WASP Timeline 1937-1944

1937

July - Pioneer aviatrix Amelia Earhart disappears over the Pacific.

1938

September 23 – Jackie Cochran wins first place in the                            Transcontinental Bendix Race.

1939

June – The U.S. government establishes the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP). The program provides pilot training across the country and allows for one woman to be trained for every ten men.

September 1 – Germany invades Poland.

September 3 – France and Great Britain declare war on Germany.

1940

September 28 – Jackie Cochran writes to Eleanor Roosevelt suggesting the establishment of a women’s flying division of the Army Air Forces.

1941

June – Jackie Cochran becomes the first woman to ferry a bomber across the Atlantic.

June – Women are banned from participating in the Civilian Pilot Training Program.

December 7 – The Japanese attack the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor.

1942

March – Jackie Cochran takes 25 American women pilots to Britain to fly with the British Air Transport Auxiliary.

September – Following a proposal submitted by pilot Nancy Harkness Love to the Ferry Command of the Army Air Forces, the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron, or WAFS, is established. Twenty-five of America’s top women pilots will begin ferrying aircraft throughout the U.S.

September 15 – Jackie Cochran establishes the Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD) under chief of the Army Air Forces, General Hap Arnold.

November 17 – The first class of 28 recruits from the Women’s Flying Training Detachment reports to the Houston, Texas, municipal airport.

November – The WAFS fly their first mission taking Piper Cubs from LoHaven, Pennsylvania, to Mitchell Field, New

1943

February 6 – The WFTD increases its goal for the number of women pilots to graduate that year from 396 to 750.

February 21 or March 8 – Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas, welcomes its first class of women pilots.

February – The WFTD School in Houston, Texas closes.

March 21 – Cornelia Fort becomes the first woman to die on active duty for the United States when another pilot accidentally clips the wing of the plane she is flying.

August 5 – The Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) merge with Jackie Cochran’s training program to form the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP).

September 30 – Representative John Costello of California introduces the WASP militarization bill.

December 17 – The WASP wings are made available in time for the graduation of Class 43-W-8.

1944

February 11 – WASP are finally issued their Santiago Blue uniforms.

March 24 – Senators Joseph Hill (Alabama) and Harold Burton (Ohio) submit a resolution calling for the appointment of female pilots and aviation cadets into the Army Air Forces.

May 29 - A Time Magazine article titled “Unnecessary and Undesirable” calls the WASP experiment expensive and claims men could have been trained more quickly.

June – The congressional bid for WASP militarization fails. It was the first time during World War II that legislation supported by the Army Air Forces was voted down.

July – Rumors begin circulating in the press that the WASP program is about to be disbanded.

October 1 – General Hap Arnold issues a memorandum to WASP Director Jackie Cochran stating that because of the changing war situation the WASP would “soon become pilot material in excess of needs.”

October – The WASP receive notification from WASP Director Jackie Cochran and General Hap Arnold that their unit would be disbanded in December.

November 1 – Brigadier General Bob Nowland writes a memo describing the hardships that will be caused by deactivating the WASP program.

December 7 – General Hap Arnold addresses the final graduating class of WASP.

December 20 – The WASP program is deactivated.

1977

October 19 – The Senate votes unanimously to grant WASP veterans’ recognition.

November 3 – The House votes to give the WASP veteran status.

November 23 – President Carter signs a bill into law “Officially declaring the Women Airforce Service Pilots as having served on active duty in the Armed Forces of the United States for purposes of laws administered by the Veterans Administration.”

1979

March 8 – The Department of the Air Force authorizes official discharges for WASP.

May – The Air Force issues the first honorable discharges for women serving as WASP during the Second World War.

In May of 1942, the Sweetwater Reporter ran a contest to select a name for the new military field in northwest Sweetwater.  The winner of the fifty-dollar War Bond prize was Mrs. Grace Favor, a teacher at John H. Reagan Junior High School in Sweetwater.  Here is her poem.

Avenger Field

Built on a Texas hillside in a land

Of proud tradition, filled with tales of brave

And stalwart men who gave their precious lives

Wrongs to avenge, that Freedom’s flag might wave-

Avenger Field, your sons shall issue forth

Through troublous skies in peril to prevail,

The Tyrant to subdue, to make right the wrong

On mighty wings these heroes shall not fail.

Sleep on martyr’d dead, you have not died in vain!

The torch we’ll bear…nor to the despot yield

‘Til all is safe for peace throughout the world.

Your purpose shall be served, Avenger field!

The airport officially became Avenger Field on May 14, 1942.

-The information above is excerpted from Major Bennet B. Monde’s

Wings over Sweetwater.