Hitler's Third Reich and World War II in the News is a daily edited review of WWII news, providing thought- provoking collection of hand-picked WW2 information.

Category: Female Pilots of WWII  -- See latest WWII news here. See also Hanna Reitsch, 'Flying Aces & Pilots', 'Scale Models', 'WWII and Women', 'Amelia Earhart'.

Diana Barnato Walker flew Spitfires and was the first woman to break the sound barrier
From 1941 Diana Barnato was one of a handful of women who moved Spitfires and Hurricanes, Wellingtons and Lancasters from factories to front-line squadrons. Known as ATA-girls (Air Transport Auxiliary) they endured all weathers, flew without radio, guns or armour-plating, radar and navigation aids. They were prey to storms and German Messerschmitts. In 3 years, she flew 260 Spitfires and mastered dozens of other warplanes, including a huge Walrus flying boat that most male pilots avoided. She was shot at, hammered by storms, stricken by engine failures, but she never lost a plane.     [ dailymail :: 2008-05-07 :: Female Pilots of WWII ]

Liz Strohfus shares story of being a WASP in World War II
Gold B-24 bombers dangled from her ears. Pinned to her blue suit was a set of silver wings, proving she finished the WWII Women Airforce Service Pilot training. Becoming a WASP was natural, as she was fond of heights as a child: "If I couldn't find a tree, I'd sit up on a rooftop." Only 1,800 of the 25,000 who applied [for WASP program] were accepted, and only 1,000 got their wings. Strohfus flew military trainers like the PT-19, BT-13, and AT-6. She went on to fly the B-26 Marauder, B-17 and the P-39 Airacobra. The attitude was "women couldn't fly those airplanes, it takes a big man to fly. Well, we showed them."     [ lacrossetribune :: 2008-03-19 :: Female Pilots of WWII ]

Spitfire heroine Margaret Frost's joy over medal
Margaret Frost, who flew replacement fighters (spitfires, hurricanes and mustangs) to WW2 RAF bases, has spoken of her joy at the recognition for her work. She is one of 15 women and 100 men who are to have a special merit award for serving in the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA), which had an important role in ensuring the RAF got the planes it needed as fighter pilots fought dog fights with the Luftwaffe. Made up of old WWI pilots, injured airmen and women, it moved aircrafts from factories to frontline. "We were not allowed to fly above 600m and there was no radio contact so it could be quite lonely."     [ bbc :: 2008-02-25 :: Female Pilots of WWII ]

Zipper pull and other artifacts found on Nikumaroro linked to Amelia Earhart?
Amelia Earhart set off a mystery when she vanished over the Pacific in 1937. TIGHAR (The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery) members found a small brass zipper pull during their 3 week scouring of Nikumaroro (formerly Gardner Island) in 2007. Members speculate that the plane crashed on or near the island and that Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan spent their final days there. The zipper pull is one of many artifacts collected from the island. "Now we have this site on the island that is producing artifacts that speak of an American woman in her 30s, and the only one missing out there is her," said said Ric Gillespie.     [ goerie :: 2008-02-18 :: Female Pilots of WWII ]

Spitfire's unsung flying heroines - The Air Transport Auxiliary
The living members of a group of women who flew Spitfires in non-combat WW2 tasks are expected to be rewarded with a badge. The women of the Air Transport Auxiliary may not have taken part in the Battle of Britain but, without their skills in delivering the aircraft to the RAF bases for their male counterparts to clear the skies of Luftwaffe bombers, the battle would never have got off the ground. There are about 15 female pilots left. They also flew Hurricanes, Lancasters, Mosquitoes and other wartime aircraft. Margaret Frost - formally too small at 5ft 3in to become a Spitfire pilot - spent 3 years flying the aircraft, and welcomed the suggestion of a badge.     [ timesonline :: 2008-02-01 :: Female Pilots of WWII ]

Finding Female Aces - From world wars to modern times
Before the 1990s, the majority of female combat pilots were those who flew for the Russian World War II air force. Most flew combat support aircraft, in some degree because many of the WWII-era warplanes did not have power-assisted controls. But where this was not a factor, many of the Russian female pilots showed a talent for winning air-to-air battles. Russia stopped using female pilots when WWII was over. The same thing had happened during WWI, when the few female pilots were dismissed once peace came. After WWII American researchers did a lot of work to determine what characteristics made aces: It was discovered that many women were potential aces.     [ strategypage :: 2007-11-26 ]

World War II Fly Girls Exhibit - WASP: Women Airforce Service Pilots
In Sept. 1942 1830 women quit their jobs and paid their own ways to Texas to learn to fly "the Army way." The Women Airforce Service Pilots became the first women in history to fly America's military aircraft. The Mayborn Museum Complex is bringing their memory back to life through "Wings Across America Presents: Fly Girls of WWII Exhibit." The pilot group was formed because of the U.S. Army Air Forces' desperation for more pilots after severe U.S. losses. Nancy Parrish began working on "Wings Across America" to promote awareness of the history of WASP. There are 400 former female pilots alive today. She has interviewed 110 of them.     [ baylor :: 2007-10-16 :: Female Pilots of WWII ]

The Spitfire Women Of World War II by Giles Whittell - Photos
Wearing a summer uniform she slung a parachute over her shoulder and shook out her long blonde hair. Pilot Maureen Dunlop looked glamorous. And when the picture appeared in 1944, the world was convinced the Air Transport Auxiliary, ATA, was an-all woman outfit. The ATA, "legion of the air," performed an essential WW2 role delivering British warplanes from the factories to RAF airfields. Its death rate was higher than in RAF Fighter Command. Of 1,124 pilots nearly 1/6 was killed. Scandalously, one woman's aircraft was even thought to have been sabotaged by male rivals, threatened by the sight of attractive women emerging from the cockpits of huge heavy bombers.     [ dailymail :: 2007-09-13 :: Female Pilots of WWII ]

Female World War II aviator donates aircraft to Pearson Air Museum
Article no longer available from the original source.
Jan Wood, who sold her accordion during WWII to pay for lessons so she could fly airplanes in the war effort, made her last flight into Vancouver to gave her favorite airplane to Pearson Air Museum. It wasn't just any airplane: It was the 1953 model Cessna that in 1956 and 1957 she flew solo around the world. She is a member of an exclusive club, the WASP, the Women Airforce Service Pilots, the first women in history to fly American military aircraft. While male pilots flew into combat, the WASP shuttled airplanes all over the US.     [ columbian :: 2007-07-11 :: Female Pilots of WWII ]

World War 2 Women flyers to be honored at Dorr
During World War II, the U.S. Civil Air Patrol, a civilian group of pilots and volunteers, assisted the war effort in many ways, including flying coastal patrol missions or transporting people and materials. According to The US Air Force Auxiliary Civil Air Patrol site, www.cap.gov, CAP evolved during the late 1930s and was established on Dec. 1, 1941, as part of the Office of Civilian Defense. It became an auxiliary of the U.S. Army Air Forces under the War Department in 1943. 40000 people, from movie stars to everyday people, joined CAP after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, according to www.caphistory.org.     [ bolivarcom :: 2007-05-07 :: Female Pilots of WWII ]

Sara Payne Hayden: one of the first female pilots in U.S. Army
It was World War II and Sara Payne Hayden wanted something unheard of: to fly military planes. She was one of the few women to join the Women Airforce Service Pilots, the first female pilots in the US armed forces. Her job: to test-fly previously damaged planes to make sure that they were ready for the men headed for combat. "We did things the men weren't expected to do," said Hayden, who still fits into her petite 62-year-old navy blue WASP uniform. Thirty-eight WASPs were killed during the war. Only about 350 of the 1,074 WASPs, who flew within the US for the Army Air Corps, are still alive.     [ boston :: 2006-12-08 :: Female Pilots of WWII ]

Author to discuss Women in Aviation Since World War II
The Weston Military History Group will host Dr. Deborah Douglas in a talk on "Women in Aviation Since World War II." The author of two books on the subject, she is an expert in this field. "United States Women in Aviation 1940-1985" (1991) has long been regarded as the single best reference work in the field. Her second book, "American Women and Flight Since 1940," an expanded version of the first, was published in 2004. "Prior to the war, say in 1939, there were maybe 1,000 American women in this field. By 1945, there were perhaps half a million women touching airplanes every day."     [ townonline :: 2006-11-23 :: Female Pilots of WWII ]

Female WWII pilot: Flying military aircraft during World War II
Vi Cowden was one of slightly more than 1,000 women to fly military aircraft during World War II as a Women Airforce Service Pilot (WASP). After she heard of the attack on Pearl Harbor, she applied to the Women's Flying Training Detachment and she began her training in March 1943. She was one of 25,000 women to apply -and one of only 1,074 to make it through the program. She flew 19 different types of military aircraft during the war.     [ elkodaily :: 2006-08-09 :: Female Pilots of WWII ]

Russia's Top Female Fighter Ace With 12 Luftwaffe kills
Lily Litvak is the most famous female fighter pilot of all time. Stunningly beautiful with blonde hair and gorgeous grey eyes, Lily was known as the White Rose of Stalingrad. With 12 Luftwaffe kills to her credit, she was the Soviet Union's top female ace fighter pilot. In September, 1942 flying a Yak-1 with white roses painted on both sides of her cockpit, Lily shot down a Junkers JU-88 and a Messerschmitt Bf-109 during her second combat mission while flying with the 296th IAP. The day of her final mission, Lily had already flown 4 previous sorties. She was escorting a flight of Soviet bombers when her Yak was jumped by a flight of 8 Bf-109s.     [ flightsim :: 2006-03-17 :: Female Pilots of WWII ]

Female Pilot Pitches Suicide Squad to Hitler
Hanna Reitsch, Nazi Germany's celebrated female test pilot, suggested that Adolph Hitler should create a suicide squadron of glider pilots. Hitler was skeptical of the idea, believing that such a squadron would not be an effective use of Germany's limited resources. The delicate blonde's enthusiasm finally won him over; he agreed to investigate the possibility of adapting the V-1, which was designed to be a pilotless robotic bomb, to a kamikaze vehicle. Reitsch promptly formed a Suicide Group, and was herself the first person to take the pledge: "I hereby...voluntarily apply to be enrolled in the suicide group as a pilot of a human glider-bomb. I fully understand that employment in this capacity will entail my own death."     [ News of the Odd :: 2005-10-29 :: Hanna Reitsch - Test Pilot ]

Marina Raskova and the Soviet Women Pilots of World War II
On June 22, 1941, Hitler's Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union, and Operation Barbarossa was under way. In the summer of 1941, Marina Raskova, a record-breaking aviatrix, organized the 588th night bomber squadron - composed entirely of women, from the mechanics to the navigators, pilot and officers. Most of them around 20 years old. June 8, 1942, three planes took off on the first mission. The target: the headquarters of a German division. The raid was successful, but one aircraft was lost. "It was a miracle we didn't lose more aircraft. Our planes were the slowest in the air force. They often came back riddled with bullets, but they kept flying."     [ monash-edu :: 2005-06-08 :: Female Pilots of WWII ]

Jacqueline "Jackie" Cochran
During her aviation career, Jackie Cochran set more speed and altitude records than anybody else at her time, male or female. In 1942, Cochran got her wish as she was asked to organize the Women's Flying Training Detachment (WFTD) to train women pilots to handle basic military flight support. The WASPs were essentially two groups in one: WFTD, and the Women's Auxiliary Ferry Squadron (WAFS), a group responsible for delivering planes to their base of operations. The WASPs proved invaluable to the war effort. They transported planes overseas, tested various aircraft and taught aerial navigation.     [ centennialofflight :: 2005-05-08 :: Female Pilots of WWII ]

US Women Pilots in World War II Struggle to Tell Their Stories
During World War II, more than 1,000 women were trained as military pilots. While they were not allowed to be combat pilots, they flew all sorts of missions. But their story was a classified secret for over three decades. On the 60th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, VOA Producer Zulima Palacio found two women determined to tell their story and keep it alive. The day Deanie Bishop turned 21, she applied to join the Women Airforce Service Pilots, known as WASP. It was 1942, and the middle of WWII. "Our basic function was to fly the missions to relieve male pilots for combat."     [ voanews :: 2005-05-04 :: Female Pilots of WWII ]

Fflying and caring for people - Two of her passions
Capt. Lillian Kinkela Keil began her career as a student nurse and shortly thereafter became a flight attendant for United Airlines, which honored her at a reception, for her heroic service during WW II. To combine two of her passions - flying and caring for people - Capt. Keil joined the Army Air Corps as a flight nurse to serve in WWII. During that time, she flew 250 air evacuation missions and 25 transatlantic flights, many in dangerous conditions, including to Normandy during the D-Day invasions, where she helped evacuate wounded soldiers from the front lines.     [ seniorjournal :: 2004-05-29 :: Nurses in World War II ]

Female pilots were World War II's "best-kept secret"
Theirs was among the untold stories of World War II - an elite squad of pilots soaring through the skies in PT-19s and other planes as the first group of American women trained to fly military aircraft. About a thousand women flew as members of Women Airforce Service Pilots units during the war. Fewer than 500 are still alive, by one estimate. From 1942 to 1944, women from all walks of life were trained to ferry aircraft, test planes, transport cargo and even tow targets so male cadets on the ground could practice shooting at moving objects. 38 women pilots lost their lives.     [ baylor :: 2003-11-11 :: Female Pilots of WWII ]

Women's Airforce Service Pilots with the US Air Weather Service
Women's roles in the military may not have started at Offutt, but the Air Force Weather Agency was here when women stepped forward to serve their country. The Air Weather Service was one of the first military agencies to use military women as pilots during WW II. In early 1943, the first enlisted Women's Army Corps women were assigned to stateside weather units and qualified as observers through on-the-job training. One class of women observers went through the forecasting school at Chanute Field, Ill. Five graduated in September 1944.     [ findarticles :: 2003-03-13 :: Female Pilots of WWII ]

Soviet Women in Combat
Number of Soviet women combat veterans reached nearly one million, a small portion of which were involved in combat. Eugenia Ustimchouk was one of the rare women pilots. She was admitted in Jan of 1942 in the same unit as her husband. "We had a women's bomber pilot regiment who flew heavy planes called P-2. I remember one, Liuba Gubena, who studied with me and flew that plane. German planes were pursuing her and her plane caught on fire. She gave her crew the command to bail out, but her navigator's parachute got caught. Liuba started to do all kinds of maneuvers to throw off the navigator, to save her. She perished herself in trying to save her navigator."     [ neh :: 2000-05-08 :: Female Pilots of WWII ]

See also

Hanna Reitsch

'Flying Aces & Pilots'

'Scale Models'

'WWII and Women'

'Amelia Earhart'.

What's new - recent & interesting categories.

Although the articles linked from Adolf Hitler's Third Reich 1933-1945 and World War II in the News are reviewed and specially selected, they do not necessarily represent the views of the editor, who is not responsible for the content of any external sites. This service is © Joni Nuutinen 2005-2008. All rights reserved.