The American Experience | Fly Girls | A WASP Among Eagles: A Woman Military Test Pilot in World War II

Eleanor Roosevelt, in her "My Day" newspaper column on September 1, 1942, said that "women pilots are a weapon waiting to be used."

Back in July 1941, Jacqueline Cochran, already famous for her speed records and Harmon trophies, and, in fact, the leading woman pilot of the nation, had presented to Secretary of War for Air Robert Lovett (at the suggestion of President Roosevelt) a plan for using woman pilots to ferry new trainer-type aircraft to air bases, thus freeing men for more active roles. Lovett passed it on to Gen. H. H. "Hap" Arnold, Chief of the Air Force.

"How many experienced women pilots are there?" General Arnold asked.

Cochran and her staff laboriously checked through Civil Aeronautical Administration files and found that of 2,733 licensed women, 150 had over 200 hours flying time and between 72 and 100 had 300 hours and over. She sent questionnaires to these pilots asking whether they would be interested in serving with the Air Corps (the Air Corps became the Air Force after Pearl Harbor). "Yes," 130 answered enthusiastically. On July 30, Cochran presented a finished proposal to Col. Robert Olds, head of the Ferry Command of the Air Transport Command, for an "Organization of a Women Pilots' Division of the Army Air Corps Ferry Command." After all, she pointed out, women were successfully ferrying aircraft for the Royal Air Force in Britain, and in Russia women pilots were even flying combat missions (albeit with high losses) in tiny, old biplanes.

'An experimental group of experienced women pilots in the United States might begin immediately flying small trainers from factories to bases," she wrote.

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