Women with Wings

If you are a person who denies evidence of gender discrimination and dismisses accounts of sexual bias with a tut-tut…DO NOT READ Landdeck’s detailed account of competent WASPs who served America with distinction in wartime only to be shabbily treated by their own military brass. The plot reads like the sequel to Code-Breaking Girls. These high—flying women, with brains & bravery, simply refused bad treatment. The author’s witness both stuns w/ charm and infuriates. She portrays wives, daughters, sisters, aunts, girlfriends and mothers—serving w/ valor— only to be rudely disregarded, disrespected and THEN disdainfully dismissed when they sought full, rightful military recognition & compensation. She documents early days of female pilot discrimination, which took Congress till Obama’s presidency to address. Shall we barnstorm through the past 100 years?

December 7, 1941 a former Nashville debutante was teaching flying in a yellow Cub at Rodgers Field near Pearl Harbor. Her plane got strafed, and upon safely landing, she witnessed infamy as hordes of Japanese Zeros darkened the sky. Cornelia Fort and her elite female flying buddies volunteered to serve as WASPs—Women’s Airforce Service Pilots. America was caught napping and played frantic catch up on plane-building while furiously armoring up. To release male pilots for combat, female squads shuttled new planes from factory to the war front. These recruits were Amelia Earhart types—a wild slice of Americana. From all walks of life educationally and economically —yet knit into effective units, they flew w/ feistiness, courage, excellence and a saucy esprit de corps.

Much like America’s 4.5 million Rosie the Riveters, these pilots suffered scorn, danger, bureaucratic bull and 3rd class treatment —yet like the Code Breakers— rose to triumph! Before we offer ovation, let’s review. I found eight alligators WASPS wrestled. 1) disgracefully labelled/treated as prostitutes. 2) grounded when menstruating! 3) female Tuskegee pilots got zero accommodations. 4) Female quarters were nonexistent or shabby; while ‘nothing but the best’ for guys. 5) forbidden to fly while pregnant. 6) never acted like “libbers” yet got regularly rabbit-punched by sexual prejudice. 7) battled intense female leadership politics. 8) navigating planes while navigating the never-ending sexual innuendos.

Congressional shenanigans also deserve mention. Wendy Barkley, the famed KY Senator’s niece was drummed out of the WASPS for excessive drinking. The good Senator prevailed and won her re-instatement with her record fully expunged! In retaliation, when Women’s Air Corps applied for full membership in the US Air Force, asking VA privileges and pay. That legislation mysteriously never made it out of Senator Barkley’s Senate sub-committee. WASP benefits died aborning until an out of character effort by Barry Goldwater prevailed. Even so, full benefits remained fubar till the Obama era. While ‘all politics are local’…they are intensely painful and personal.