During World War II, more than 1,000 women volunteers completed the W.A.S.P. military pilot training program. They endured terrible Texas weather, snakes, spiders and scorpions, as well as the hostility of some male instructors. Graduating W.A.S.P.s piloted every kind of military aircraft, tested new and overhauled airplanes (some with defective parts or dangerous reputations), delivered more than 12,000 planes, and flew over 60 million miles—sometimes towing targets that soldiers shot at with live ammunition! Thirty-eight of them died serving their country. Then they were told that men needed their jobs and they were dismissed and forgotten.
Carol Simon Levin tells the story of the amazing W.A.S.P.s through the eyes of Ann Baumgartner Carl, the Jersey girl who trained as a W.A.S.P., became the only American woman to test-fly experimental planes during the war, and the first American woman to fly a jet airplane.
Levin will present her lecture, “A W.A.S.P. Takes Wing: The Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II” at the Pascack Historical Society, 19 Ridge Ave., Park Ridge, on Sunday, May 19 at 2 p.m. Admission is free and the program is open to all ages.
For more information, call (201) 573-0307 or visit pascackhistoricalsociety.org.
