The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) predecessors: The Women's Flying Training Detachment (WFTD) and the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) organized separately in September 1942. And they were the pioneering organizations of the civilian female pilots, employed to fly military aircraft under the direction of the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. The WFTD and WAFS were merged on August 5, 1943, to create the paramilitary WASP organization. The female pilots of the WASP ended up numbering 1,074, each freeing a male pilot for combat service and duties. They flew over 60 million miles in every type of military aircraft. The WASP was granted veteran status in 1977, and given the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009.
Twenty-five thousand women applied to join the WASP, but only 1,830 were accepted and took the oath. Out of these, only 1,074 of them passed the training and joined.
Read more about Women Airforce Service Pilots: Creation of The WASP, Initial WASP Training, Duties of The WASP, Battle For Militarization, Legacy, WASP Aviators, Fictional Depiction
Famous quotes containing the words women, service and/or pilots:
“Until the sky is the limit [for women], as it is for men, men as well as women will suffer, because all society is affected when half of it is denied equal opportunity for full development.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“We too are ashes as we watch and hear
The psalm, the sorrow, and the simple praise
Of one whose promised thoughts of other days
Were such as ours, but now wholly destroyed,
The service record of his youth wiped out,
His dream dispersed by shot, must disappear.”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)
“You know what I’m talking about. This business has changed. Flyers aren’t pilots anymore, they’re engineers. This is a college man’s game. Our work is done. The pioneering is over.”
—Frank W. Wead (1895?–1947)