After all they’d put up with and all their expectations of being militarized, the Wasps were being disbanded. Thrown out. Sent home. As if they’d done something wrong. “We were all done in to have it end so abruptly,” one Wasp said. “We thought it would go until the end of the war.”139 The women were shocked. Most had had no idea their work was in jeopardy. So what had happened?
The simple answer is that the Wasps lost the battle for militarization. When Nancy Love and Jackie Cochran agreed to keep their programs civilian in 1942, they had expected militarization from Congress before too long. But a bill to militarize the women wasn’t introduced in Congress until June 1944. It was defeated 188 to 169, and in August plans were made to end the program.
Simple answers, however, are not often complete. Congress had militarized all the other women’s programs during the war. By 1944 there were nearly three hundred thousand women in the WAC, WAVES, and other groups with military status. They served in separate units from men, but they were military. And the bill to militarize the WASP had support from the Army Air Forces and the Department of War (today’s Department of Defense). Congress had voted in favor of every single bill the AAF had asked for between 1941 and the WASP bill in 1944.140 Why say no to the bill militarizing the Wasps? That answer is complicated.
For one thing, the Wasps’ jobs were different from the jobs the other women’s auxiliaries did. Most female members of the army, navy, coast guard, and marine auxiliaries did what was classified as “women’s work.” The work might be hard, even dangerous sometimes, and military men might have had those jobs before the war. But they were the kinds of jobs members of Congress and the public could imagine a woman doing: typists, bakers, secretaries, switchboard operators, nurses, and the like. All of those sounded like “women’s work” even if they meant going into combat zones. Women in traditionally male jobs (doctors and engineers, for example) became part of the military too, though only in small numbers. And since women had taken over factory jobs and become mechanics in the civilian world, most people could swallow having women as mechanics for the military. Their country needed them.
The Wasps, on the other hand, weren’t doing women’s work. They were pilots. And most people thought of pilots, especially military pilots, as the manliest of manly men. Americans pictured their flyboys as dashing, handsome, and fearless. Sure, women could get pilot’s licenses. They could be good small-plane pilots, and famous like Amelia Earhart and Jackie Cochran. But women flying military aircraft? That was something else and it put the Wasps in a more difficult position than other women’s auxiliaries.
The fictional Rosie the Riveter might be the most famous woman of World War II. But her past is complicated. The image most people have of Rosie comes from a poster showing a strong but feminine worker wearing a red polka-dot bandana. Her thought bubble says, “We Can Do It!” Yet this iconic war worker is not a riveter and has no name tag saying ROSIE. In fact, the poster was designed for the Westinghouse Electric Company to promote hard work. Using a woman on the poster was a big step, but the poster was never shown outside the Westinghouse plant. No one thought a thing about that image until it reappeared in the 1980s and became famous.
So where is World War II’s real Rosie the Riveter? In 1943, American artist Norman Rockwell did a painting for a magazine cover that portrayed a strong, proud woman working as riveter. Her lunch box was labeled ROSIE, and Rosie the Riveter became a nickname for women in all kinds of war-related jobs. She even inspired a popular song. Today, Rosie the Riveter—usually seen in the Westinghouse poster version—is a symbol of feminism and women’s determination and abilities.
The timing of the request for militarization was another problem. In early 1942 the United States had been in real danger of defeat, and Americans supported every effort to win the war. A popular magazine editor echoed Franklin Roosevelt when he wrote, “There is terrible fighting to be done. All of us will be in the fight—men, women, and children.”141 Women, in particular, were encouraged to do their part and were admired for it. Most people saw women who went to work in factories and other war-related businesses as heroes (though they were paid less than men). Newspapers and magazines wrote articles on them. Posters and newsreels encouraged more women to join the workforce.
Those women, however, even those working in military auxiliaries early in the war, weren’t in the military. Bills to give the Wacs, Waves, and SPARs (members of the Coast Guard Women’s Reserve) military status in 1942 and 1943 passed, but they faced some opposition. A number of people still believed women just didn’t belong in the military at all, no matter how womanlike their jobs were.
By the time the request to militarize the WASP was made in 1944, support for women’s war efforts in both military and civilian work had shifted. The war was still raging on, but the Allies were closing in on Germany and Japan. An end was in sight, perhaps not even a year away, and Americans started asking what was going to happen when the war was over. Twelve million men in uniform would be coming home, which was wonderful news, of course. But what were those men going to do as civilians? Where would so many young men find jobs all at once? People around the country assumed that those patriotic women who had stepped into men’s jobs in 1941 and 1942 would step back out at the end of the war. They would go home to their families, or get married and start families. Whatever they did, they had to give all those jobs back to the men who had to support themselves and their wives and children. That belief left little enthusiasm for adding any more women to the military.
Additionally, with the Allies gaining the upper hand, strategies for winning the war changed and so did the military’s need for soldiers. Early on, the only way to attack the enemy was from the air, and the AAF’s terrible losses created an enormous need for pilots. By 1944, though, the war was being fought on the ground, so fewer planes and flight crews were needed, and fewer were being lost. The AAF began sending some pilots and crews home and were training fewer new men for those jobs.
With the ground war now the major focus in Europe, the army’s need for ground forces increased. Bombing could prepare the way for the planned invasions, but in the end invasions meant fighting on land. There was nothing appealing about slogging through the mud wearing a seventy-pound backpack, or getting frostbite crawling through a mountain forest. But hundreds of thousands of foot soldiers were needed to do just that.
These changes led the Army Air Forces to close a number of flight schools, which meant that about nine hundred civilian instructors lost their jobs. They and a lot of other male civilian pilots had been excused from the draft while they used their civilian flying skills working for the military. Now, though, they could be called into the military to fill changing needs. General Arnold offered places in the AAF to any of the men who met the requirements. Many didn’t, but a lot of those men did meet infantry standards, and they weren’t happy about it since they didn’t want to be foot soldiers.
Instructors, civilian pilots, and military men who were being turned down for military pilot’s training quickly became the Wasps’ biggest opponents. They wrote letters to Congress, spoke to veterans’ organizations, and raised money to hire lobbyists who could influence members of Congress. Though most of the men were less experienced and less skilled as pilots than the Wasps, they wanted the Wasps’ jobs. They thought they had a right to those jobs because they were men. Their efforts turned much of the public and many members of Congress against the WASP program.
The women pilots couldn’t fight back to protect their jobs and their reputations. It wasn’t that they didn’t have strong arguments—they did—but they were under Jacqueline Cochran’s orders to keep quiet, avoid interviews with the press, and not write to their representatives in Congress.142
This gag order had been issued in response to a series of articles in the press. While Jackie Cochran was quietly getting her program started in Texas in late 1942, magazine and newspaper editors and reporters heard about Nancy Love’s pilots, who were already at work in Delaware. Journalists had done articles on women working in factories and on women’s auxiliary military units like the WAC and WAVES. But few had known about the women working and training with the AAF. One writer learned of the women pilots when he was asked to give up his seat on a civilian flight so a ferrying pilot could get back to base. He was surprised when the pilot turned out to be a young woman.
“I saw that she was tired, desperately tired,” the columnist wrote later in an article called “The Girls Deliver the Goods.”
She looked as if she hadn’t slept in days. . . . I wondered how many flights she’d made in the past few days. . . . It was astonishing—humbling, too—to think of a girl like that flying Army planes to points all over the country, alone in the skies, hour after hour, flying through rain and sleet and snow and clouds.
That pilot so impressed him that he decided to visit New Castle, interview Nancy Love, and write about the program. His article appeared in a number of papers all over the country. It ended,
I can hear a plane. . . . It’s quite possible that somewhere up there, alone in the open cockpit of a trainer plane she is delivering, a girl is shivering in the wet wind, knowing she’ll have to be alone and cold for another seven or eight hours. She’s flying up there, a mile above the earth, so that some man may be released to fight for his country.143
Photos appeared with the piece. They showed women pilots in their winter bomber jackets and leather helmets, and others in flight suits carrying their heavy gear. All complimentary and all business. That kind of article could be useful in gaining support for the programs in both Delaware and Texas, but unfortunately, businesslike articles were rare.
In July 1943, Life magazine did a cover story on the Wasps in Texas and their training at Avenger Field. The piece stuck to the business of the program for the most part. Titled “Girl Pilots,” the article was accurate and complimentary in describing the women’s long days and hard work, as well as their attitudes and abilities. “[They] fly with skill, precision and zest,” it said, “their hearts set on piloting with an unfeminine purpose that might well be a threat to Hitler.” The cover photo showed a WASP trainee in overalls, wearing no makeup and her hair in braids. Photos of the “girls” in their zoot suits, in classrooms and physical training, and at rest were included too. And the caption beneath a photo of Major General Martin Yount, head of the Army Air Forces Flying Training Command, quoted him as saying the Wasps were “qualified to replace all Army Air Force pilots in the noncombatant duties to which they will be assigned.” All of that gave the public a serious and realistic picture of the Wasps.
A Hollywood filmmaker produced a 1944 movie about the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (the WAFS became part of the WASP in 1943). Though the film was made with the US Army Air Forces’ permission, it was not a documentary, but a story with glamorous actresses and a bad script. A review in the New York Times said it portrayed the women pilots as “irresponsible nitwits” who steal planes, make intentional crash landings to get attention, and fight over one another’s husbands. When a group of real WASPs went to see the movie in a town near their base, they were so humiliated by it that they sneaked out of the dark theater before it was over. The image portrayed in that film and in publications stuck with the public and hurt the WASPs in their effort to be militarized.
However, the Life article also used a photo of the women sunbathing behind the barracks. It was something the women did now and then, but readers weren’t likely to see anything similar in articles about men flying for the military. The caption to a picture of Wasp Shirley Slade referred to her smiling “as her hair ruffles in Texas wind.” And though Jacqueline Cochran was described as a famous pilot, she was also called “smart and pretty” and “glamorous.”144
The same kind of language appeared in other publications. Reporters used adjectives like “attractive” or “comely” with nearly every mention of a Wasp. They remarked on the cut and style of their uniforms as if uniforms were mere fashion statements. The fact was that uniforms provided identification and a kind of protection to Wasps on bases and around the country. The women were far less likely to be thrown out of a restaurant for wearing slacks if they were in uniforms rather than civilian clothes. And uniforms identified them as doing important work for the war effort when they arrived alone at hotels or train stations.
Nurses during World War II often cared for the wounded under terrible and dangerous conditions. They saw horrible injuries and risked their own lives to save others. But the American public rarely saw what those women actually did. Life did articles on military nurses but did not include pictures of the women at work. Page after page of photographs showed the women at rest and at play. This kind of publicity gave readers a distorted view of military nurses and, like articles on the WASPs, emphasized the women’s femininity rather than their real work.
Instead of reporting on the women’s skill, experience, and hard work, most articles focused on the women’s figures and faces. They rarely described any actual flying and included staged photos of the most attractive women with their hair nicely styled and their flight suits clean and crisp. Those glamour-girl pieces gave the public a superficial and inaccurate view of the women’s program.
• • •
The writers and editors of the glamour articles certainly knew they were presenting a shallow picture. The same thing had happened with articles about military nurses and even women on factory assembly lines. Somehow, no matter what work women did to aid the war effort, it was important to editors and readers that they remain traditionally feminine on the job.
But the writers and editors of articles like Life’s “Girl Pilots” may not have realized how often they focused on aspects of the women’s lives that had nothing to do with their wartime work. That’s how women were almost always treated in the press in the 1940s.
Life’s editors may have intended their articles to be very supportive of women in the war effort, and in many ways they were. But the focus on girly information harmed the Wasps. “The girls are very serious about their chance to fly for the Army at Avenger Field,” Life reported, “even when it means giving up nail polish, beauty parlors, and dates.”145
Nail polish? Was that what the women were giving up to help fight the war? Or were they giving up the same things men serving the country in noncombat positions were giving up? Their spouses, their children, their homes, and their jobs. Was nail polish what Cornelia Fort gave up when she crashed into that Texas field?
The War Department in Washington, DC, reacted to the early glamour articles by banning most publicity on the WASP.146 Jackie Cochran ordered the women to stay quiet and avoid interviews. But the limited articles published after that still managed to highlight hairstyles, dating, and figures—girly things—as though flying military aircraft with great skill wasn’t as important as being pretty. Reporting on men usually focused on their work and heroism. Being handsome wasn’t a requirement. These differences in articles on women and men left readers thinking of the Wasps as girls first and pilots second. No matter how much articles praised their skills and dedication, they were girl pilots, and that was distinctly different from the real thing.
• • •
The Wasps’ gag order stayed in place while public opinion on women in the war effort shifted and the men who wanted the Wasps’ jobs began their attack. The men had won over many publications and veterans’ organizations. They argued to their representatives in Congress that the Wasps were taking jobs that should be theirs. One member of Congress who supported them, Representative Robert Ramspeck, decided to set up a committee to investigate.
No committee member—not one—ever visited Avenger Field. No committee member ever went to a single base where Wasps were stationed. Two members talked to Nancy Love—once. They never talked to any other woman pilot. Yet the committee produced what seemed to be a detailed report. In reality, it was based on the male pilots’ complaints, with no questions or skepticism from committee members.147
Women in the United States Armed Forces in the twenty-first century have won Silver Stars, Bronze Stars, Purple Hearts, and many Combat Action Medals. They have been eligible to serve in all military jobs, including combat positions, since 2015. Their achievements have made the news. But as of 2017 very few books, films, or television shows about military conflicts have included women in major roles or as heroic military characters.‡
Articles and reports on women in powerful positions in politics, business, and other areas continue to emphasize appearance. Hair and clothing are rarely a focus in articles or reports on men in similar roles. As a result, the public gains more information about male political candidates’ positions on the issues than female candidates’ positions. When women in politics speak forcefully, they are often called “shrill,” a word not used about men. And women in politics or powerful business roles are frequently asked how they balance work and family life. Men rarely face that question.§
Lt. Gen. Nadja West, the highest-ranking woman to graduate from the US Military Academy.
Some members of the committee disagreed with the report’s conclusions and argued against them. They voted not to accept the Ramspeck Report. Nevertheless, a majority voted in support of it. The report concluded that the WASP program had never been necessary. It didn’t mention that the War Department, the Army Air Forces, and General Arnold had all agreed and still agreed it was needed. The report argued that the women pilots’ 80 percent graduation rate was low and proved that the money spent on the “costly and unnecessary program” was wasted. In fact, the Wasps’ graduation rate was somewhat higher than that of the men in training, and the cost was about the same. The report also stated, “There is every reason to believe, that the induction of additional unskilled personnel will accelerate [increase] the accident and fatality rate.” But Army Air Forces records showed the women had a lower accident and fatality rate than men, both in training and on missions.148 The truth didn’t seem to matter.
In the meantime, the House of Representatives’ Committee on Appropriations, which decides how government money will be used for various programs, also issued a report on the Wasps. The members of the committee voted unanimously in favor of the report’s conclusions. Those conclusions were the opposite of those in the negative Ramspeck Report and supported the AAF’s request that the WASP be militarized.
The members of the subcommittee . . . agree with General Arnold that [the Wasps] should be given military status and have the same responsibility as male pilots flying military airplanes, and, along with it, the same rights, privileges, and benefits to which such male pilots are entitled.149
The Appropriations Committee’s report didn’t make the news, but the Ramspeck Report did. Newspapers quoted it without checking its accuracy. The public had no way of knowing that the report they saw was filled with misinformation. Newspapers published opinion pieces attacking the WASP program as wasteful and worse. One referred to Jacqueline Cochran as “the shapely pilot” and suggested that General Arnold would do anything for her and the Wasps because of her “windblown bob [hair], smiling eyes and outdoor skin,”150 as though the general had been swept away and had made terrible decisions because of Cochran’s womanly charm. Another article said, “In colleges the smooth, good-looking gals can get A’s without a lick of work; and in the armed services it may be that dimples have a devastating effect even on generals.”151 The reporter presented no evidence of attractive college women getting As without working for them, or any evidence that anyone in the military supported the Wasps because the women were pretty. Accusations like those were an enormous insult to both women and men.
Some newspapers did write in favor of keeping the WASP program. They described the excellent work the women were doing and their real records. Sadly, those papers were a minority.
The Wasps continued to fly as the debate went on. Many of them were unaware of what was happening in Congress. But the negative publicity in newspapers around the country had a devastating effect on the way a lot of men in the military or working as civilian pilots saw them. Wasps who had been welcomed and treated as equals at many bases suddenly found attitudes toward them changing. Long Beach, California, for example, had been one of the most welcoming bases in the country. Now, however, male flight instructors who wanted to be ferrying pilots but couldn’t pass the tests yelled at the women and told them to go home. That kind of abuse was a shock. In North Carolina a Wasp was waiting for a bus when she was surrounded by several military men. They shouted at her and called her filthy names. When she moved toward the restroom, the men stood in her way. By the time her bus arrived, she was shaking and nauseous with fear.152
• • •
In mid-June, the whole House of Representatives began debate on the bill to militarize the Wasps. The entire Ramspeck Report, which had been finalized on June 5, was entered into evidence as fact. So were opinion columns from newspapers. Articles and editorials supporting the Wasps were ignored. The Wasps themselves couldn’t speak up due to the gag order, but the men who opposed their militarization packed the Capitol’s galleries and clapped and cheered as insults were thrown at the women.153
If the women had been asked to testify, they could have named the many commanders who asked for Wasps on their bases because their records were so good. They could have described the respect combat pilots had for them. Bob Morgan, an AAF captain who had piloted a B-17 bomber called the Memphis Belle had said, “We were short of pilots, and we needed all the combat pilots we could possibly have, and these gals could fly anything we could fly.”154 The women could have mentioned Lieutenant Colonel Paul Tibbets, who had trusted Wasps to demonstrate the B-29 to hesitant male pilots. The women could have told Congress about Orville Wright suggesting that Ann Baumgartner was a pioneer, but the Wasps weren’t invited to the hearings, an invitation which would have overridden the gag order.
General Hap Arnold and the secretary of war testified in support of the Wasps. So did several members of Congress from the Military Affairs Committee who knew far more about the program than most other representatives, including those on the Ramspeck committee. They did their best, but accurate statistics and expert opinions didn’t help convince representatives who listened only to what they wanted to hear. In the end the bill to militarize the Wasps was defeated. Was there anything else anyone could do? After a lot of thought Hap Arnold and Jackie Cochran decided there wasn’t. In October they sent the devastating letters to all the Wasps.
On December 7, 1944, exactly three years after Cornelia Fort witnessed the attack on Pearl Harbor, General Hap Arnold addressed the last WASP graduating class at Avenger Field.
The Memphis Belle gained fame as the first AAF heavy bomber of World War II to complete twenty-five missions with its crew alive and the plane still able to fly. In the early years of the war, such a record was real cause for celebration. The B-17 Flying Fortress bomber, named for the pilot’s girlfriend in Memphis, Tennessee, returned to the United States in June 1943. Captain Robert Morgan and his crew continued to fly the Memphis Belle on a cross-country tour to sell war bonds and raise the public’s morale. As of 2017 the Memphis Belle was being restored to be put on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force near Dayton, Ohio.
You, and more than nine hundred of your sisters, have shown that you can fly wingtip to wingtip with your brothers. If ever there was a doubt in anyone’s mind that women can become skillful pilots, the WASP have dispelled that doubt . . . .
Frankly, I didn’t know in 1941 whether a slip of a young girl could fight the controls of a B-17 . . . .
Well, now in 1944, more than two years since WASP first started flying with the Air Forces, we can come to only one conclusion—the entire operation has been a success. It is on the record that women can fly as well as men . . . .
The Wasps have completed their mission. Their job has been successful . . . .
. . . We of the AAF are proud of you; we will never forget our debt to you.
Those were heartfelt words, but they didn’t change anything.