Since the dawn of aviation, women have played a crucial role in promoting and participating in its evolution. In wartime, between 1942 and 1944, over 1,800 women left their homes and jobs from all corners of the United States for an unprecedented opportunity to become the first women in U.S. history to fly military aircraft for the U.S. Army Air Forces. They volunteered as civilians in an experimental program to train women to fly military aircraft and serve as pilots on the U.S. home front in order to free male pilots for overseas combat duty. They were the Women Airforce Service Pilots, better known as the WASP. Under the determined leadership of pilots, Jackie Cochran and Nancy Love, the WASP successfully fulfilled their duties, flying over 60 million miles, in every type of aircraft in the Army Air Force arsenal and in every capacity, except combat. During this lecture WASP historian, Julia Lauria-Blum, curatorial assistant and archivist at the Cradle of Aviation Museum, will discuss the history of the WASP, from the program’s infancy to its untimely deactivation in December 1944.

More information, and directions, are provided on our Calendar page. There you will also find information about past and future meetings.

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