AMELIA EARHART’S DAUGHTERS
By Leslie Haynsworth and David Toomey
Morrow, 322 pages, $24
When Hillary Rodham Clinton announced in March that Air Force Lt. Col. Eileen Collins would be the first woman to command an American space flight, the first lady declared the assignment “one big step forward for women.”
“Amelia Earhart’s Daughters” documents how giant a leap it was. Academics Leslie Haynsworth and David Toomey chronicle the histories of two groups: the women aviators who ferried aircraft during World War II and 13 women pilots who hoped to be astronauts in 1961.
The authors’ method of telling the story woman by woman makes for a readable, though patchy history. By the last page, one wishes that race and class issues had been as directly addressed as gender discrimination. Still, this book is vital to women’s studies and aviation history.
Two names emerge from World War II annals: Jackie Cochran, director of the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) training program, and Nancy Harkness Love, founder of the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS).
WASP secretly trained to ferry aircraft in Houston and Sweetwater, Texas, with the volunteers passing themselves off as a women’s basketball team. WAFS ferried troublesome planes such as the P-39, while WASP personnel trained in craft including the B-26, so tricky it was known as “The Widowmaker.”
In 1944, Gen. Hap Arnold urged armed-service recognition for WASP. But, the authors write, some male civilian pilots and veterans groups protested, and the women did not receive the same benefits accorded the WAC and WAVES. When the Air Force cut back at the end of the year, WASP was disbanded.
The 1,074 women who trained at Sweetwater flew more than 60 million miles in every Air Force craft. Thirty-eight died, some in training, some on duty. The women returned to their families or other war efforts. Some were offered jobs by commercial airlines–as flight attendants.
Between the war and the space age, it was almost impossible for women to receive jet training. But women such as aviation executive Jerrie Cobb of Oklahoma City were proficient civilian instructors or test pilots. Cobb met Randolph Lovelace, director of an Albuquerque astronaut medical testing clinic, at a 1959 conference. When Cobb’s boss suggested that she be considered for the space program, Lovelace listened. He knew the Russians were planning to use women cosmonauts.
In the early 1960s, Cobb and 25 other women went through relentless medical and stress tests at the Lovelace Clinic. The 13 who passed were ordered to report to Pensacola, Fla., for flight testing, but just before their departure the secret program was abruptly canceled.
Marion Dietrich, one of the 13, wrote about their experience for McCall’s magazine. The aviators received hate mail–some from women–telling them to go home and take care of their kids.
