SISTERS IN ARMS: British & American Women Pilots During World War II

364 Pages·2006·6.95 MB·English

by  Helena Schrader

SISTERS
IN
ARMS
SISTERS
IN
ARMS

Helena Schrader

Pen & Sword
AVIATION
First published in Great Britain in 2006 by
Pen & Sword Aviation
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Bamsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS
Copyright © Helena Schrader, 2006
ISBN 1 84415 388 6
The right of Helena Schrader to be identified as Author of this work has
been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library.
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Contents
Introduction
PART 1
Chapter One
The Wings of War
Chapter Two
Women at Arms
Chapter Three
Winning Their Wings
Chapter Four
A Woman’s Work
Chapter Five
The Wonderful (or Not so Wonderful) World of the Woman Pilot
Chapter Six
Broken Wings
PART 2
Chapter Seven
Handmaidens and Guinea Pigs
Chapter Eight
Friends and Foes
Chapter Nine
Separate but Not Equal
Chapter Ten
Sum of the Parts
Chapter Eleven
Age Before Beauty
Chapter Twelve
There’s a War On - Or is There?
Chapter Thirteen
Chasing the Chimera
Chapter Fourteen
Captains and Commanders

Conclusions
Index
Introduction
During the Second World War, a few carefully selected women in the United
States and the United Kingdom were briefly given the unprecedented
opportunity to fly military aircraft. It was not until more than thirty years
later – after radical social changes with regard to women’s rights and roles – that
women were again given the chance to fly the most challenging and innovative
aircraft of their age. The story of these pioneer women pilots is made even more
intriguing by the fact that, despite many notable similarities in the utilisation and
organisation of the women in their respective countries, they experienced
radically different fates.
In both the United States and the United Kingdom, the women pilots were
organised in auxiliary, civilian organisations, the WASP (Women Airforce
Service Pilots) in the United States and the ATA (Air Transport Auxiliary) in
Britain. Initially, only very highly qualified and experienced women pilots were
accepted into the respective programmes, but eventually training programmes
were established in both countries to train women with limited or no previous
flying experience. The women pilots often had to overcome scepticism about
their capabilities, and sometimes faced outright hostility. Yet in both countries
women pilots rapidly proved that they were capable of performing the tasks
assigned to them. In fact, women on both sides of the Atlantic proved that in
some ways and at some tasks they were more capable than their male colleagues.
During nearly six years of service, the women of the AT A steadily won nearly
all the privileges and status enjoyed by their male colleagues. Women in the ATA
could and did have command authority over men. Most exceptionally, the
women of the ATA were, in 1943, awarded equal pay for equal work. The
American women pilots, in contrast, were expressly denied the same status,
rank, privileges, pay, and benefits as their male colleagues. They were not even
entitled to disability, pension or death benefits so that WASP killed in crashes
along with USAAF men were the only members of the flight crew not entitled to
military honours and their families received no compensation for the return and
interment of the remains.
Throughout the war, the contribution of the women of the ATA to the war
effort was recognised and praised both from official quarters and in the press. By
contrast, theW ASP were first glamorised and made into Hollywood stars – and
then subjected to a slander campaign, which both denigrated their
accomplishments and insulted their competence and motives. At the end of the
war, the women of the ATA were honourably discharged with the same dignity
and recognition as their male colleagues. The WASP, in contrast, were sent home
in haste and secrecy before either the war or the job for which they had trained –
at great expense – was done.
What accounts for this dramatic difference in the treatment of women pilots
doing essentially the same job in the same war in two nations with the same
cultural heritage and military objectives? Why did the WASP arouse such violent
opposition at a time when the women in the ATA were harvesting praise and
royal recognition?
This book seeks to answer these questions. Part 1 provides a description of the
historical context, the organisational objectives and development, recruitment,
training, terms of service, daily life and the deactivation of the respective
organisations. The second part attempts to analyse the impact of differing
military traditions, male and public attitudes, organisational composition and
ethos, press relations and key personalities on the fate of the respective
organisations. To the extent possible, the women who participated in the AT A
and WASP have been allowed to speak for themselves. From memoirs, diaries,
interviews and other secondary sources, their experiences and opinions are
drawn and quoted. In addition, a number of survivors were contacted and more
than a dozen kindly responded.
The story these women have to tell is exciting and intriguing. The love of
flying and desire to contribute to the war effort are a common theme, binding the
women across the Atlantic. But the differences are telling too. Indeed, the entire
study casts light on some still very relevant differences between two nations that
have repeatedly found themselves fighting side-by-side on diverse battlefields
across the globe.
CHAPTER ONE
The Wings of War
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE WOMEN PILOTS OF
THE ATA, WAFS, WFTD AND WASP
The Second World War did not explode unexpectedly upon an unsuspecting
world. Rather, it arrived with the slow, clanking certainty of an advancing
panzer. Practically from the time Hitler came to power until the German invasion
of Poland, the world moved inexorably toward conflict. Yet, while the world
marched consciously toward conflagration, it did so – at least in the West – with
reluctance and foreboding. The Western Powers – the United Kingdom, France
and the United States – resisted war to the last possible moment consistent with
their role in the world and their national character.
The First World War had been won by the Western Powers at such
immeasurable cost in both blood and money that it created in its wake a
profound and widespread abhorrence of war. Even as Germany started down a
path of militant Revisionism, breaking one after another of the ‘bonds’ imposed
upon it by the Treaty of Versailles, Anglo-American public opinion remained
firmly pacifist or isolationist respectively. In Britain, the policy of Appeasement
was not only popular, it was arguably the only policy that a democratically
elected government could pursue given the mood among voters. In the United
States the mood was isolationist rather than pacifist; after the US Senate refused
to ratify the League of Nations Treaty and President Wilson had departed from
the political stage, the American public took little interest in what was happening
in the rest of the world. With widespread industrial violence, Prohibition and
soon the Great Depression, there was enough to entertain – and frighten – them
at home without taking on the added burden of Europe’s ‘domestic squabbles’.
All this explains why, despite the evidence of massive German and Japanese
aggression coupled with the expectation that aerial warfare would be decisive in
any future conflict, both the United States and Great Britain responded only
slowly to the growing air threat posed by the militant dictatorships. In 1934, just
one year after Hitler came to power, Germany was producing nearly 2,000
aircraft annually; by 1939 German aircraft production topped 8,000. By contrast,