Aspen pioneer pilots finally honored for WWII service 60-plus years later, the U.S. thanks Ruth Brown, Betty Pfister

ASPEN — Creased faces, gnarled hands, unsteady legs. The frailties of age belie the accomplishments of youth, but their eyes, still sparkling, reflect the pride captured more than 60 years ago in the black-and-white photographs of two young women in uniform.

Two Aspen octogenarians, Ruth Brown and Betty Pfister, are among the corps of pioneering female pilots whose country has finally recognized their contribution to both military service and aviation history.

They are among the fewer than 300 surviving members of the WASP — the Women Airforce Service Pilots — a select group of female aviators who were the first women to fly military aircraft for the United States. In a March 10 ceremony at the U.S. Capitol, WASP members were presented with the Congressional Gold Medal, a belated honor that drew national attention to a long overlooked chapter of American history. 

‘Everybody wanted to do something'

Ruth Humphries Brown and Elizabeth Haas Pfister were among some 25,000 young women who, in the early 1940s, applied for inclusion in the WASP program. Pfister was already a pilot; Brown would quickly become one.

The short-lived program accepted 1,830 women, but only 1,074 graduated. Thirty-eight of them lost their lives in service as WASP, flying non-combat missions in the United States, ferrying planes and helping train men for battle during World War II.

Brown, now 89, was born in Denver. Her family owned a private plane — a rarity in those days, and her uncle founded the region's first commercial airport, near the future site of the city's former Stapleton International Airport.

“I used to dislike flying intensely,” recalled Brown, a reluctant passenger in the family plane.

But, like many Americans of her generation, Brown was swept up in the desire to serve her country when the opportunity arose.

“The war started and everybody wanted to do something,” she said.

“You had to have 35 hours or something [of flying],” to join the WASP, “so I quickly went and got my 35 hours so that I could join,” Brown said. “They accepted me right away.”

Pfister, now 88, was already a pilot when Jackie Cochran, the female aviator credited with helping launch the WASP, put out a call for applicants. Cochran had urged the use of woman pilots in stateside roles, freeing up men for combat duty, initially pitching the idea to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in 1939, two years before the attack at Pearl Harbor drew American forces into the war.

“Jackie Cochran sent out telegrams to all the women who had a pilot's license, asking if we'd be interested,” Pfister said. “There weren't that many of us in those times.” 

Aviation assignments

Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas quickly became the headquarters for WASP training. Trainees split their time between flight school, where they learned to pilot a range of aircraft, including bombers and fighters, and ground school, where they took such courses as physics, meteorology, navigation and math, and received instruction in aircraft engines and Morse code.

While Pfister would be assigned to ferry command, a job that took her to various military posts as she shuttled various types of aircraft from factory to base or between bases, Brown stayed put at Childress Army Air Base in Texas, training bombardiers and gun crews. While she piloted planes like the legendary B-17, nicknamed the Flying Fortress, bombardiers practiced dropping bombs on targets. At other times, she dragged a target behind the aircraft to give ground artillery crews shooting practice.

Pfister, a New York native, learned to fly while she was a student at Bennington College in Vermont. One plane ride and she was hooked, threatening to drop out of school if her family wouldn't agree to fund flying lessons, she said.

After graduation, Pfister headed for Texas to enter the Army Air Forces training program, but left when her brother, Navy pilot Bob Haas, was killed in training. After a month with her family, Pfister was back in the program. 

Close call

Though the WASP were limited to non-combat duty, service was not without its dangers. Women died in training accidents and crashes blamed on mechanical failures. Brown said she survived some close calls; Pfister remembers her one crash vividly. She was on her first twin-engine solo flight with the program, accompanied by a WASP co-pilot but no instructor, when one engine and then the other quit.

“It got very quiet,” she said. “Suddenly, we were a glider.”

Pfister crash-landed the plane on its belly in the dirt, and the two-person crew walked away unscathed — a day after two pilots and an instructor had both been killed in another accident.

“We totaled the airplane, but we didn't have a scratch,” she said. 

Disbanded and forgotten

The program was barely two years old when it ended abruptly in December 1944, leaving its pilots to find their own way home.

“We offered to fly for free and they still said they didn't need us,” said Pfister, who would pursue a lifelong love affair with aviation.

“I would have loved to stay in,” Brown said. “I enjoyed being in a thing like the WASP — we were doing stuff for the country.”

“And having a good time doing it,” Pfister added quickly.

The two Aspenites did not meet in the WASP program, but discovered their shared experience later in Aspen, in a conversation neither woman now recalls.

The records of WASP service, meanwhile, would be sealed and their contribution all but forgotten until 1976, when the U.S. Air Force Academy announced its co-ed class of graduates would include the first women to fly military aircraft.

The WASP had mothballed their uniforms, but not their memories. Some members spoke up about the apparent oversight.

“They spoke for all of us,” Pfister said with quiet defiance. 

Congressional Gold Medals

Another 30-plus years would pass before, last July, President Barack Obama signed into law a bill awarding a Congressional Gold Medal to the WASP for their unselfish, extraordinary service during World War II, an event that culminated with last month's emotional ceremony at the Capitol.

Some women wore their original uniforms. Some came in wheelchairs and others walked with canes. Family members of deceased pilots came to collect an honor that came too late for their mothers and grandmothers.

Pfister attended, meeting old chums and reuniting with women she hadn't seen since the WASP disbanded.

Brown was unable to make the trip, but daughters Darcey Brown of Moab, Utah and Lorni Cochran of Vermont attended in her stead.

“They were such inspiring women — they were just incredible,” Darcey Brown said. “It was so neat. The first woman Thunderbird pilot (Lt. Col. Nicole Malachowski) saying, ‘I stand on your shoulders.' ”

Later, the elder Brown, suddenly the center of attention, jokingly chided her family: “I hope you're going to treat me with more respect now.”

“That cracked us all up,” Darcey said. 

Post-war

After the war, Ruth met D.R.C. Brown in Denver; they married in 1947. He served as a PT boat captain with the U.S. Navy during the war, but was an experienced civilian pilot who handled the flying duties for the family. Ruth didn't fly again, according to Darcey.

The Browns were avid skiers and D.R.C.'s multi-faceted career would including ranching, a term as a state senator and a stint as CEO of the Aspen Ski Corp. Ruthie's Run on Aspen Mountain is named after Ruth. Her husband died in 2008.

Pfister also married a pilot; she met Art Pfister in the lift line at Aspen Mountain and they married in 1954. He attended flight school after World War II began, was a flight instructor and flew C-46 planes from India to China, delivering gasoline. Art's varied post-war career included time on the Aspen Skiing Co. board of directors and helping develop Buttermilk Ski Area. He died in 2007.

Betty's passion for flying would take her in many directions. She owned and flew a single-seat P-39 fighter plane after the war, before ultimately donating it to the Smithsonian. She was also a stewardess for Pan-Am for a time, because there was no place for women in the cockpit of a commercial airliner in those days.

Pfister learned to fly helicopters, competed as a helicopter pilot and was instrumental in developing a heliport at Aspen Valley Hospital. She also pushed the Federal Aviation Administration to provide a control tower at the Aspen airport and founded the Pitkin County Air Rescue Group, an organization of local pilots who would search for downed planes and lost skiers in the surrounding mountains.

Pfister was also the founder and first member of the Aspen chapter of The Ninety-Nines, the International Organization of Women Pilots, and was inducted into the Colorado Aviation Hall of Fame in 1984.

She helped blaze a trail of opportunity for generations of women who followed, but had Pfister's career begun after those doors were opened, she knows exactly what path she'd have chosen: “I'd be in the space program, for sure,” she declared.

janet@aspentimes.com 

WASP Frances Johannessen awarded Congressional Gold Medal

Novato woman a pioneering pilot

By Mary Southall
Marinscope Newspapers

Published: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 1:48 PM PDT

Today’s woman has little difficulty in obtaining pilot’s training, but things were not so easy in the 1930s and ’40s. Women were expected to tend to hearth and home. On the rare occasions that an opportunity to do something different presented itself, women often jumped at the chance.

So it was with Frances Gilbert, later Frances Johannessen. A coed at Texas State University in Austin, she was on her way to music class when she realized that flight training was offered right next door. “I just wanted to fly,” she remembers thinking, “and my music teacher got me to go there.”

Piloting ran in Johannessen’s family; her uncle had been a pilot in World War I.

“He inspired me,” Johannessen says. Her mother also encouraged her, which was not a usual situation. She applied for the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) and trained at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas, receiving her wings in March of 1944. She couldn’t fly for long; the group disbanded in December of that year.

Training could be nerve-wracking. At one point her instructor told her to land on a runway that was known to be much shorter than required for the type of plane she was flying. She landed the plane anyway, effectively silencing her instructor — then took off to return the plane to its home airfield.

If she hadn’t been a WASP, she might never have met her husband, John “Norman” Johannessen, who in WWII flew 50 missions over Italy and North Africa in a B-17 bomber. She still has the newspaper clipping of their marriage announcement that was headlined, “Aviatrix marries pilot.” The couple had three children: Jerry Johannessen, a Novato resident for the past 24 years; Bob Johannessen of El Sobrante and Jean Skerlong of Washington state. There are also five grandchildren and a great-grandchild due in mid-summer.

Now 89, Frances resides at Atria Tamalpais Creek in Novato, where she has lived for a year. She learned there would be a Congressional Gold Medal ceremony in Washington, D.C., on March 10, but she didn’t feel up to making the trip. Her son Jerry went instead, and his pride in his mother’s accomplishments is evident. The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest and most distinguished award Congress can award to a civilian.

Two ceremonies took place, one at the U.S. Air Force Memorial in Arlington and one at Emancipation Hall. Dignitaries such as U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz; Brigadier Gen. Wilma Vaught, USAF; aviator and astronaut Col. Eileen Collins, Vice Admiral Vivien Crea, USCG; and Brigadier Gen. Linda McTague, USAF, were among those present. Many of the WASPs now need canes, walkers and oxygen, but each was assigned a female soldier as an escort — a far cry from the nonrecognition given them during the actual war years.

Jerry Johannessen was especially moved by the Air Force flyover during the outdoor ceremony, explaining, “They flew the ‘missing man’ formation.”

Atria Tamalpais Creek hosted a reception on March 13, when a bronze duplicate of Frances Johannessen’s WASP Congressional Gold Medal was presented by Col. James Vechery, 60th Air Mobility wing commander. On hand were California state Assembly member Jared Huffman and representatives of state Sen. Mark Leno and Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey. Giving the invocation was American Legion State Chaplain Thomas Sarchiapone. His wife, Jenny, a past state chaplain for the American Legion Auxiliary, sang the national anthem.

While she thinks the recognition ceremonies given for WASPs are lovely, Frances Johannessen said, “I wish you wouldn’t say anything about me in the paper. I didn’t do anything special.”

History of the WASP

In September 1939, England and Germany were already at war, and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt already was ramping up U.S. forces. Jacqueline Cochran, famous for setting speed records aloft, contacted then-first lady Eleanor Roosevelt to suggest that women could fly noncombat stateside military missions, releasing male pilots for combat, should the need arise. The idea had already been discussed in Great Britain, which was suffering heavy losses of planes and pilots. American military leaders weren’t impressed with Cochran’s idea, saying there were too few women available who were already trained as pilots, and there were no facilities for housing and training them.

Cochran’s idea got a hefty boost when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. By May of the following year, her idea was under serious consideration through channels that led to Gen. Harold “Hap” Arnold.

Unknown to Cochran and her contacts, a similar effort to recruit women pilots was getting under way. Commercial pilot Nancy Love was also proposing a corps of women pilots. Her proposal went up different channels than Cochran’s, and was approved before Cochran’s plan became public. In July 1943, the two separate organizations merged to become the WASP.

WASPs flew more than 60 million air miles. Early in the war they mainly delivered planes between factories and military bases. Their duties also included towing targets for live-ammunition target practice. As more and more male pilots were lost in combat, the women’s duties expanded until they were flying radar calibration flights, co-piloting bombers and flying bombardier training missions.

By September of 1943, enemy radar increased the loss of planes and men to an alarming level. Cochran made history again when she arranged for WASP pilots to test the top-secret project developed to confuse enemy radar. Only four people in America knew about this project — two of them the WASP test pilots.

Despite this critical contribution to the war effort, women pilots were not considered part of the military. They received less pay than male pilots. They received no funds to defray expenses, and no benefits for their families. Although 38 WASPs were killed on active duty, they received no honors, not even the honor of having the American flag drape their coffins. Their families paid to have the bodies returned home for burial, and other WASPs often contributed their own funds to make said shipment possible.

Frances Johannessen remembers each WASP was issued a parachute, “but we weren’t instructed how to use them.”

All records of the WASPs were classified and sealed for 35 years, so their contributions to the war effort were little known until the United States Air Force Academy announced in 1977 that it was graduating 10 women pilots from flight training who “would be the first women in history to fly American military aircraft.” WASPs then began a campaign for recognition and setting the record straight. Then-President Jimmy Carter signed a bill granting the WASP corps full military status for its service. In 1984 each WASP was awarded the World War II Victory Medal. The National WASP WWII Museum was founded at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas, where most of the women trained. President Barack Obama signed the order for the Congressional Gold Medal.

• For more information, consult the WASP Web site, wingsacrossamerica.us.

Congressional Gold -- Sen. Hutchison's Speech

Women Service Pilots of World War II Finally Get Their Gold
By Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
March 12, 2010

This March, as our nation celebrates Women’s History Month, a special group of women gathered in Washington, filling the massive Emancipation Hall of the new Capitol Visitors Center to receive long overdue recognition for their pioneering service to our nation during World War II. These inspiring heroines were the first women to fly military aircraft and blazed a trail in the sky that opened the door for today’s women military pilots. In a moving ceremony, the 300 surviving members of the WASP received the highest civilian honor Congress can give – the Congressional Gold Medal – in front of the largest crowd to ever attend an event inside the Capitol.

These exceptional women did not receive the recognition they deserved during World War II and not even for decades later. But on this beautiful day in our nation’s capital, in front of their families, members of Congress and the servicemen and women who have followed in their patriotic footsteps, they finally heard the words they have waited so long to hear: “On behalf of a grateful nation, thank you for your service.”

All these women volunteered to serve their country in wartime. They paid their own way to Texas, where they trained at Avenger Field in Sweetwater. When the war ended and the WASP program was unceremoniously ended, they had to pay their own way back home. Of the more than 1000 WASP, 38 were killed in the line of duty. They were not allowed to have the American flag draped on their coffins. Their families had to pay for all their burial expenses and the WASP would often have to take up collections from among their own ranks to help the families of their fallen comrades pay for transporting them home.

The women were recruited to fly non-combat missions to free male pilots for combat. Throughout World War II, these courageous women flew more than 60 million miles, in every type of aircraft and on every type of mission flown by male pilots, except direct combat missions. The WASP flight-tested bombers and fighters; ferried equipment and personnel; flew radar tracking missions; trained male cadets; and towed targets - freeing male pilots for combat deployment overseas.

The WASP pilots were never commissioned; they were never afforded active duty status; and they were not granted veteran status until 1977—more than 30 years after they had served this nation. Despite their patriotic impact, the WASP were never formally recognized by Congress for their wartime military service—until now.

To right this wrong and to acknowledge our nation’s debt to these great women patriots, I introduced legislation to honor the WASP with the Congressional Gold Medal and the bill passed Congress in record time.

I wrote about the WASP in my book, American Heroines: The Spirited Women Who Shaped Our Country. Thanks to the fearlessness of the WASP, women today serve as pilots in every branch of the military and fly every type of aircraft, from combat fighter aircraft to the space shuttle.

The Congressional Gold Medal was our nation’s ‘Thank You’ to these members of the “Greatest Generation” who answered the call of duty when their country needed them. Just as the Tuskegee Airmen and the Navajo Code Talkers had to wait years to receive the recognition of their service to our nation, the WASP will now be remembered by generations to come for the tremendous contribution they made to America’s victory in World War II.

Congressional Gold-- Sen. Mikulski's speech

Mikulski Joins Women Airforce Service Pilots for Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony

Mikulski was the only Democratic original cosponsor of the Senate bill to fully recognize the service of the WASP

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) today spoke at Congressional Gold Medal ceremony for the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) of World War II. Senator Mikulski was the only Democratic original cosponsor of legislation, introduced by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), to honor the WASP with this long deserved award.

“The greatest generation that saved democracy and Western civilization was not limited to one gender,” Senator Mikulski said. “The WASP gave all that you could to save the United States of America and the world that was at war. You gave America your lives, your love and your devotion. Today, Congress gives you the Gold.”

The WASP was a pioneering organization of civilian female pilots employed to fly military aircraft under the direction of the United States Army Air Forces during WWII. The Women Airforce Service Pilots paved the way for the armed forces to lift the ban on women attending military flight training in the 1970s, and eventually led to women being fully integrated as pilots in the U.S. military.

WASP women piloted every kind of military aircraft, logging 60 million flight miles in missions across the United States. They were never awarded full military status and were ineligible for officer status. WASP were finally granted veterans’ status in 1977.

Two living Maryland WASP, Virginia Scotty Gough and Elaine Harmon, attended the ceremony.

Senator Mikulski’s prepared remarks follow:

“Today, all of America stands in salute to the 1,074 Women Airforce Service Pilots known and lovingly treasured across this country as the WASP. As we gather today, we know your contributions were often unrecognized, your personal service and self sacrifice was unrewarded, and your love of the Airforce and military service was often unrequited and unreturned. We are here today to undo those wrongs - an act that is long overdue.

“The greatest generation that saved democracy and Western civilization was not limited to one gender. You gave all that you could to save the United States of America and the world that was at war. You gave America your lives, your love and your devotion. Today, Congress gives you the Gold.

“The Congressional Gold Medal for the Women Airforce Service Pilots is the highest expression that we can bestow for courage, service, and dedication to our country. You and those WASP who are not here today, those absent friends, deserve this recognition. You served our country during World War II in our country’s time of need. You answered the call of duty and you did it on your own dime.

“I am so very proud to have co sponsored this bill with my dear friend, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. This bill is not about partisanship, it is about citizenship. It is not about whether you are from a red state or a blue state. We need to start being the red, white, and blue United States of America.

“WASP were the first women to fly military aircraft. You flew fighters, bombers, cargo and training aircraft. You flew in every type of assignment flown by men except in combat. You also flew in the face of gender bigotry and even gender hostility. Yet true to your calling, you defended America and you became trailblazers and true patriots.

“You flew over 60 million miles, in 12,000 planes, at 120 American bases, and 14 WASP hailed from Maryland. During those times you, like your male counterparts, came in on a wing and a prayer.

“When the war was over you came home. Thirty-eight of you came home in a pine box that your family had to pay for. Many of you had to scrape to pay your own bus fare home. Despite all this, you held your head high because you knew you had flown in the wild blue yonder. Today, because of your valor and trailblazing, women are serving in the United States Airforce and military. Women now serve as fighter pilots, astronauts, helicopter pilots and search and rescue. You created this opportunity.

“So as the Airforce song goes, “off we go into the wild blue yonder and fly high and to the sky,” but instead of giving you the gun, today, we give you the gold!”

# # #

Groups come to female pilots' aid

Waco Tribune Herald Article, published Feb. 28, 2010. Also online: http://www.wacotrib.com

By Cindy V. Culp Tribune-Herald staff writer

FEBRUARY 28, 2010

_____

Waco-based groups seek funds to pay for medals for WWII flyers

The female pilots who served during World War II had to pay their own way to enter training. When a fellow “fly girl” died, their only option was to take up a collection to cover burial expenses. And when the group was disbanded, they didn’t get any military benefits and even had to pay for their own travel home.

Now, unless people donate money, some of the Women Airforce Service Pilots may also have to pay to get replicas of the Congressional Gold Medal that is being awarded to them.

A Waco-based organization dedicated to preserving the group’s history and telling its story doesn’t want to see that happen. So it is assisting with a fundraising campaign that organizers hope will secure enough money to cover the nearly $56,000 needed to buy a medal for all 1,114 WASPs, as well as celebratory activities planned before and after the award ceremony.

“It’s an opportunity to step up and help,” Nancy Parrish, executive director of the organization, called Wings Across America, said of the campaign. “What we’re trying to do is say thank you to the WASPs.”

The hope is that a replica medal can be purchased for each WASP. It will either go to the women themselves or their family members, if the pilot has already died, Parrish said.Congress passed legislation awarding the medals to the female pilots this summer. As is typical, the government is covering the cost of creating the gold medal, which will go to the Smithsonian Institution for display. But no money is allocated to cover the cost of replica medals, which are made of bronze.

Ceremony

At least 125 of the approximately 300 surviving WASPs plan to attend the ceremony, Parrish said.

Scheduled for March 10 in Washington, D.C., it will be hosted by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and attended by numerous other Congressional leaders. President Barack Obama is expected to be there as well.

The groups raising money for the celebration are putting the first dollars donated toward buying medals for WASPs who attend the ceremony or are represented there by family members.

But they still need funds to pay for events being held in conjunction with the ceremony, as well as medals for WASPs who won’t be represented at the ceremony.

Retired Brig. Gen. Wilma L. Vaught, president of the Women In Military Service for America Memorial Foundation, which is heading up the celebration, said fundraising has been difficult.

Not only is the economy suffering, but organizers had relatively little lead time. The date of the ceremony was announced in late January, she said.

The events planned in conjunction with the ceremony include a reception afterward; a gathering at the women’s memorial, which is at the gateway to Arlington National Cemetery; and a wreath-laying ceremony at the National World War II Memorial, she said.Vaught said the foundation has approached all of its usual contributors. But donations have been slow to come in, she said.

“We can be very proud of these women,” Vaught said. “They were doing something for their country. It’s a great story about what women are willing to do and that they can do things that people haven’t thought they could do.”

WASPs history

The WASP was organized in 1942 as an experimental training program after a group of female pilots led by Jacqueline Cochran appealed to U.S. Army officials.

Although they were not allowed in combat, the female pilots flew every kind of stateside mission that male pilots did, freeing them for the war effort. Among other things, they tested planes after repairs and helped train gunners for combat.

Thirty-eight WASPs died in the line of duty.

The group was disbanded in December 1944. They received no service-related honors or benefits.

In fact, the women’s records were sealed for more than three decades, until the Air Force started touting newly trained female pilots as the first women to fly American military aircraft. That caused WASPs to speak out about their service, and in 1977, they were finally awarded veteran status.

U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, said the group’s valuable contributions have been neglected for too long.

“The Women Airforce Service Pilots are aviation pioneers as the first women in history to fly American military aircraft,” Edwards said in a statement. “Their efforts during World War II, and the work of Waco’s Wings Across America to support them and chronicle their story, are important to the history of America and the history of women in our military. They deserve our nation’s respect and full support.”

Waco connection

The group has always had a Waco connection, since some WASPs were stationed at Waco’s Army airfield. One even died there during a test flight.

That connection got a lot stronger in 1998, though, when Parrish started Wings Across America. Her mother, Deanie Parrish, also of Waco, was a WASP. The two women plan to attend next month’s ceremony together.

Obviously, getting the medals will be thrilling for the WASPs, Parrish said. But for pilots like her mother, the medal itself is not the best part. It’s the fact that the WASPs are finally getting more of the recognition they deserve, she said.

“It puts the WASPs on the national stage,” Parrish said. “It lets their stories be told.”

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, who co-sponsored the medal legislation, said the medal “will serve as a small token of our nation’s gratitude.”

The Heart of Texas chapter of the Military Officers Association of America is facilitating the donations. Contributions can be made online at www.flygirls.org or by mail.

Mailed contributions can be sent to HOT Chapter, MOAA-WASP, c/o Harold Rafuse, 111 Laurel Oaks Lane, Crawford 76638.

cculp@wacotrib.com

254-757-5744

_________________

What is the Congressional Gold Medal?

A Congressional Gold Medal is awarded by Congress. It is the nation’s highest civilian award, along with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The medal is awarded for “distinguished achievements and contributions.” Each medal honors a particular person, institution or event.

The first recipients included participants in the American Revolution, the War of 1812 and the Mexican War.

But Congress has broadened it to include authors, athletes, entertainers, scientists, humanitarians and public servants, among others.

Source: Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives

WASP GOLD MEDAL CEREMONY DATE SET

Pelosi, Reid, Boehner, McConnell to Hold Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony to Honor the Women Airforce Service Pilots of WWII

Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Republican Leader John Boehner, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, and Members of Congress will hold a Congressional Gold Medal ceremony on March 10, 2010 in the Capitol to honor the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) of World War II.

The WASP was a pioneering organization of civilian female pilots employed to fly military aircrafts under the direction of the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. More than 60 years ago, they flew fighter, bomber, transport, and training aircraft in defense of America’s freedom. Through their actions, the WASP eventually were the catalyst for revolutionary reform in the integration of women pilots into the Armed Services.

Legislation to support the WASP Congressional Gold Medal was co-sponsored by: Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), and Representative Susan Davis (D-CA). On July 1, 2009, President Obama signed this legislation.

“This Congressional Gold Medal honors the remarkable accomplishments, courage, and sacrifice of a distinct group of women in the United States military,” said Congresswomen Ros-Lehtinen and Davis, and Senators Hutchison and Mikulski. “The Women Airforce Service Pilots of WWII will be remembered for their dedicated efforts and unwavering service to our country in the fight for freedom.”

NOTE: For additional information on the events surrounding the ceremony, please click here.

For invitation information for all WASP and family members of deceased WASP, please contact Women in Military Service for America Memorial, Inc.:wasp@womensmemorial.org or (703) 533-1155.

###

Date: Friday, January 29, 2010

CONTACT: Brendan Daly, Pelosi, (202) 226-7616

Jim Manley, Reid, (202) 224-2939

Jennifer Morris, McConnell, (202) 224-2979

Kevin Smith, Boehner, (202) 225-4000

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Oregon WASP Honored

Wyden honors WWII women fliers

By Special to The Oregonian

January 08, 2010, 9:32AM

View full sizeJanet GoetzeJeannette Goodrum of Lake Oswego thanks Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and people at the King City Town Hall for honoring her World War II achievements as a member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, called WASP. She plans to join other WASP to receive a Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor, in a Washington, D.C., ceremony tentatively set for March.Jeannette Gagnon Goodrum of Lake Oswego learned during World War II to land planes on skis in the New Hampshire snow as a member of the pioneering Women Airforce Service Pilots.

The 89-year-old Massachusetts native was among the 1,074 women who became the first to fly U.S. military planes. At the time, some questioned whether women were capable of doing the job. They received no military benefits nor honors until 1977, when their records of service were unsealed and they gained full military status.

They have gained additional recognition since then, including the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation's highest civilian award, bestowed in early 2009. However, the medals of the approximately 300 surviving pilots each will receive are still at the United States Mint, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Or., said earlier this week.

For that reason, he has been honoring each of the seven surviving WASP known in Oregon as he attends meetings near their homes. Goodrum's turn came this week at a Town Hall meeting in King City, where Wyden presented her with a framed copy of the bill authorizing the Gold Medal and a flag that has flown over the Capitol.

"We know you flew many of the same missions as the men, but you didn't get the recognition at the time," Wyden said to Goodrum. Now, the trailblazing WASP accomplishments can inspire young women, including his 2-year-old daughter, to great achievements, he said.

Goodrum thanked Wyden and the people filling the King City Club House meeting room, who loudly applauded the former teacher and school administrator, who raised four children after her days in the cockpit.

"I'm overwhelmed," she said later.

Another WASP, Anna Flynn Monkiewicz, 90, of The Dalles, said renewed interest in the pilots has surprised her. However, she noted, the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African American military airmen, and the Navajo code talkers, whose wartime communication was based on their ancient language, also have been recognized in recent years.

"I guess it's our turn," said Monkiewicz, who flew small fighter planes. Goodrum flew a lot of twin-engine aircraft.

The WASP duties included ferrying planes between air bases, transporting cargo, towing targets for live anti-aircraft artillery practice and simulated strafing missions.

In addition to Goodrum and Monkiewicz, according to Wyden's office, Oregon's surviving WASP include Madelon Burcham Hill of Bend; Catherine Murphy of Jacksonville; Elinor Fairchild Stebbins of Portland; Shirley Haugan Wunsch of Manzanita and Kay Chaffey of Medford.

Both Goodrum and Monkiewicz said they plan to attend a Washington, D.C., ceremony to receive their Congressional Gold Medals, tentatively set for March.

-- Janet Goetze

Carmel Pilot flew for fun, flag

by Dennis Taylor

Herald Staff Writer

The first ride Babette DeMoe Edinger ever took in an airplane was alongside her father, Earl, who was a Chicago businessman and a recreational flier. They were a few thousand feet in the sky that day when the single-prop engine died. Earl DeMoe literally sailed the plane back to the airport and put it down "Her father took her back the next day, wondering if he'd every get onto another plane," recounts Jim Edinger, Babette's husband of almost 60 years. "You'd think the experience of losing the engine, gliding down, and making a dead-stick landing on her very first flight would have scared the heck out of her. But he couldn't keep her out of his plane. She wanted to fly."
In fact, when 15-year-old Babette returned to Carmel, where she lived with her mother, she immediately signed up for flying lessons with Fred Kane at the Monterey Peninsula Airport. A year later, she was among the youngest licensed female pilots in America. Four years after that, she was one of 1,078 (1,074) aviators in a U.S. paramilitary group known as the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs), flying stateside missions during World War II, freeing up male pilots for overseas combat duty. They were the first women ever to fly American military aircraft, and they flew almost every type of aircraft operated by the Army Air Forces during the war, logging more than 60 million miles. Thirty-eight pilots were killed while on duty.

In July, Babette DeMoe Edinger — now 87 and living at Carmel Hills Care Center — was honored with her former colleagues for her service to country with the Congressional Gold Medal. Dementia has taken most of her memories, and it is unclear whether she recalls anything about her days as a WASP, or whether she understands that she has finally been acknowledged by the U.S. government for her service. But friends and relatives say Babette's natural humility usually prevented her from discussing< those days, anyway.

"I got a school assignment once to write about somebody who was famous, or accomplished in some way, and my mom mentioned that Babette had been flying planes when she was amazingly young," says Roslyn Riddell, a neighbor of the Edingers in Big Sur. "I was probably in middle school at the time, and that's how I learned her story. It was very inspiring to see all of the photos of her from those days, and I learned a lot about history that I probably never would have known otherwise."

Good listener
Friends say Babette always was more fascinated by the other person in the conversation than she was with talking about her own life. "I knew her for years before I ever heard a word about her flying. She was so modest about it," says Cara Weston, another Big Sur neighbor. "I can remember the first time I saw one of her photos, saying, 'She did that?' She never talked about it." Jim Edinger found his future wife sitting at a table at an air base in Santa Monica in 1942, filling out a flight form, and was immediately smitten. Their romance deepened when they were assigned to fly together to Air Force weather stations all over the Western U.S. (Jim was a meteorologist.)

She turned a lot of other heads, too. When she landed at an air base in Marysville, the runway was lined with pilots who had just finished flight training and were headed overseas. "They heard that female voice when she radioed for landing instructions and came pouring out of the barracks to greet her," Jim remembers with a laugh. "There was a whole lot of hoopla when this pretty blond pilot stepped off that plane."

Unlike their male counterparts, WASP pilots rarely knew what kind of plane they'd be flying on any given day. Babette flew everything from the Lockheed Electra — Amelia Earhart's plane — to the Grumman TBF Avenger dive bomber, the heaviest single-engine aircraft of WWII.

"She was a terrific pilot. Nothing scared her," says Jim, who, at age 91, drives every day from their home in Big Sur to spend time with her at the Carmel Hills Care Center, where she's lived for about a year. "She was always very calm. She knew how to take care of any problems that arose."

Active child
Babette was athletic and hearty from an early age. Carmel residents regularly alerted her mother thatthey'd seen her walking through town with a blue hue to her skin after an early morning swim in the frigid waters at Carmel Beach. She swam and played tennis at Monterey High, then became enamored with aviation, an obsession.

She married Jim in 1950, and gave up flying to focus on motherhood after having two sons, Jimmy and Johnny (both of whom died as adults). Jim became a professor at University of California- Los Angeles, where he taught meteorology for 15 years. Babette enrolled as a student, obtaining a liberal arts degree. They lived in the Santa Monica Hills, overlooking the ocean, in those days, and drove five miles to the beach every morning for a pre-sunrise swim.

They relocated to Big Sur in 1983, buying a one room cabin, then adding bedrooms, bathrooms and dining rooms. On a clear day, they could see Santa Cruz to the north and the Big Sur Lighthouse to the south. "What we love about Big Sur is that it's very nonurban," Jim says. "We love the mountains, the ocean, the people."

Neighbor Carol Surman says locals marveled at the Edinger's daily ritual. "They were both very athletic. They live about 800 feet above the ocean, and the road to the bottom is about a mile long," Surman says. "Every day, we'd be driving up or down that road, and we'd see the two of them walking it. That was their ritual."

Family friend Jonathan Hooper says Babette was equally famous for making homemade birthday cards, overcooking everybody's steak, collecting American Indian trinkets, and taking beautiful nature photos. "She could be an odd duck at times, too," he says with a laugh. "I remember being at their house, hearing all kinds of banging and clanging going on in the kitchen, and asking what was going on. And Jimmy, her son, would say, 'Oh, Ma just read another article about mercury in tuna, so she's going through the cupboards, throwing it all out.'"

"She's always had an intelligence, a spunk, a joy about living," says Stephanie DeMoe, Babette's great niece. "She'd get so excited just tasting a peach that she'd start making these cute little noises — 'oooooo! mmmm!' — without even realizing she was making them."

Her life at Carmel Hills Care Center remains a happy one, despite her memory loss. Babette's smile is constant, her eyes sparkle, and her conversations — though mostly nonsensical — gush with enthusiasm.

"She's the most positive person I've ever met — always smiling, always happy, always saying positive things," Weston says. "What we're seeing now ... that's how she's always been."

Dennis Taylor can be reached at dtaylor@montereyherald.com

MONTEREY COUNTY: THE HERALD

Pioneer pilot, 99, flies again - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

Pioneer pilot, 99, flies again - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

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Famous pilot tells JU aviation students about her live in the clouds.

Her classroom was a cockpit.

And her co-pilot was a lion.

Much of Janet Lee Simpson's life story sounds like the premise of a dime-store novel.

She became a media darling in the early 1930s when she and her sister, Kathryn, flew with her parents, Lt. Col. George R. Hutchinson and his wife, Blanche, to every state on the continent. Their travels and travails were plastered across newspapers nationwide, and she parlayed that fame into multiple radio and Broadway appearances.

She also had an insatiable taste for danger.

Her best childhood pal was a pet lion cub named Governor who never left her side. And she served as a civilian aviator during World War II, delivering much-needed supplies to Allied troops and ferrying aircrafts to combat-tested pilots. (all within the United States)

"Things have slowed down a bit lately," the 84-year-old Ponte Vedra Beach resident said Thursday during a lecture to aviation students at Jacksonville University. "You probably wouldn't want me flying around anymore."

Jill Wagner-Darkatsh, associate director of aeronautics at JU, said aviation is a field grounded in practical experience. And having students hear firsthand from seasoned veterans is invaluable, she said.

"Janet's story is so inspiring for these students," she said. "She overcame so many odds to do what she did."

Most of the snippets Simpson shared about her life focused on her experience as a member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots. The WASPs aided Army pilots on non-combat missions, but she said gaining the approval of their male counterparts was a constant uphill battle.

"They were wary of us at first," she said. "They thought we'd be a liability, but they came around when they saw we could help."

Simpson spent most of her formative years in the sky, but she said she eschewed her father's help and signed up independently for flight lessons when World War II began raging.

"It was my way of helping out," she said. "I wanted to do it on my own, and I didn't want him to teach me."

She spent a year in service of her country and a couple of years after as a flight instructor. But after decades on the ground, Simpson said she still wishes she was airborne.

Connie Donaldson, an author who wrote a biography called "A Heart of a Lion: The Courageous Journey of Janet Lee Simpson," introduced her subject to the students. She called her one of the most fascinating people she's ever met.

"Janet has enough stories to fill 10 more books," she said.

Simpson said she was glad to impart some of the knowledge she accrued from her years in the sky.

"It's important for them to know where they come from," she said. "It was a lot different when I was flying. We didn't have all these wonderful instruments to help us."

matt.coleman@jacksonville.com

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