft, and 1,078 women earned their wings. Following their training, the women pilots were stationed at 120 air bases across the United States. Women pilots were eventually used to relieve male pilots from combat duty and delivered more than 12,650 aircraft of 78 different models.
During the time the military implemented female pilots, more than 50 percent of the ferrying of aircraft within the United States was done by WASPs.

In 1944, the House Committee on the Civil Service reported that they considered the WASP program to be unnecessary and unjustifiably expensive, and they ended the program. In the end, there were 916 female pilots, and none of them received any military benefits.

Finally, in 1977 these women were given veteran status -- but not without a fight. More than 30-years later, the WASPs were finally given honor at the nation's capitol.