Located at Avenger Field in the sleepy little town of Sweetwater, Texas are the two aircraft hangars housing the National WASP WWII Museum.
Like you, I wondered at the reasoning behind a museum dedicated to White Anglo-Saxon Protestants during World War II, much less putting it in an aircraft hangar. As it turns out, WASP has another meaning out here in the Big Country: the Women Airforce Service Pilots (also known as the Women’s Auxiliary Service Pilots) program, operated by the US Army Air Forces during the Second World War. It was at this very site between 1943 and 1944 where, having consolidated the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron and Women’s Flying Training Detachment, presumably for no reason other than the much-cooler acronym, 1,830 women out of 25,000 who applied, and of which 1,074 graduated, trained as WASPs. Once trained, these women performed auxiliary flying duties, such as ferrying newly-built aircraft to their delivery destinations, towing targets for anti-aircraft training, simulated strafing missions, and transporting cargo, in order to free up qualified male pilots for combat duties.
The tour begins, sensibly enough, in Hangar 1. Admission is $10 plus tax, with donations appreciated. I opted to pay with a $20 and leave my change in the donation box. Regular admission gets you an introductory video presentation and self-guided tour. Guided tours are available by request, but being both an introvert and a libertarian, I prefer to serve myself anyway. Arriving as I did at around 11:15 AM on a weekday, I had the place mostly to myself.
The recommendation from the very friendly lady at the front desk was to begin one’s tour with the introductory video presentation in the Catherine “Cappy” Vail Bridge Education Center, then work anti-clockwise around Hangar 1, which itinerary I followed for the most part.
The “briefing room” is arranged as if it were a classroom, and one is addressed by a virtual WASP trainer from a wall-sized video screen as if they were one in a class of fresh recruits just arriving in 1943. She helpfully explains the purpose of the program, the training regimen, and the types of aircraft trainees will be operating – the Stearman PT-17, Fairchild PT-19, Vultee BT-13 Valiant, AT-6 Texan, and UC-78 Bobcat.
Having completed my initiation, I ventured out into the exhibits.
Following the recommended anti-clockwise course through the museum entails a fairly linear journey from arrival to graduation for the 18 classes of women who completed WASP training.
To qualify for the program, trainees had to be between 21 and 35 years old (this was later lowered to 18 and a half years old, as it was found that younger trainees were more adaptable, and had fewer familial encumbrances), US citizens, and at least 5 feet tall; have a high school diploma or equivalent; hold a private pilot’s license with at least 250 hours logged; and pass a physical exam and interview.
Both military and civilian instructors of both sexes put the ladies through ground school, followed by 3 stages of flight training spanning 9 weeks. At the culmination of training, each recruit was assigned 2 solo flights of at least 1,000 miles, and upon completion, awarded a silver wings insignia pin at graduation. For the first 7 classes, the cost of the pins was fronted by its administrator, the famed female aviator Jacqueline Cochran, and her husband, the wealthy industrialist Floyd Odlum. Cochran had also personally commissioned Bergdorf Goodman to design the official WASP uniform. The official WASP mascot, Fifinella, was designed by Walt Disney Studios, and licensed free of charge.
Lest anything be taken away from the ladies of the WASP program for having performed only auxiliary functions, 38 WASPs perished, including 11 during training. Some were assigned to covert missions, and 2 WASPs were even trained to pilot the B-29 Superfortress in an effort to demonstrate that it was so reliable and easy to pilot that even a woman could do so. The program records, being wartime secrets, were classified and sealed for 35 years.
One of the more interesting aspects of the WASP program is that it was technically a civilian program, with its graduates being U.S. federal civil service employees, in spite of its commissioning within the US Army Air Forces. Applicants who were accepted had to provide their own transportation to Sweetwater, and had their uniform expense, room and board deducted from their pay. WASPs worked as civilians attached to the Army Air Forces while on assignment. As a result, they did not qualify for military benefits, that it is until a senator from Arizona, who may or may not have been nuts, spearheaded a congressional effort to grant them veteran status, which found fruition in 1977.
Among the various exhibits are personal photographs, handwritten letters, ground school tests, and a scrapbook belonging to WASP Helen Snapp. For those inclined to indulge, they add a much-appreciated personal perspective, and a bit of a window into the era.
Somewhat surprisingly, while there is certainly an expected feminist bent to the museum given its subject and purpose, the presentation is fairly neutral and for the most part free of modern identity politics. That having been said, a planned expansion discussed at the museum’s website sounds as if it may inject that more modern perspective. For her part, Madge Rutherford Minton of the 4th class of 1943 apparently was not so keen on sister solidarity. In a letter home from her assigned base in Long Beach, California, she wrote:
“We’ve run into our first brick wall. We cannot get valuable co-pilot time on heavy ships because the pilot’s wives went as a body, and objected to the C.O. As I said once before, the Army wives around here certainly have too little to do, and don’t exert themselves to find more. Wouldn’t it be bright of the Navy Doctor’s wives to get together and decide they didn’t want nurses working with their husbands? You can buck the masculine prejudice in this flying game but it really makes you sore to have your hands tied by a bunch of brainless females.”
After touring the exhibits in Hangar 1, it is a short walk over to the adjacent Hangar 2, which houses several of the aircraft flown during the WASP program, the flight simulators used during training, as well as a replica of the barracks, and an interactive map with short biographies of the women who traveled from across the country to Avenger Field. Early August in west Texas is not necessarily the prime time to visit an aircraft hangar without air conditioning, but it’s worth sweating a little bit to take in all of the exhibits.
My lust for hardcore aviation pornography sated, I departed the National WASP Museum just shy of 2 hours after arriving. For those sufficiently gripped by boredom, a full image gallery with full-resolution photos can be found here.
Like its subject matter, and its location, the museum is exquisitely ordinary. Which isn’t to say it is uninteresting or poorly kept. To the contrary, the grounds are well maintained, the information and exhibits are well presented, and the staff is incredibly friendly. But it is unquestionably a small museum telling a small story. In the history of World War II, the Women Airforce Service Pilots may be just a footnote. But oftentimes, the footnotes, trivialities, and personal histories add a richness and context for the main story. A million deaths is a statistic, but each of those million lives is no less meaningful. Time well wasted.
Guided tours are available by request, but being both an introvert and a libertarian, I prefer to serve myself anyway.
This is best.
Pat is British?
Holdover from my misspent youth as a tech for a British line of paintball guns and equipment.
were classified and sealed for 35 years
The threat to national security is obvious. [eyes roll into back of head]
Even if the information was sensitive, hosting the program in Sweetwater, Texas would have provided reasonable assurance it wouldn’t have become known to the rest of the country for 35 years anyway.
Anti-clockwise is widershins.
And that was supposed to be in reply to POnick, but the Spirit of St Brooks is in the air.
But they had to keep stopping for directions?
😛
Do you remember what happened when a woman tried to pilot across the Pacific in 1937?
Amelia Earhart flew a lot of airplanes, except for that one time when she never came back.
Amen.
hold a private pilot’s license with at least 250 hours logged
I had no idea they all were already experienced pilots when they joined.
Incredibly, Trump hasn’t gotten around to having it torn down and replaced with a museum commemorating some great Confederate general.
Just wait, I’m sure he’s going to withhold the funding they need to update the museum to include trans women.
My mother was in the WAVES (women accepted for voluntary emergency service) during WWII, which was the Navy women’s unit. She was a nurse aide or somesuch in Pensacola, and told me that there was a very queeny, effeminate gay guy who worked on her ward. Nobody cared.
“The official WASP mascot, Fifinella, was designed by Walt Disney Studios, and licensed free of charge.”
While I was in Anaheim for a hockey tournament, we visited the site of Marine Corps Air Station El Toro. Walt personally drew their logo. I think it’s awesome he did that.
https://cityofirvine.org/news-media/calendar-of-events/event/walt-and-flying-bull-exhibition-6
I went to air shows there and later used their exchange. Alas it is no more. You can still see remnants in satellite views.
Tustin is also gone though they kept one of the hangers.
Los Al is still there.
They’ve turned it into a huge park with tons of sports fields, and the hockey rink I played at. It is really a nice park. That one hanger is still there with a tiny museum, much like the WASP museum.
SoCal was littered with military air fields. I don’t recall Mile Square since it closed in 1974. I remember the east strip still existed and was used by radio control enthusiasts.
Ukraine is letting men 18-22 leave the country for now. So there is up a 24 hour queue at the border as they get out of there quick. .https://x.com/MyLordBebo/status/1961101053073506337
That’s no way to conduct a war. Also, it looks like the country is being emptied of all of its passenger and cargo vans.
I certainly understand why they want to leave, but I wonder how they will be welcomed by those that stayed once this is all over. I’m guessing a large percentage of those will leave forever.
How many will come back?
If this was a popular war, they wouldn’t be using press gangs to recruit men.
Oh gaddammit, I need to mix up some piranha and wash a wafer. I really don’t need any more scars, and I thought I had left this part of the job back in Austin.
These euphemisms?
“Honest Dad, I was just cleaning it and it went off!”
Don’t forget to add the H2O2 slooowly. I made that mistake once…..once.
From someone who has worked in the museum exhibit industry for many years – that’s a nice museum.
The likelihood that I ever make it that museum approaches zero asymptotically, but it looks nice and has an interesting story. So thanks for sharing and giving a vicarious glimpse into the history.
I had no idea there were simulators back then. I wonder how they worked?
They were very buzzy?
I read that as stimulators and figured “They thought of everything for the ladies”
The F-16 “Lady Pleaser”
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/MDUr88X5XKM
The Link was quite the thing. https://www.militaryaviationmuseum.org/link-c-3-flight-trainer-restoration-update/
Possibly not completely off topic:
Sacrilege
The U.S. Air Force will provide Jan. 6 rioter Ashli Babbitt with military funeral honors, reversing a Biden-era decision that denied her family’s request, according to a legal group that has represented her family.
Judicial Watch, the conservative legal group, on Wednesday made public a letter from Under Secretary of the Air Force Matthew Lohmeier, extending an offer to allow the special funeral procedures to take place.
“I understand that the family’s initial request was denied by Air Force leadership in a letter dated February 9, 2021,” Lohmeier wrote in the Aug. 15 letter shared by Judicial Watch. “However, after reviewing the circumstances of Ashli’s death, and considering the information that has come forward since then, I am persuaded that the previous determination was incorrect.”
He additionally extended an invitation to her mother and husband to meet him at the Pentagon, so he may offer his condolences.
“Rioter.” They just can’t help themselves.
I don’t know what that means. Are they going to dig her up and move her, or just conduct a military ceremony at her grave site?
Hell, at this point, I won’t be surprised if each new administration excavates half of Arlington to remove undesirables.
Didn’t she break a window trying to gain access to the Senate chambers or something? That seems a bit riotous. Not worthy of having her head perforated while in a crowded space by an over-active cop, of course.
Someone else broke the window, IIRC, and she tried to climb through it. I don’t have a problem calling her and some of the others rioters, but as you say, not something she should have been killed over.
No. I saw the footage of her being shot. Others broke the window . It was straight up cold blooded murder.
I dont remember which incident Byrd was guilty of but he committed some absurd firearm snafu prior to that day. The guy has no business with a badge or a gun and should spend the rest of his life in prison.
Byrd left his service weapon in a public restroom, I believe.
Wearing a gun is a pain in the ass. How do you just notice you don’t have it any more?
He did, and he also picked a fight with someone at a sporting event
Also shot at someone and lied about it:
https://www.theblaze.com/news/cop-who-killed-ashli-babbitt-has-significant-discipline-history-including-gun-incidents-report
Are they going to dig her up and move her, or just conduct a military ceremony at her grave site?
The conspiracy theorists will have a field day.
I had no idea there were simulators back then. I wonder how they worked?
Springs and pulleys and cables, I assume.
From a cursory examination in-person, it did indeed appear to be mechanical pulleys, cables, and springs rigged up to mock controls and instruments.
https://www.nasflmuseum.com/link-trainer.html
Google AI Overview
The Link Trainer works by using a combination of a fixed base, air-driven bellows, a vacuum pump, and a computerized instructor station to create a simulated flight environment. Vacuum pressure from a pump actuates bellows and instruments to mimic an airplane’s movement and flight conditions. An instructor monitors the student’s performance on the instructor’s desk, which has a map table and a motorized “crab” that tracks the pilot’s path. The instructor can also send radio signals and vary wind speed and direction to add complexity to the training.
That is so awesome. I read the book Silent Victory about US subs in WWII. They had a “torpedo data computer” on each sub, which was an analog computer that would take inputs like target speed and direction, and sub speed and direction, and tell where to aim the torpedo. You never think about “technology” in WWII but they had it.
An analog computer like in the Norden bombsight.
One of the things I love most about the old Heinlein novels is the vacuum tube space ships that require books of tables to figure out the calculations to enter. It’s always something I love is seeing which technology was more or less properly predicted, and which ones were off by just enough to look ridiculous to a modern reader and utterly fantastic to the readers at the time.
WW1included heated flight suits, oxygen, and, at least for the Germans, in-flight serviceable engines.
Nice article, Pat. Thanks!
Didn’t she break a window trying to gain access to the Senate chambers or something?
I’m not sure where it was, and I don’t know if she broke it. She was apparently trying to pass through it in a terroristic manner.
What a pretty cool place. It seems like a place where I would love to take my daughters when they get older.
Very nice, Pat. Next time I am in Texas, I will check it out.
If traveling through on I-20, it’s right off an exit, so it’s easy to stop in and jump right back on the interstate.
I pass that sign several times a year, and always think it’s White Anglo Saxon Protestant, and they can get away with it because; Texas. I think there’s still a huge Confederate flag flying near I-20 and 84 West of Sweetwater.
What, no story boards lamenting lack of POC recruits, or how the WASP facilities were built by descendants of formerly enslaved people? Get with the times, folks. I recently went through an exhibit about a colonial governor (NC as I recall) where there was focus on some black friend of his who, you might think based on the exhibit, was the real governor of the colony.
There’s a small section dedicated to female aviators more generally, with a sub-section dedicated to racial/ethnic minorities, but for the most part, the museum sticks to its subject matter and isn’t obnoxiously preachy.
Out of bounds
Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith (D) blasted Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday after he suggested psychiatric drugs given to children could partly be to blame for school shootings.
“I dare you to go to Annunciation School and tell our grieving community, in effect, guns don’t kill kids, antidepressants do,” Smith wrote on the social platform X on Tuesday, just more than 24 hours after a deadly school shooting in Minneapolis. “Just shut up. Stop peddling bulls‑‑‑. You should be fired.”
Kennedy has long argued selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a class of antidepressants that increase serotonin and lift mood, are overprescribed, particularly for children.
You can’t contradict the egghead consensus.
“There’s only room for one demagogue on top of this pile of bodies!”
Anything that isn’t about gun grabbing is verboten.
And isn’t Kennedy a gun grabber, anyway?
“This message brought to you by Pfizer.”
Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith (D) sounds like a raging bitch. Maybe she could use a mood lifter.
I was on SSRIs for two years and if anything, it made me more anxious and depressed. My mood swings became more frequent and would flip out at the tiniest things. Thanksgiving 2022 was when I decided I needed to get off of them and let me tell you, it was hard but eventually after a couple of months, I started to feel better. It also helped that I switched therapists, left my stressful job and started working on myself as a person, father, and husband.
Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor and don’t recommend anyone stop taking their SSRIs without talking to a professional.
History buff mode as follow-on to the WASP thing: As far as interesting groups of women in WW2, everybody knows about the work at Bletchley Park. Less-well-known is the Western Approaches Tactical Unit (go see Wikipedia) – basically a wargaming operation developing and training convoy protection strategies. Go look it up for your entertainment and edification.
I’ve read about them. Very cool.
Have you (or anyone) been to the Eglin Airforce base museum in Niceville Florida? My grandfather was stationed there for a little bit and dad was born there.
Robin Westman, the 23-year-old suspect in the Minnesota shooting that killed 2 children, was assigned male at birth and applied for a name change at 17 to reflect a female identity, according to court records. Some conservatives online have seized on Westman’s gender identity to portray transgender people as mentally ill.
Preposterous hogwash!
Where to even begin.
It’s really pretty cool when they assign a baby’s sex in the delivery room. I’m sure every hospital has their own little ceremony for it, but at mine they had a little roller cage like for lotteries, loaded with pink and blue ping pong balls. The delivery room staff would have wagers on which it would be.
“Some liberals online have seized on Westman’s gender identity to portray the cowardly murderer in a more sympathetic light.”
Is that how this works?
Basically, you can be whatever gender you want to be, unless you shoot someone.
It’s right there in the TMITE Style Guide.
Trump to let in 600K Chinese students but they’re only going to Ed majors.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-ignites-conservative-backlash-opening-door-600000-chinese-students-madness
Only Ed majors? Diabolical.
Communist education majors? So….nothing will change?
The “art of the deal” includes giving a commie dictator the spy network he craves, I guess.
5D chess. He’s playing the long game. They’ll bring American education methods back to China with them, and within a generation their math scores will be in the bottom quartile.
You mean the spy ‘network’ he already has had for decades?
Pat is a fount of wisdom today. Well played.
“towing targets for anti-aircraft training”
Were those . . . live fire exercises?
“hold a private pilot’s license with at least 250 hours logged”
I’m somewhat surprised that many women had pilot’s licenses back then, especially if they were under 20.
“the flight simulators used during training“
I got a little time in one of simulators used for Warthog training here in Tucson. Great fun. You “fly” over Tucson, so of course I went to my neighborhood and lit up my neighbor with the barking dog.
They were, indeed.
Lol, nice. A film for you.
We also got it sit in an actual Warthog. Holy fuck, those things are uncomfortable.
Sadly, the humorless Sergeant didn’t let me keep the dummy 30mm round (my “I’m just really glad to see you” joke fell flat*). Which is . . . not small. Hard to imagine 65 of those going downrange every second.
*Not really. You wouldn’t dare joke with that guy.
I think this latest tranny shooting is a turning of the tide. The dems are about to lose another center plank. First open borders now this. It might kill two birds as well….the problem isnt guns, the problem is crazy people, crazy people the leftists have deliberately created. The evil fucks have probably own-goaled themselves on both issues. It looks like Trump is killing the pro-crime agenda. I think we are looking at the death of the party as we know it. Of course that wont mean the end of evil, lunatic marxists…we will always have those.
With any luck Mamdani will win in NYC and fully implement his stated agenda. Get a good taste of it NY.
Did I mention – I spent 20 mins driving earlier and heard 4 or 5 commentators on the radio stating the obvious: Trannys are mentally ill and this evil bullshit has to stop.
I will be absolutely astounded if the Democrat Party isn’t around in 50 years. Well, I will be in the highly unlikely even I live that long.
The name might be around but the full blown marxist evil is on its way out. We have had the slavers, confederates, Dixiecrats, nazis, marxists, progressives etc since day one and they wont disappear but they will have to crawl back under their rocks for maybe a generation.
The branding and useful idiots may change. The core of corrupt, soulless, grifting sociopaths won’t.
They survived the civil war and Wilson.
They will become more powerfull and collapse what is left of the republic.
I get that impression too. This time feels different. There are about 12 accounts on X that are dialed in to the Trump admin. I don’t know if they’re the canary in the coal mine, or if they’re driving policy. But they are all singing the same tune – this is another in a long line of trans shooters and they need to be stopped. I would expect the Trump admin to announce something within a week or so.
And yes, once again the Dems have put themselves on the wrong side of an 80/20 issue. This fits into the larger issue of crime too, which is a hot topic because of DC. There too, wrong side of an 80/20 issue.
Musk buying X was the turning point. We have so many people freely calling attention to the Dems idiocy you can’t ignore it.
We’re going to get something shitty, like no second amendment rights for people undergoing “gender care”.
“This time feels different”
Bingo. The outcry is open and brazen. No more getting cancelled for pointing out the obvious. People are sick of their shit.
Until X bans them and refuses to give them a reason.
The same people are in charge.
Nah, it’ll be “white male shoots up school — LGBT hardest hit
That already the Legacy Narrative.
The Alt Narrative seems to be what TOK described.
Two movies. One screen.
Just a matter of what side of the screen you’re sitting on.
Were those . . . live fire exercises?
The targets were on a long tether, hopefully.
the problem isnt guns, the problem is crazy people
The problem is crazy people with guns. The only sure way to keep guns away from crazy people is to keep them away from anybody and everybody. It’s a simple and elegant solution.
Or, and hear me out on this, maybe we keep crazy people away from anybody and everybody.
There’s also, let’s stop deliberately making crazy people even more crazy.
I’m as uncomfortable making blanket statements about “crazy” people and what they should or shouldn’t be allowed to do as I am with the gun grabbing, honestly.
That sounds like something a dangerous crazy person would say.
I hear that.
It’s almost like this is a complicated issue with no obvious, simple solution.
That was a big problem in the past, you could just get shuffled off to an asylum because somebody signed a piece of paper. I am not looking forward to this new concept.
R.J.:
Especially when being too individualistic will be considered a mental issue that needs treatment.
Giving the government control over who is or isn’t crazy is scarier to me than allowing them to confiscate guns.
Simple, elegant, and physically impossible.
In the end they will push that too far as well.
“We want a blanket ban on exercising inalienable rights with exceptions for certain people who get permission ” is going to be a losing argument.
I know…dream on.
Speaking of people being tired with shit these days.
Satisfying.
I am sending that to my daughter, the micro-Glib. She will love it.
Chefs kiss.