Author of Lady Flyer: The Extraordinary True Story of WWII Aviator Nancy Harkness Love
Following World War 1, a plethora of trained pilots returned to American soil. Jobs such as airmail and passenger airlines were still years away, so the employment options for a pilot were limited. Barnstorming became popular as a way for a pilot earn money by traveling around the country, perform stunts, and offer rides in their plane. The Midwest was the biggest draw for these pilots because of the abundance of fields and barns. This is where Nancy Harkness, a sixteen-year-old Michigan girl, first rode in a plane. She felt so exhilarated by the sensation of flying and daring stunts that she paid the barnstormer pilot to take her up a second time.
The moment she returned home that August day in 1930, she begged her parents for permission to take flying lessons. They reluctantly agreed. Her mother wasn’t convinced that piloting a plane was ladylike, not to mention the uncertainty and danger involved. Nancy’s interest quickly turned into a passion, and with grit befitting a determined teenager, by November of that same year, she earned her private pilot license.
Nancy put her school grades on the backburner as she spent every spare moment taking flying lessons. Despite a couple of narrow misses, and a plane crash where she and a friend were injured, she loved nothing better than to be in the skies. Yet, she was methodical, observant, and didn’t take undue risks—something she promised her mother. In 1934, while applying for a job at an airfield she met Bob Love, and although a fiery misunderstanding raised each of their hackles, he became the man she’d eventually marry.
Bob Love, unlike many male pilots of his day, fully supported women in aviation. As the years progressed, and the war erupted in Europe spreading across countries and eventually spanning the globe, Nancy became unsettled as she watched male pilots all around her aide in the cause of freedom. Nancy had a remarkable vision—to integrate women into the Army Air Forces as pilots. The bombing of Pearl Harbor finally brought Nancy’s desire to help in front of military decision makers. Along with Jacquelin Cochran, who’d also been pushing her connections for women pilots to serve with their specialized skills, the approval finally came, thanks in part to an article written by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt: “. . . if the war goes on long enough, and women are patient, opportunity will come knocking at their doors. However, there is just a chance that 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 every weapon possible. Women pilots, in this particular case, are a weapon waiting to be used. (“My Day,” Eleanor Roosevelt, September 1, 1942, https://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydocedits.cfm?_y=1939&_f=md055430).
Colonel William H. Tunner hired Nancy to become the director of an all-female ferrying division, which would operate under the Army Air Corps. The women would be tasked with picking up the planes at the manufacturing plants, then transporting them to air bases around the country.
The Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) quickly filled with twenty-eight hand-selected women pilots, called the Originals. These women came from various backgrounds, but were well-qualified to transition to the larger planes and bombers coming off the assembly lines. Their ferrying duties would free up the men to train and prepare for combat missions.
Photo by: National WASP WWII Museum
Jacqueline Cochran was assigned to head up the Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD), which trained and qualified additional women pilots to join Nancy’s squad. By August 1943, the WAFS had increased to over 225 qualified women pilots. That same month, Love’s WAFS combined with Cochran’s WFTD to become the WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) (see https://cafriseabove.org/nancy-harkness-love/).
During the nearly sixteen months of the WASP Program, more than 25,000 women applied for training. Of those, 1,879 candidates were accepted into the Training Program, which was moved from the Houston Municipal Airport to Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas. Only 1,074 women successfully graduated (see https://www.army.mil/women/history/pilots.html).
The WASP pilots spent 1942–1944 flying every type of plane and delivering 12,650 combat aircraft to seventy-eight different bases throughout the nation while logging in more than 60 million flight miles (see https://twu.edu/library/womans-collection/collections/women-airforce-service-pilots-official-archive/history/#:~:text=The%20WASP%20logged%20more%20than,to%20bases%20throughout%20the%20nation).
Women also worked in factories, building aircraft, and as airplane mechanics at Army Air Corps bases, becoming the backbone of the progression of the war and the eventual Allied victory. Thanks to the persistence of Nancy and Jacqueline, in addition to female pilots flying for the ferrying squadrons, they also worked as instructors for male pilot trainees. Other duties included the female pilots to fly the towing targets for male combat pilot training, and testing out planes with mechanical issues.
Nancy firmly believed that if women didn’t learn to fly multiengine war planes, it would create a bottleneck between the production line and ferrying the planes to the airfields. She took it upon herself to set the example. She qualified on virtually all the Army Air Force’s combat aircraft, including the P-51 Mustang, P-38 Lightning fighters, C-54 transport, B-17 Flying Fortress, Consolidated B-24 Liberator, and the B-29 Superfortress. Nancy became the trailblazer for many of the WASP pilots and future pilots who would follow in her footsteps (see https://cafriseabove.org/nancy-harkness-love/; see also https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/tag/nancy-harkness-love/).
Nancy shared this story of her first C-54 delivery with another WASP as her copilot: “The plane was to be delivered to American Export Airlines, and was the first DC-4 to be assigned to them. So the chief pilot and high officials were at the field at 1 p.m., waiting. They had never had such big ones before and were much impressed by the size of the plane. They hurried aboard, walked up the long passenger aisle, opened the front cockpit door with expressions of triumph and welcome on their faces. They stopped in a sort of frozen shock as their minds finally grasped the fact that the two happily grinning pilots were women! Without a word, they turned and walked out again” (“The Women With Silver Wings,” Mardo Crane, Part One, Ninety-Nines News, Special Issue 1978).
Photo by: National WASP WWII Museum
Aviator Teresa James received a telegram on September 6, 1942, inviting her to join the Ferrying Program. Signed by Nancy Love and Colonel Robert Baker, the telegram read: “Ferrying Division Air Transport Command is establishing group of women pilots for domestic ferrying. Necessary qualifications are high school education, age between 21 and 35, commercial license, 500 hours, 200 horsepower rating. Advise commanding officer Second Ferrying Group, Ferrying Division Air Transport Command, Newcastle County Airport, Wilmington, Delaware, if you are immediately available and can report at once at Wilmington at your own expense for interview and flight check. Bring two letters recommendation, proof of education and flying time” (The Women with Silver Wings, Katherine Sharp Landdeck, 11).
Another aviator, the petite five-foot-one Betty Gillies mastered the P-47 in early 1943 and observed, “It really was no problem fitting myself in the airplanes. I sat on a cushion, which with the parachute, put me up plenty high. And the only real long-legged airplanes were those for which I had the blocks. I could use a cushion behind me quite well in all but the P-38, the P-47 and the P-51. In those cockpits, the gunsights were too close to my face if I used a cushion behind me. The blocks Grumman made up gave my legs the length I needed. Grumman also made me a gadget to turn fuel valve in the P-38” (The Originals: The Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron of World War II,Sarah Byrn Rickman, 140–141).
Once the WASP pilot training was moved to Sweetwater, Texas, the Pilot Training Program was divided into a two-phase system. During the twenty-three weeks of training, the trainee had 115 hours of flying and 180 hours of ground school. Their training also included “military training including military courtesy and customs, Articles of War, safeguarding of military information, drill and ceremonies, Army orientation, organization, military correspondence, chemical warfare and personal affairs” (Those Wonderful Women in Their Flying Machines: The Unknown Heroines of World War II, Sally Van Wagenen Keil, 369). Ground school included “mathematics, physics, maps and charts, navigation, principles of flight, engines and propellers, weather, code, instrument flying, communications, and physical and first aid training” (369).
Over the course of their service, 38 WASP died on missions or in training (see https://cafriseabove.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Women-Airforce-Service-Pilots-Killed-in-Service.pdf). Every WASP death was a tragedy, but Cornelia Fort’s struck Nancy’s core since Cornelia was an Original and she’d survived the Pearl Harbor attack by dodging a Japanese bomber. Before her death, Cornelia wrote, “As long as our planes flew overhead, the skies of America were free and that’s what all of us everywhere are fighting for. And that we, in a very small way are being allowed to help keep that sky free is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever known” (Fly Girls, P. O’Connell Pearson, 95).
WASP aviator Iris Critchell remembered how the P-51s took ferrying precedence over most of the other aircraft in the urgency to get them delivered overseas: “The P-51s were such a high priority, in the fall of 1944 after we delivered to Newark, we no longer were allowed to detour and pick up a P-39 or P-40 on the way back to Long Beach. Instead, we were under orders to return to base immediately on the airlines or military transport the fastest way possible. At the Newark airport where we landed, the harbor was right there. The ships were pulled into the slips where they waited for our airplanes. We’d land the P-51 where the men were ready to load the aircraft onto the ships. Sometimes they were in such a hurry, they’d start to pull it by the tail to be loaded—with us still in the cockpit! They wanted them on their way to England or Italy as fast as possible” (Global Mission, H.H. Arnold, 358–359).
The road was rocky and full of unexpected setbacks, especially when the WASPs tried to secure militarization so the female pilots could receive the same benefits as the male pilots. Congressional bills gave the WAC, WAVES, and SPARs military status in the 1940s, but the WASP never secured militarization during the life of the program.
In 1944, with the war coming to an end and male pilots returning home, authorities viewed the need for a women pilots as obsolete. The push for the WASP to militarize was shot down, and the women were told to return home so the men could have their jobs back.
When the bill to militarize the WASP in 1944 was turned down, WASP aviator Marie Muccie realized that society wasn’t ready to accept women fully into the military and be given the same duties as men. She clarified, “Opponents of the bill say we Wasps were not under military discipline. They must be kidding. We received the same training as the male Air Force Cadets. The US Army Air Corps issued orders for all military missions. We flew all the same type of military aircraft from small trainers to bombers. . . . by offering official recognition of our part to help win the war would mean a great deal to us. It would be like the US government saying, ‘Thank you for a job well done.’ We earned it, we deserve it and we did do a good job” (Fly Girls, P. O’Connell Pearson, 167–168).
Photo by: National WASP WWII Museum
Nancy’s belief in herself and other women pilots never faltered. Through many setbacks of family tragedy, a world war, constant obstacles and roadblocks to earn trust for women pilots, and personal health challenges, Nancy continued to push forward, soaring higher in order to make the path smoother for female pilots in the future.
The WASP eventually won their militarization and veterans status in 1977, and in 2008, Nancy Harkness Love was inducted into the Pioneer Hall of Fame for Women in Aviation. In 2010, the WASP were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. During the assembly at the Capitol on March 10, 2010, Lt. Colonel Nicole Malachowski, the first female pilot in the Air Force’s Air Demonstration Squadron, said, “Today is the day when the WASPs will make history once again. If you spend any time at all talking to these wonderful women, you’ll notice how humble and gracious and selfless they all are. Their motives for wanting to fly airplanes all those years ago wasn’t for fame or glory or recognition. They simply had a passion to take what gifts they had and use them to help defend not only America, but the entire free world, from tyranny. And they let no one get in their way” (https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/117355/wasps-awarded-congressional-gold-medal/).
Additional resources:
National WASP WWII Museum: https://www.waspmuseum.org/
38 WASP who lost their lives: https://www.waspmuseum.org/avenger-news/the-thirty-eight-by-julia-lauria-blum/
Women’s organization of pilots, the Ninety-Nines: https://www.ninety-nines.org/
Written by: Heather B. Moore
Photos courtesy of: National WASP WWII Museum
About Heather B. Moore:
Heather B. Moore is a USA Today bestselling author who writes primarily historical and #herstory fiction about the humanity and heroism of the everyday person. Publishing in a breadth of genres, Heather dives into the hearts and souls of her characters, meshing her love of research with her love of storytelling. Visit her website here: www.hbmoore.com
