Women Airforce Service Pilots - Initial WASP Training

Initial WASP Training

The WASP training spanned 19 groups of women: The Originals, or WAFS led by Nancy Love, and The Guinea Pigs—Jacqueline Cochran's first of 18 classes of women pilots. They were required to complete the same primary, basic, and advanced training courses as male Army Air Corps pilots. And many of them went on to specialized flight training. There were two Chinese-American women in the WASP, Hazel Ying Lee and Maggie Gee. Hazel Ying Lee died following a runway collision, but Maggie Gee survived the war. Ola Mildred Rexroat, an Oglala Sioux woman from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota, was the only Native American woman in the WASP. She survived the war and later joined the Air Force. All the other members of the WASP were white; no African-Americans were allowed to join the WASP.

The WAFS each had an average of about 1,400 flying hours and a commercial pilot rating, They received 30 days of orientation to learn Army paperwork and to fly by military regulations. Afterward, they were assigned to various ferrying commands.

The Guinea Pigs started training at Houston Municipal (Texas) Airport on November 16, 1942, as part of the 319th Army Air Force Women's Flying Training Detachment (AAFWFTD). This was just after the WAFS had started their orientation in Wilmington, Delaware. Unlike the WAFS, the women that reported to Houston did not have uniforms and had to find their own lodging. The "Woofteddies" (WFTD) also had minimal medical care, no life insurance, crash truck, or fire truck, and the ambulance loaned from the Ellington Army Airfield. Along with insufficient administrative staff, and a hodgepodge of aircraft—23 types—for training. As late as January 1943, when the third class was about to start their training, the three classes were described by Byrd Granger in On Final Approach, as "a raggle-taggle crowd in a rainbow of rumpled clothing", while they gathered for morning and evening colors.

This lack of resources, combined with the foggy and wet Houston weather delayed the graduation of the first class from February to April 1943. Conditions included the wet, sticky, clay soil everywhere, and a scarcity of rest rooms, which made the potential for morale problems significant. To minimize this, the Fifinella Gazette was started. The first issue was published February 10, 1943. The female gremlin Fifinella was conceived by Roald Dahl and drawn by Walt Disney, and used as the official WASP mascot that appeared on their shoulder patches.

The first Houston class started with 38 women with a minimum of 200 hours. Twenty-three graduated on April 24, 1943, at the only Houston WASP graduation at Ellington Army Air Field. The second Houston class, started in December 1942 with a minimum of 100 hours, but finished their training just in time to move to Sweetwater and become the first graduating class from Avenger Field on May 28, 1943. The third class completed their advanced training at Avenger Field and graduated July 3, 1943. Half of the fourth class of 76 women started their primary training in Houston on February 15, 1943, and then transferred to Sweetwater.

On March 7, 1943, the Houston classes incurred their first fatality. Margaret Oldenburg of 43-W-4 and her instructor, Norris G. Morgan, crashed seven miles south of Houston and were killed on impact.

By the end of May 1943, the Houston 319th AAFWFTD was history. Later in the summer of 1943, both the WAFS and WFTD were combined into the WASP.