On December 27, 1944, Nancy Love reported to the New York Aerial Port of Embarkation at La Guardia Field, where she climbed aboard an ATC transport. Since there had been an order in place of no women allowed in the Pacific Theater, with the exceptions of WACs working as OSS staff in China, or at AAF headquarters in Calcutta, and Army nurses, Nancy’s assignment had to be approved.
Once in Calcutta, Nancy found that many improvements were needed on the Crescent run. She flew a staff B-25 over India as well as the C-54 over the Hump route, otherwise known as the aluminum trail because of danger of high mountain peaks and extreme wind conditions. Nancy also piloted twenty of the fifty-hour C-54 flights from Calcutta to Honolulu. Once she filed her report of suggested improvements to General Nowland on February 9, 1945, her official Ferrying Division duties were over.
With the exception of the brief diversion of Nancy’s trip, General Arnold’s directive that “no women will be employed by the AAF in any flying capacity either as pilot, copilot, or member of a flying crew” stayed in effect until the 1970s.
Bob and Nancy moved to San Francisco after Nancy’s release, but that was short-lived because in December 1945, Bob was elected as the president of All American Aviation, taking over for Richard C. DuPont. This took them back east again, where they purchased a home in Chester County, Pennsylvania. The couple bought two planes, a Vultee BT-13 and a surplus P-38. Finding that the P-38 was too expensive to fly, they sold it and instead bought a four-seater, single-engine Bonanza. On July 15, 1946, the Army Air Forces awarded medals to both Bob and Nancy for their service during the war—the first husband-and-wife duo to receive such an honor.
Nancy and Jackie Cochran parted ways without much of a relationship. Cochran was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal and Distinguished Flying Cross, and in 1948, she joined the US Air Force Reserve as a lieutenant colonel. This did not enact any flying status for women though—a measure that would not happen for women in the Air Force until 1976. In 1953, Cochran became the first woman to break the sound barrier. She was promoted to colonel in 1969 and retired in 1970.
In 1946, Nancy and Bob went to a Boston doctor who specialized in hormones, and it was discovered that Nancy had a blocked fallopian tube that could be remedied by surgery. The surgery was successful, and on August 1, 1947, Nancy delivered her first daughter, Hannah Lincoln Love. When All American Aviation went from an airmail service to a passenger airline and became All American Airways, the Loves moved to Washington, DC.
In 1948, Nancy received a letter from the vice chief of staff of the United States Air Force that offered her a commission as a lieutenant colonel in its Reserves.
The Love family continued to grow, and their second daughter, Margaret Campbell, was born March 22, 1949, and their third daughter, Alice Harkness, was born November 1, 1951. In 1952, the Love family moved permanently to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, where Bob’s sister, Margaret, and his widowed mother lived. Bob commuted to Washington, DC, each week, flying their Bonanza on Monday mornings and returning to Martha’s Vineyard on Fridays.
Nancy and Bob loved being parents and included their daughters in their aviation and sailing life. They flew their Bonanza whenever they went off-island, hauling their “children, dogs, furniture, spare sails, marine parts, and assorted cargo” (Nancy Love and the WASP Ferry Pilots of World War II by Sarah Rickman, 243).
All American Airways became Allegheny Airlines, and Bob was the chairman of the board until 1954, after which he became the director. Once Bob didn’t have to be in Washington, DC, five days a week, he turned his attention to sailing. Throughout the 1950s, Bob and Nancy entered sailing races along the East Coast. After Nancy’s father died in early 1958, her mother moved to join the family on the island.
It wasn’t until the 1960s that Nancy discovered that her head injury from falling out of the plane while attending Vassar had been more serious than anyone had realized. While boating with her family, Nancy was steering their Gay Gull III at Jonesport, Maine, and they hit an unmarked outcropping. Nancy was standing and fell forward, striking the boom crutch and splitting her face down the middle. She had plastic surgery to repair the damage to her face, but the X-rays revealed that she’d had an old skull fracture. The discovered skull fracture explained her many years of headache pain (Nancy Love, Rickman, 253–254).
Although life seemed idyllic, surrounded by family and summer visitors, who included many of the WAFS and WASP, such as Betty Gillies, B.J. Erickson London, and Alice Hirschman Hammond, sailing the coast, flying the family airplane, horseback riding, and holding lobster cookouts, Nancy struggled health-wise after her girls left the nest. The smoking she’d picked up during the war continued, and she battled depression, which she numbed with alcohol. Her family intervened, but her challenges continued, and in 1974, Nancy was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Nancy underwent a radical mastectomy in the spring of 1974, but unfortunately, the cancer returned in 1975. Still, Nancy put her energy into her daughter Hannah’s wedding that would take place that fall.
In 1976, the Order of Fifinella organization, comprised of former WASP members, notified Nancy that she’d been named “Woman of the Year,” and the award would be presented at their October reunion. Nancy’s health went into sharp decline, and over the phone, she told WASP President Bee Falk Haydu, “All my life, I thought I’d go down in a blaze of glory in an airplane. Here I am hardly able to do anything at all.” At 6:30 a.m. on October 22, 1976, Nancy Harkness Love died, on the same day that the WASP had gathered to honor her at their reunion.
Thirteen years later, in 1989, Nancy was enshrined in the Michigan Aviation Hall of Fame. Then in 1996, she was posthumously inducted into the Airlift/Tanker Association, the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame in 1997, and the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio, in 2005—the ninth woman to receive such an honor. A statue dedicated to Nancy Harkness Love stands at the New Castle County Airport in Delaware.
Deborah G. Douglas said, “Love’s plan for the WAFS, both in conception and execution, remains an important model for the integration of women into the military. . . . It was absolutely critical that both men and women believed that members of either sex had something to contribute. . . . The gender debate in the military has never been the same since. And that makes Nancy Love one of the more productive historical figures of the first half of the 20th century” (Nancy Love, Rickman, 274).
The WASP eventually won their militarization and veterans status in 1977, and in 2008, Nancy was inducted into the Pioneer Hall of Fame for Women in Aviation. In 2010, the WASP were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. During the assembly at the Capitol on March 10, 2010, Lt. Colonel Nicole Malachowski, the first female pilot in the Air Force’s Air Demonstration Squadron, said, “Today is the day when the WASPs will make history once again. If you spend any time at all talking to these wonderful women, you’ll notice how humble and gracious and selfless they all are. Their motives for wanting to fly airplanes all those years ago wasn’t for fame or glory or recognition. They simply had a passion to take what gifts they had and use them to help defend not only America, but the entire free world, from tyranny. And they let no one get in their way” (https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/117355/wasps-awarded-congressional-gold-medal/).
