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‘You taught us to fly’

The House speaker credits World War II pilots with blazing trails for other women, especially those in the military.

By KIMBERLY HEFLING The Associated Press

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Marguerite McCreery of Portsmouth, Va., left, and Margaret Gilman of Garden City, N.Y., greet well-wishers after Wednesday’s ceremony on Capitol Hill.

The Associated Press

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Edith Beal, Phyllis Paradis and Betty Brown, who served with the Women Airforce Service Pilots during World War II, pose during a reunion at Beal’s home in Bridgton last year.

2009 Press Herald file

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WASHINGTON — They flew planes during World War II but weren’t considered real military pilots. No flags were draped over their coffins when they died on duty. And when their service ended, they had to pay their own bus fare home.

These aviators – all women – got long-overdue recognition Wednesday. They received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor given by Congress, in a ceremony on Capitol Hill.

About 200 women who served as Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs, were on hand to receive the award. Now mostly in their late 80s and early 90s, some came in wheelchairs, many sported dark-blue uniforms, and one, June Bent of Westboro, Mass., clutched a framed photograph of a comrade who had died.

Three surviving WASPs live in Maine: Edith Beal of Bridgton, Betty Brown of Skowhegan and Phyllis Paradis of Bass Harbor. Brown and Paradis attended the ceremony.

As a military band played “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Capitol Hill ceremony, one of the women in a wheelchair stood up and saluted through the entire song as a relative gently supported her back.

“Women Airforce Service Pilots, we are all your daughters; you taught us how to fly,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to serve as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. She said the pilots went unrecognized for too long, even though their service blazed a trail for other women in the U.S. military.

The WASP program, born out of necessity because all the male pilots were needed for combat and transport duty, was made possible by the nation’s love affair at the time with flying.

Young female aviators, with flying opportunities limited to barnstorming and noncommercial service, suddenly were flying every type of military aircraft even as they rolled off the assembly lines, including B-24 Liberator bombers, Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-29 Superfortresses. They flew all 78 types of Army Air Corps aircraft.

The WASPs delivered the planes to military bases in the U.S. and Canada. Although they were skilled fliers in many different aircraft, the women weren’t always appreciated, nor welcomed, for their efforts.

At some military bases, commanders resentful of the women – who were civilians – would give them poor accommodations and treat them as inferiors.

When the women were dismissed from service in 1944, their records were classified and sealed – denying them recognition for their accomplishments – in what many thought was an effort to obliterate them from history.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that their story re-emerged, when the Air Force announced in 1976 that the women who were graduating from the first co-ed class at the U.S. Air Force Academy would be the first American women to fly military aircraft.

Suddenly, the original “fly girls” came out of the woodwork, reminding a forgetful nation that they had been there first.

The women did more than deliver military aircraft to bases.

Paradis conducted test flights of repaired cargo planes to determine whether they were airworthy. Brown and Beal flew trainer planes hauling midair targets a mere 75 feet to the rear for gunnery practice.

At 20, Brown was actually too young to be accepted to the program, so she used a typewriter to alter the date on her birth certificate to make herself 21. Once assigned to duty, the women served for three or four months.

Paradis was stationed at Greenville, Miss. Her job called for testing every function of newly repaired cargo planes, including cutting one engine to see whether the other would operate in an emergency.

Beal was stationed at Eagle Pass, Texas, near the Rio Grande, and Brown was stationed at Aloe Army Air Field, near Houston.

In accepting the award at Wednesday’s ceremony, WASP pilot Deanie Parrish, 88, of Waco, Texas, said the women had volunteered without expectation of thanks.

“We did it because our country needed us,” Parrish said.

WASP Ty Hughes Killen, 85, of Lancaster, Calif., put it more simply in an interview: “We’re a bunch of tough old ladies.”

Thirty-eight WASPS were killed in service in World War II. But they were long considered civilians, and were not entitled to the pay and benefits given to men.

They were only afforded veteran status in 1977 after a long fight. It’s estimated that about 300 of the more than 1,000 WASPs are still alive.

A day earlier, the women participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at the U.S. Air Force Memorial.

Killen said she’s been thinking of the “gals who are watching from upstairs.”

“I really don’t care for publicity, but what I really do care about is the 900 or more that are already dead and gone and have not had the cognizance and recognition that I feel they should have for their families,” Killen said.

Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., along with Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., and Susan Davis, D-Calif., led the push in Congress.

The Congressional Gold Medal was awarded in 2000 to the Navajo Code Talkers and in 2006 to the Tuskegee Airmen.

Portland Press Herald staff and McClatchy-Tribune Information Services contributed to this report.