123STA T . 1 95 9 PUBLIC LA W 111 –40—J UL Y 1 , 2009 beganth e s a m em il ita ryf light training as the male A rmy Air Fo r c es ca d ets w ere ta k ing
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d u etoalackofade q uate facilities at the air p ort , 3 months later the training program was mo v ed to Avenger Field in S weetwater, T e x as; (1 4 ) W AS P were eventually stationed at 1 20 Army air bases all across America; (1 5 ) they flew more than 6 0,000,000 miles for their country in every type of aircraft and on every type of assignment flown by the male Army Air Forces pilots, except combat; (16) WASP assignments included test piloting, instructor piloting, towing targets for air - to-air gunnery practice, ground- to-air anti-aircraft practice, ferrying, transporting personnel and cargo (including parts for the atomic bomb), simulated strafing, smoke laying, night tracking, and flying drones; (1 7 )in O ctober 1 9 43, male pilots were refusing to fly the B– 26 M artin Marauder (known as the ‘ ‘Widowmaker ’ ’) because of its fatality records, and G eneral Arnold ordered WASP D irector, J acqueline C ochran, to select 25 WASP to be trained to fly the B–26 to prove to the male pilots that it was safe to fly; (1 8 ) during the existence of the WASP — (A) 38 women lost their lives while serving their country; (B) their bodies were sent home in poorly crafted pine boxes; (C) their burial was at the expense of their families or classmates; (D) there were no gold stars allowed in their parents’ windows; and ( E ) because they were not considered military, no American flags were allowed on their coffins; (19) in 1944, General Arnold made a personal request to Congress to militari z e the WASP, and it was denied; (20) on December 7, 1944, in a speech to the last graduating class of WASP, General Arnold said, ‘‘ Y ou and more than 900 of your sisters have shown you can fly wingtip to wingtip with your brothers .I saluteyou...WeoftheArmyAir Force are proud of you. We will never forget our debt to you.’’; (21) with victory in WWII almost certain, on December 20, 1944, the WASP were quietly and unceremoniously dis- banded; (22) there were no honors, no benefits, and very few ‘‘thank you’s’’; (23) j ust as they had paid their own way to enter training, they had to pay their own way back home after their honorable service to the military; (24) the WASP military records were immediately sealed, stamped ‘‘classified’’ or ‘‘secret’’, and filed away in Government archives, unavailable to the historians who wrote the history of WWII or the scholars who compiled the history text books used today, with many of the records not declassified until the 1980s; (25) consequently, the WASP story is a missing chapter in the history of the Air Force, the history of aviation, and the history of the U nited States of America;
