This week's Wednesday Wonders features
WASP of the Ferry Command
by Sarah Byrn Rickman
About WASP of the Ferry Command:
WASP of the Ferry Command is the story of the women ferry pilots who flew more than nine million
miles in 72 different aircraft—115,000 pilot hours—for the Ferrying Division,
Air Transport Command, during World War II.
These 303 women came from the first squadron — formed in the fall 1942
by Nancy Love and known as the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron or “the
Originals” — and from the first six classes who trained at the Army flight
school for women conceived of by 1930s racing pilot Jacqueline Cochran.
In the beginning they flew 175-horsepower single-engine primary trainer
aircraft, then moved up to basic (450 hp) and advanced (600 hp) trainers. They went
on to master ever-larger twin-engine aircraft and 130 of them eventually flew
the single-engine, high-powered pursuit aircraft (fighters) — the dream of
every WWII pilot male or female. These aircraft had one seat. The first flight
was a solo.
By January 1944, WASP were delivering P-51s, P-47s, P-39s and P-63s to
destinations around the United States. Leading up to and after D-Day, P-51s became
crucial to the air war over Germany. They, alone, had the range to escort the
four-engine bombers from England to Berlin and back on bombing raids — and that is ultimately what brought down the
German Reich. Getting those pursuits from the factories to the docks in New
Jersey for shipment abroad became the primary job of the WASP of the Ferry
Command.
The women ferry pilots tell their stories
in their own words — thanks to letters and diaries left to the WASP Archive at Texas
Woman’s University and through oral histories done by TWU in more recent years.
Come fly with these women in the skies
above wartime America.
“I drew the
P-51, the love of my life,” Jean Landis, WASP Class 43-4, said of her first
flight — a solo — in Pursuit School. “How lucky can you get!
“In the
cockpit, waiting to take off, I applied and held the brakes, revved up RPMs,
watching the oil pressure and oil temperature gauges as I did. Then, I got the
word ‘ready for takeoff.’
“Full throttle,
off with the brakes. I never felt such pressure against my back. The power and
the noise were unbelievable. Thrilling! Exciting! I was off. I upped the flaps,
upped the gear, in seconds I was at 1000 feet, then 2000 feet, where I was told
to practice simulated landings. That’s where you get into a nice glide path,
let down the gear, lower the flaps, reduce your air speed to about a 110—like
you’re coming in over the fence, almost ready to touch down. Then give it the
gas, up the gear and the flaps, get proper altitude, and do it all over again,
and again, and again.
“All was well until the red warning light came on indicating my
landing gear was not down and locked. Immediately, I went through the emergency
procedures. I climbed then dived down, pulled back on the stick to pull quickly
out of the dive in hopes of locking the gear.
“Nothing worked. So I called in that I had a problem.
“‘Come on in,
let us see,’ they said.
“I was so timid
the first time, I didn’t go low enough. They couldn’t see if my gear was down
or not. So I dove on the tower a second time. This time, I came in so low I
could almost see the whites of their eyes. ‘Yes,’ they said, ‘the gear is down,
but we can’t tell if it’s locked.’
“I had to go
back up and fly around while they cleared the field for me to make an emergency
landing. My instructions were, ‘Come in softly,’—whatever that means—‘gently
touch the wheels to the runway. If they hold, taxi on in. If they don’t, give
her the gun, climb, get to altitude and circle until you get further
instructions.’
“As I headed for the runway, here came the hash wagon and the fire
trucks. Remember, this is my first landing in the P-51. I came in as gently and
softly as I could. Touched the wheels to the runway. They held. I taxied in.
“My instructor
started in on me. His first words were, ‘Well, what did you do wrong?’
“I think I did everything properly, Sir!
“I got out and he got in and took off.
The last thing I saw, he was all over the sky, diving and sharply
pulling up, trying to get the wheels down and locked and the light to go
off. I wanted to shout, ‘I told you
so.’”
About the Author:
Sarah Byrn Rickman is
the author of seven books about the WASP — the women who flew for the U.S. Army
in WWII. Two new nonfiction books are slated for publication this year (2016). WASP
of the Ferry Command was
released in March by the University
of North Texas Press. Finding Dorothy Scott — Sarah’s third WASP biography — will be released this summer by Texas
Tech University Press.
Finding Dorothy Scott won
the Vinnie Ream Award in Letters from the National League of American Pen
Women, of Washington DC — presented for the first time this year. In 2009, the
National Aviation Hall of Fame presented Sarah with the Combs Gates Award for her
outstanding volume of work on the women pilots of World War II and the promise
of what became WASP of the Ferry Command.
Her other nonfiction books
are: The
Originals (2001), the story of the first WASP squadron of 28 women; Nancy
Love and the WASP Ferry Pilots of WWII (2008), the biography of
the Originals’ founder and leader; and
Nancy
Batson Crews: Alabama’s First Lady of Flight (2009), Sarah’s personal
mentor who urged her to write The
Originals.
Both of her WASP novels are
double winners. Flight From Fear (published 2002) was named a
Women Writing the West WILLA Finalist in 2003 and Flight to Destiny (published
2014) won the Eudora Welty Memorial Award for 2016 from the National League of
American Pen Women. Those two manuscripts won back-to-back First Places in
Historical Fiction at the Pikes Peak Writers Conferences of 1999 and 2000,
respectively
Sarah
currently serves as the editor of the official WASP newsletter, published by
Texas Woman’s University and the WASP Archives. She is a former reporter/ columnist
for The Detroit News and editor of the twice-weekly Centerville-Bellbrook
Times in
Ohio. She has worked as an independent contractor doing writing and
editing for non-profits and she’s been writing books since 1986 and has two
unpublished novels in the drawer. She earned her B.A. in English from
Vanderbilt University and an M.A. in Creative Writing from Antioch University
McGregor (1996). She earned her Sport Pilot certificate in 2011 in order to
bring more first hand knowledge and credibility to her aviation writing.
Connect with Sarah Byrn
Rickman:
Purchase Links:
I have to add Sarah Byrn Rickman's books on the WASP to my list.
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