11 After about one month in Pecos, orders arrived assigning Gertrude to pursuit school. There she would learn to fly pursuit, or fighter, planes. She did an impromptu dance with fellow WASP Mickey Axton. No more dusty Pecos. She was assigned officially to Fifth Ferry Group, headquartered at Love Field in Dallas, but was ordered to detach to Brownsville and the army’s “top gun” training school, where only the best male pilots were sent prior to combat. There were only four other women in her class. She reported on August 15, 1944, and the lineup of powerful fighter planes she saw took her breath away: Thunderbolts, Lightnings, Mustangs. Even the names were thrilling.
Her first day in class she noticed a freckled young pilot smiling at her. His name was Duncan Miller. He was 10 years younger than Gertrude and had a charming, wisecracking sense of humor. One of the first nights Gertrude was in Brownsville, Duncan knocked on the door of her barracks and introduced himself. Brash and full of his ability to fly airplanes, he came right out and said she was pretty and had an “ooh-la-la figure,” and that he wanted to take her out on a date.
Duncan said of Gertrude, “She had a great personality. Really a sharp girl. Any time off we probably spent together. I went to Matamoros [in Mexico, just across the border from Brownsville] with her a few times. We walked around, sometimes with two or three other guys and a couple of gals. I sat on her barracks steps with her in the evening, just talking. At night we listened to the radio and danced sometimes. We were in separate quarters. Just four WASPS and the rest were men, so there was pretty heavy competition.”
Duncan said Gertrude “was considered a good pilot. If you weren’t good you didn’t make it. One out of four died in our class,” he said, referring to the many pursuit pilots who went on to combat or who died in domestic accidents.
The pair enjoyed spending time together. They went to an on-base movie and shared a Coke. Perhaps this young flier made Gertrude realize that she had options besides Henry.
But Gertrude’s main enchantment at the time was aeronautic, not romantic. Her assigned plane in Brownsville thrilled her. It was a P-51D Mustang, its shiny aluminum finish shimmering in the Texas sun. It was rated at speeds over 400 miles an hour. The model was the latest in this line of remarkable fighter planes.
The instructors at Brownsville were emphatic about three-point landings in the Mustang. This meant that as Gertrude approached the landing strip, the instructors wanted the nose of the plane up slightly, so that three points—both front wheels and the tail wheel—kissed the earth at the same time. If the powerful fighter landed on its front wheels first, it had a tendency to do a dangerous, uncontrolled rotation, called a ground loop. “Once you could do a three-point [landing], they opened the candy store,” Gertrude wrote to her sister.
With the boys away, the girls at home turned their radios to sentimental songs such as “I’ll Walk Alone” and “Don’t Sit under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else But Me).” The songs from the 1943 Broadway musical Oklahoma! were everywhere: “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” and “People Will Say We’re in Love.”
But it was a skinny kid from Hoboken, New Jersey, who changed the music of the war years. On the night of December 30, 1942, Frank Sinatra began singing at New York’s Paramount Theatre and a girl swooned. Another stood up and screamed. In seconds every girl in the theater was on her feet screaming. The legend of the crooner was born. The military men overseas resented him. Sinatra seemed to have won over all their sweethearts.
Her first walk-around of the new Mustang D model took Gertrude’s breath away. Its long, air-cooled engine enabled designers to carve sleek lines from its pointed nose to its square tail. The plane’s deep belly scoop seemed to lend it a muscular toughness. A new-model four-bladed propeller hub was streamlined into its nose. Aviation historians agree that the Mustang D is one of the most beautiful airplanes ever built, and it is considered a major factor in winning World War II.
The Mustang saw combat in both the European and the Pacific theaters of war. It was very fast and maneuverable, and its 1,500-mile range enabled the pilot to escort bombers on their missions deep into the heart of enemy territory. Mustang pilots engaged enemy fighters attacking the bombers. Early in the war in Europe, bomber losses were high. But with the Mustang and other fighters escorting and protecting the bombers, losses dropped significantly. Of course Gertrude would be transporting the fantastic plane, not fighting in it, but she was just as thrilled to get behind the wheel.
Gertrude settled into the cockpit and touched the levers and toggles of the D model. She loved the clear bubble canopy, with its unimpeded 360-degree view. She ticked off the cautions of her instructors: Look out for torque—the twist caused by the power and direction of the propeller. Directional stability could be a problem due to a gas tank installed behind the pilot. Never forget to taxi in an S formation, because the high nose blocked the pilot’s vision of the runway ahead. Expect blackouts when pulling out of dives. Blackouts occur when gravity forces pull blood from the brain. The pilot becomes momentarily unconscious until the plane comes out of its dive and the blood returns. When taking off, be sure to put the throttle to full power; there had been some engine failures reported at lower power.
A P-51 D, about 1,500 horsepower and considered one of the finest combat airplanes of all time. Courtesy of the National Museum of the US Air Force
Although replaced by jet planes, the P-51 Mustang continued in service in the United States until well after World War II. It saw combat again during the Korean War, from 1950 to 1953. The Mustang was in service in other countries until 1984.
There are a quite a few Mustangs still in operation. They are frequent winners at air races, two of the most popular racers being planes called “Voodoo” and “Strega.” There are many Mustangs in museums, and air shows frequently feature them.
Some 15,100 Mustangs came off the production lines during World War II. The cost to build each plane was $51,000. After the war some of them were sold to friendly nations under a reciprocal treaty for one dollar each. Working Mustangs sell today for $2 million to $4 million, depending on condition.
Thundering into the sky, she lifted the wheels using a hand crank in the cockpit. She swiftly climbed above the Texas landscape. Gertrude first practiced flying straight and level to get a feel for the Mustang’s handling. Once away from Brownsville, she executed various rolls. After that she stalled the plane, surprised at how it wanted to climb, then dropped in high-speed spins that left her thrilled and laughing.
Throttled-up, she blazed across Boca Chica Beach a hundred feet off the ground, scattering gulls and pelicans. She thundered across the Gulf of Mexico and sliced into the towering clouds. Reluctantly, after an hour, she returned to touch down on the airstrip at Brownsville. She found that landing was easier than in the AT-6. There was less likelihood of “swapping ends,” or doing a ground loop.
Several hours later Duncan Miller said, “Your stutter. It’s gone.”
And so it was. A speech impediment that had bedeviled Gertrude for 30 years had fled during her first flight in a Mustang. It would never return. What must her thoughts have been?
On silver wings Gertrude Tompkins discovered herself. The ox that had stood on her tongue for so long had vanished during her first flight in a Mustang, left behind somewhere in the clouds. Elizabeth later agreed that Gertrude’s newfound self-confidence came as a gift from the sky.
Gertrude racked up hours in the Mustang during the day. She received the same training that combat pilots underwent and practiced aerial dogfighting with other trainees. There are tales of WASP pilots ferrying fighters engaging in mock dogfights with navy pilots in swift Corsairs and army pilots in powerful Thunderbolts. (When a WASP tells the story, the women always win.) In the evenings and on weekends Gertrude enjoyed spending time with Duncan. In Matamoros they bought a big Mexican sombrero and trinkets, laughed together, talked about flying, and kissed sometimes.
This happy, carefree time was interrupted when Gertrude got a telephone call from Henry Silver, now in the army and based in New York. His tone was subdued and serious. The year before, Henry’s sister Margaret had died after giving birth to a daughter. The girl, named Ann, was now nearly a year old. The father was unknown, Henry said uncomfortably. The baby had been cared for by family friends, but it was time that she found a permanent home. Henry asked Gertrude to marry him and to be Ann’s mother.
American women were encouraged by cosmetics advertisers to look pretty for the morale of the country during wartime. Hair was typically shoulder length. A popular hairstyle was called the Victory Roll, said to represent an enemy aircraft spiraling down to destruction. Hair turbans and snoods became popular. Courage Red and Victory Red were both lipstick colors of the era. Brown gravy applied to the legs suggested nylon stockings. Fitted military-style jackets and tailored skirts or slacks were popular with women. Teens were beginning to wear jeans with untucked dress shirts and rolled-down socks. Teenage girls were called bobby-soxers.
Gertrude felt like she was being manipulated, especially after she got a letter from Vreeland a few days later, in which he emphasized what he felt was an important point. If Gertrude adopted the girl, her father pointed out, her new daughter would not “carry the inherited burden of our stutter.” Vreeland also reminded Gertrude that she was now 32 years old, and if she wanted a husband the time was passing quickly. Finally, he wrote how much he and her mother liked Henry and that if Gertrude married him he would be warmly welcomed into the family. She was being asked to choose between loyalty to her father and a career in flying.
Gertrude did not give Henry or her father an immediate answer.