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I'm Deanie Parrish and we're in the home of Barbara Heinrich in Baytown, Texas. She was a WASP class 43-3. It's the 28th of May, 2000. Okay, Barbara, it's all yours.

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All mine. That's a big question. I don't know what's... Just tell us who you are, where you were born, when.

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I'm now Barbara Willis Heinrich, and I was born in Framingham, Massachusetts, May 30, 1916. I always thought my mother was very nice about having me on a holiday. Never had to go to school.

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I was raised there in Framingham, and we moved down to New Jersey in 1928 and lived there. While you were in Framingham, did you start school? Yes. I went to the Montessori School there for, I guess, up through the fourth grade.

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Then when I moved down to Baytown, no, Boundbrook, New Jersey. When I moved down to Boundbrook, I had to repeat about two classes in math because I was way ahead in math and behind in English and spelling. So when you moved down to Framingham, you were in fifth grade?

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Probably yeah, I moved into the fourth grade because that's where my English and reading and stuff was. Tell me about your home life. What did you do for entertainment?

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Did you have brothers and sisters? Yeah, I had three brothers and a sister. And I sort of trotted after my next older brother, and whatever he did, I did. And also, at the age of eight, I got a horse and had horses all the rest of my life.

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Did you live out of the town so that you could keep a horse? Yeah, we kept the horse right there. We were up on a hill, but it was pretty well settled. We had a large lot, and we had room in the back for the horse and all, and kept him there

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in the barn. Do you remember any of your playmates besides your sister? Not too much. A couple of my brother's friends that I ran with, and getting into trouble and Halloween

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and stuff like that. What was your dad doing? He was working for a dentists and manufacturing company, and was in the paper manufacturing machine, paper manufacturing business.

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Why did you move to Framingham? Because he got an offer of being manager of the Walden Manufacturing Company in New Jersey, so we moved on account of that. He left Denison and went down there to manage the plant.

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Do you remember how you felt about that move? No, can't say I do. The only thing I remember about the move was the fact that we crated the horse up and shipped him down on the train with us.

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And I went down to the station and unquenched him and saddled him up and rode him home. That's the only thing I remember about the move. Do you remember any of your teachers in that Montessori school that might have impressed you?

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No. No. I don't remember any except that I got in trouble with a French teacher because I built a paper airplane and sailed it and it did not go where it was supposed to. It hit her

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in the neck and she was too appreciative of that. That is the only thing I remember. We used to walk to school. I know my older brother used to always go in the train station and jiggle all the gum machines to see if there was any money left in them. He often finds them.

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What were winters like for you growing up? Well, I guess I did not appreciate them too much. I always said I would never raise my children where I had to put snowsuits on. Did you skate or ski?

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In a very primitive fashion. We were up on a hill and they used to block off the road next to us And I did skate some, but not good. My ankles were too weak. Do you remember anything outstanding that happened while you were living, before you moved to Framingham?

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From Framingham? No. Okay. Then you moved to Framingham and started school again. What kind of school was this? We moved to Brown Brook and started school. It was a private school called Annabel. I just found out that my dad was a trustee of the school.

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Never knew that. When I was going through his old papers. We were there and it was what you'd call a small school, because we graduated in the class of four.

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So there weren't too many at the school. Did you go all the way through high school there? Yeah. Tell me about your social life while you were going through school.

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Did you start dating? No, that wasn't considered too proper. About the only social life I remember, going to the school graduation dance. I don't remember having much social life.

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We lived halfway up a hill, sort of out in the country, so to speak, away from town, so that we didn't have too much of a social life. I knew one of the girls in my class very well. I liked her, and I'd go and see her quite a bit.

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But outside of that, I rode horses, go to school, ride horses in the afternoon and do What did you enjoy about school? About school? Recess. Oh, I didn't enjoy that school too much.

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While you were in high school, did you have a goal as far as your education or as far as what you wanted to do with your life? No, I didn't have, I was sort of retired that way. No I didn't, because my mother even picked out college for me. She said she didn't think Wellesley was too big for me, so she picked Bannington.

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I went up there and had a marvelous time. I quite agreed with her for picking it. Do you remember any role models that you had when you were in school? Role models? No. Sorry. No role models that I can remember.

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How far was Bennington from your home when you left? Hmm. About, I'd say, about a six, oh, probably four or five hour train trip. Okay. How did you feel about leaving home? I was probably scared to death.

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When you got up to Bennington, where did you live? They had individual houses with sort of a house mother in each house in Bennington. It would be about twenty students to a house. That's where I lived.

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I had a room. At this time, did you have male classmates also? No, they were just female. The only male was my fencing instructor.

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He was male. And some of the drama department was male. But that's all. There's usually only about three or four males in Bennington.

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When you mentioned fencing, did you have a class in fencing? Yes. Did you enjoy that? What did you do with that?

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Nothing. It was just good exercise. When you lived in individual houses, did you have a roommate? No.

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Mainly, there was—most of them were individual rooms. There were some doubles, but as I say, I palled around with Peg Hepburn. Okay. And would you tell us who Peg Hepburn is?

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Well, the sister of Katherine Hepburn, who was the movie actress. During that time, was Kate Hepburn already in the movies? Oh, yes. And how did that impress you?

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Well, she was in plays maybe first, because I know I went down one time and saw her in play and went backstage and met her. Was that where? New York? That was in New York, yeah. But Dad took me in.

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What were your outside activities besides riding horses while you were at Bennington? I didn't ride on Bennington. Outside activities. I was dating boys. I don't know what other activities. Were you interested in drama?

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No, I had a friend that was in drama, I remember, and I used to go up and knit while she was practicing and all, because I could knit while watching her and not have to watch. While you were studying at Bennington, what was your main goal, academic goal? Well I was doing botany, not really looking to the future too much, although once I graduated

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I did try to get jobs in research in the different firms, Burpee and some of those, but they sort of did not want women at the time. So I dropped that and did not do anything there, so I went to the University of Chicago to do graduate work.

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How did you get to the University of Chicago? Rose: Rotary. Did you have other friends that were going? No, except my oldest brother and his wife was in Chicago.

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I lived right close to them, so they were going to the university at that time. I don't know if it was a university. Yes, they were. He was working. Why did you choose University of Chicago? Yes, because they were there. I don't know.

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Or maybe because they were one of the few that accepted me from Bennington. It was very hard to translate Bennington academic marks into a standard college deal. A lot of colleges didn't take Bennington students. So when you went to Chicago, what was your master's going to be in?

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Well, it was going to be in physics, until I discovered that Bennington had really not given me the background to do physics. So then I transferred to botany. And then I discovered that botany I had to do too much spelling in, and me and spelling do not go together. So about that time, I discovered the Civil Pilot Training Program and applied and got accepted.

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So I did that. I learned to fly, got my license, and then when they kicked the two women out of thirteen boys out, because they said they would never be able to fly for the Army. I stayed on at the field as a gopher and assistant mechanic and got flying time in there.

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Until the Navy—and I have no idea how I heard it—the Navy was taking women flyers on as link trainers for the Navy pilots and the Army pilots. We had both. We trained.

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Let me back up, Barbara, and ask you, where were you when Pearl Harbor happened? Chicago. In Chicago. In school?

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Yeah. Do you remember the first airplane you ever saw? No. What gave you the love of wanting to fly?

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Well, I thought I always wanted to fly, and Dad had always said that if I found a real good instructor, I could go ahead and do it. So I figured when the Army was offering to train pilots that that was good enough, so I applied.

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What did your mother think? Oh, she was all for anything we wanted to do. During the summers when you were at the University of Chicago, what would you do during the summer? I worked at the airport and flied.

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Tell us about your first instructor, your first flight. My first instructor was named Lightfoot. He was Indian descent, and I thoroughly enjoyed him. After they kicked us off, he would let me fly in the back of his airplane.

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He went up to practice the acrobatics, and of course he would teach me how to do it. So even though the Army threw us out, I got to learn the acrobatics of the top course. While you were in the CPT course, what did that consist of besides just flying? Well, flying and the strict—a bunch of maneuvers that you had to do to enter the Army to pass

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your Army flight test. Did you also have ground school classes? Oh, yeah. We had ground school classes, too.

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Tell me about those. Actually, I do not remember much about them. They were up at the University of Chicago, and I do not remember too much. It didn't make an impression evidently.

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Were your classes at the school and not at the airport? I think the ground school was at the school, but the flying was all at the airport, of course. Do you remember what kind of restrictions they had on you as far as flying?

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Because this was after Pearl Harbor, right? No, I don't remember any. Because I know we flew all around Chicago, and I remember with one of the boys, I flew east one time and back.

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I've forgotten why. I think he wanted to go see somebody, so I just went along and back. I don't remember any restrictions at all. And then I went into—when they kicked the women out, I went into the Civil Air Patrol.

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And we had two or three rescue missions with them. And of course, we had no restrictions there. Okay. When they kicked you out of the CPT program, then what did you do at the airport?

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I just played as both an assistant mechanic. I worked out there. I was night watchman, too. I used to sleep out at the airport.

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How did you learn how to work on those, to be a mechanics helper? Well, I was always mechanically inclined. I had a Model A-4 that needed no end of taking care of. I like mechanics, and the mechanics at the airport would always show me how.

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I did not do major things, but I could do all the little things they would give it to me to do that would just take them time. They would do the major stuff. Were you doing that in addition to studying at the university?

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No, usually I did that in the summer. Do you remember the first airplane you flew, what type it was? No, it was probably a Taylorcraft, a two-seater Taylorcraft. Tell us about your first solo.

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I don't remember my first solo there at all. I just remember the one when I was at Sweetwater, and I finally landed and the instructor was shaking his head and thought, "I thought I was going to have to shoot you down." I'd come in way too high, way too high, way too high, and I had a terrible time, and I

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finally made it to the ground. Okay. When you were still at the University of Chicago, did you hear about the WASP? I don't think I heard about the WASP, no, not until we were down in the Naval School.

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Okay. How did you find out about the Naval School? I think Cochran came down to enlist anyone she could find that had flying hours to see if they'd join the wars.

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She set up an Army physical for us all, and all the ones that wanted to, we went down there. There must have been thirteen more of us girls went down and took the physicals. And then very shortly went out to Sweetwater for class.

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Tell me about instructing in link trainer. Who were your students? There were usually naval and army officers. We had both of them, colonels, lieutenants, colonels, all kinds that would come in for

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link training that they needed to have for their blind flying. And of course, we would practice on each other and everything. Where was this naval air station? Atlanta, Georgia.

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And how long would you have a student before you would pass them? Oh, they had to get in, I've forgotten how many hours of Linc training, probably 10 or 15 hours of Linc training to go with that blind flying. When those officers left there, where do you think they were going? I have no idea because it was a constant rotation and we never got really familiar with them.

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Did you have your Ford down with you in Atlanta? No, we took trolley cars. Where did you live while you were working? There were a bunch of us girls living in one house.

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I know in one of the houses, there were quite a few of us all in the same house, and we had different apartments and stuff. When you left the University of Chicago, did you leave behind special, very special friends there?

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No, I never made any real friends there. I was always living with my brother and his wife, and so I never did much work there. - Okay, your friend, Miss Hepburn, that you left at Bennington,

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did you keep in touch with that particular friend? - Oh yeah, yeah, we'd still keep in touch. - Okay, was she ever interested in flying? - No. - No, okay.

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Once you sent in your, or once Miss Cochran informed you about the WASP and you did your physical, Did you take that at the Navy base? We took it at an Army base, but close to the Navy base, but in Atlanta or just south of

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Atlanta. I don't remember. What did you expect that you would do if you went into—what were you told the WASPs were all about?

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Well, flying airplanes for the Army. Airplanes is what we mainly heard were interested in anyways. Why would you do that? Why did you think—

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Get to fly. Get to fly. So when you left the Naval Air Station, were there other girls that were now your friends? Did they go with you?

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Yeah. There was about thirteen of us left. The only one I really remember was my husband's sister, Betty Hiner. She went through Sweetwater.

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She wasn't stationed in Dallas. She was training navigators down in someplace Texas, south of here. I can't think of it. Did all thirteen of you go on the train together to Sweetwater?

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How did you get there? No, I think we all went differently. I know what I did is I ran down and saw my husband-to-be here in Baytown and then took the train on up to Sweetwater.

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Okay, let's back up and find out when you met your husband-to-be. Where were you? Well, we were in Atlanta at the Navy base. He came up to see his sister, and his sister is my best friend up there.

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He came up and took thirteen of us out to dinner. Then afterwards, when he got through, he said, "I can't afford this, Betty." He said, "Who should I concentrate on?" She said, "Me."

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So that's the way it went. Do you think that was kind of love at first sight with him? Well, yeah, I always, I always said to myself that if it comes to be, he's going to be the man I marry.

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Could you tell me what qualities you saw in him that appealed to you? He was the most intelligent man I ever met. Besides, he was generous. Nice. We just hit it off.

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So his sister went with you when you went to Sweetwater. What were your first impressions? Had you ever been to Texas before? No. Oh, well, I've gone through it. I used to go out to Wickenburg, Arizona, on a dude ranch out there.

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Mom and Dad would keep one of our nephews that couldn't take the winter up in Massachusetts. He would go out there in the springtime. Mom used to go out and spell my aunt taking care of the boys, because she loved it out there.

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riding horses and everything, and we'd often go out with her. And I know I drove back home a couple of times with Dad, and we'd go through Texas. As you were growing up, did you take family vacations? Yes, because we had a house down on Cape Cod, and so we would spend the summer down there.

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And even when we moved down to Jersey, we would go to the Cape in the summertime and then Dad would come up in a weekend train. They used to have what they called a Cape Carter and they would leave in New York on Friday evening and go back on Sunday evening.

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And there were quite a few men that would just ride it up to the Cape for the weekend and then go back. And of course, mother and then the kids would stay up at the Cape all year. Looking back at your childhood, what is the most outstanding one thing that you remember

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about your childhood? One thing? I think we were well off. Mommy was a very permissive thing, so we used to just have a pretty good time.

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But I don't remember any one thing that made any impression. As a child, were you given chores to do or were you taught? No. No, I'm afraid we were.

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When do you think that you became more or less responsible for yourself? Probably when I got in college. Okay. I didn't use to send the laundry back then.

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It seems funny nowadays, but it was cheaper to send the laundry back past the post and get it done up there. Yeah. That's interesting.

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Yeah, we used to have regular boxes. They were about this size, about this size, about this size. And I always sent laundry back. Mother would, of course, get it all nicely done and send it back, always with a little

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present or something in it. It was fascinating. Did that happen when you got to Sweetwater also? Oh, no, that was just in college, when I was in Bennington.

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That was the end of that. When you arrived in Sweetwater, give me your impressions of Sweetwater and of a venture field. Well, it was interesting.

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Well, of course, it was interesting, too, on account of when our class went in, it was still two-thirds men and one-third WASPs. And so in the next class, the top class of that graduated men, then it was two WASPs and one man, and then finally it was all WASPs.

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But it was quite interesting. I think we completely drove all the senior officers crazy, because they said there wasn't supposed to be any fraternization. When you had WASP about four feet away from the males, it was a little impossible not

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to have part of it going. So I think we drove them all crazy, or in the white hair anyway. But it was interesting. I remember the summer time, it was hot as could be there.

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We were wearing these great big flappy flight suits, and then you had to have parachutes on and everything. It was quite hot, although we were flying open cockpits in the first two. Kelly: When you got to Avenger, were there already WASP trainees there?

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Dwight: No, we were the first. What kind of reception did you get from the male pilots who were training? Well, they thought it was a lot of fun, too. That was one of the problems. They thought it was grand having a bunch of females right next door.

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Tell me about the mess hall. Tell me about the food. It must have been all right because it really didn't make an impression on me. I'm not too fussy about food. I just like to eat.

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Can you describe the barracks where you lived? Yeah, barracks were rooms of six gals to a room, one bathroom, and six showers. One big shower place with six heads, and it was just sort of a communal living. What was the biggest adjustment that you had to make?

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I guess Army discipline, Army PT and all that sort of stuff. from P to P team, marching to the missile, marching here and there, saluting their officers and things like that there. Can you describe your bay mates?

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No, just five other girls. None of them really made much of an impression. Because Betty She was there, but she was in a different bay. None of the other girls that I got very fond of was in another bay. They were all just women, different sizes, shapes, and determined to go through trying

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to— Kelly: Describe a typical day while you were at a pension. on a long time ago. I would think it would probably have been breakfast, PT, flight line, lunch, flight line, ground school, and that would be it.

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Tell me about ground school. What did you study in ground school? We had navigation, of course, and vaguely how the engines worked and that, and Morse Code, which I was awful at.

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I do not remember much else, just mainly navigation, flight, different flight things. Can you just tell me about some of the rules that you had when you got to Avenger? Well, we had to stay on the base, of course, without special permission. We weren't supposed to fraternize with the boys.

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Outside of that, classes and PT, and that was about our routine. We just kept going out of fluke, usually morning and afternoon when the weather was permissible. Weather was bad, they usually put it into ground school and kept us busy. What did they tell you to expect as far as washing out or as far as graduating?

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You mean the percentage or something? No. What did you expect if you got through and graduated? What did you expect then to do?

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Go fly on the Army bases. We thought to get the most time in and cover the most territory. Ferry command sounded like the most fun, so that's what we applied for. Tell me about your first instructor and your first airplane to fly there.

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How was that different from what you had been flying? It wasn't different, because I had flown that time. It was just open cockpit, by wing, small engine job. This was summertime, an open cockpit.

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What did you do about your hair? Well, we had a helmet. We wore a helmet, and so it wasn't much problem. My other friend had her hair—she used to put her hair up in big dales.

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She was finally told that they were not proper for the Army, so she cut them off. So she did. Kelly: Tell me about your solo. Reifeldt: Well, I said, "That's where my instructor said he thought he was going

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to have to shoot me down." But I finally made it. I kept coming in high and coming in high and too fast. I had to go around, do it again, do it again.

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Finally I got down where I belonged and close to the ground and got in. Could you describe the auxiliary fields that you flew out of? Yeah, they were just plane pastures. We'd either fly over there or they'd have the planes over. Usually we flew over and made our first landing there and then we'd go.

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And then they'd cart us back and forth as the next group came in to fly. They'd take that group back to the base and then that group would fly. But the first ones in the morning would fly from the airport, Sweetwater Airport, over to these little fields. Kelly: When you got there and the cadets were still there, did you share instructors?

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Blankenship: Oh, yeah. We wouldn't be there at the same time as the boys. No, they'd have them stay. The girls and boys would be at separate times.

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Firstly, of course, when we first went, we were having just the primary instructors and The boys were secondary and advanced. So of course we did not have the same instructors, because usually a primary and advanced were different instructors.

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Kelly: When you finished primary, were you given some time off before you went to basic? Reid: I do not remember any. Kelly: So you would not have gone home? No, I don't remember going home.

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I think I probably went home between Sweetwater and Love Field, but I don't remember. Do you remember the first graduation that happened at that field and describe that? Yeah, that was us. And Cochran came down and pinned our wings on, and we had to march, of course, in military

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formation up and stand for attention with all the speech making and everything. And then got our wings, called up to get our wings, and she pinned them on. She was there. In the meantime, had another class come in?

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Yeah. Two more classes to come in by the time we graduated. Before you graduated, were you given a choice of assignments? Yeah, they had a bunch of them listed, and we could pick our assignments.

00:38:17.320 - 00:38:41.560

There were some out in California, and there was a Lovefield, and then there was some, of course, up in Delaware. We had quite a fair selection with hopes of getting what we picked. I think probably about at least half of us got what we picked.

00:38:42.400 - 00:39:00.240

Other ones were just assigned depending on how many they wanted and different places they would assign you. While you were in training, do you remember any outstanding incident that happened, maybe to another trainee?

00:39:03.100 - 00:39:17.240

No. I just remember Connie got through by then. I think we all got through by then. We thought by her, we thought we weren't going to make it, but we did.

00:39:18.640 - 00:39:31.200

Were any of the girls killed while you were there? I'm not conscious now. I don't think so. Were any of your baymates washed out?

00:39:32.340 - 00:39:48.320

Yeah, I think a couple of them were. Did that have any effect on you? No, except I was scared to death I wasn't going to pass. What did you enjoy most about the training?

00:39:49.760 - 00:40:08.460

Flying the airplane. But what particular maneuver? Oh, I liked the acrobatics, which of course we were not supposed to do particularly. But I could find that in night flying, you took off and you had to make a certain round

00:40:08.540 - 00:40:22.280

and stuff and had to practice in a certain area. And if you fly up there, you turn your lights off, you would do spins and rolls, and nobody would know it. But it was fun.

00:40:22.530 - 00:40:55.180

Interviewer: Describe what instrument training was all about. Well, we got the instrument training, but having done so much of the link training work, There was very little for us because we had over a hundred hours in the link training. So we fundamentally had all the instrument work, but we did not really get that until

00:40:55.180 - 00:41:12.480

we got to our home base, Love Field. Then we took instrument training for flying the pursuits and things, although we were not supposed to fly in instrument weather with pursuits. Okay. End of take one.

00:41:13.440 - 00:41:21.340

You're doing great. Okay. You might want to turn that on while she's changing her tail. Turn the lights off and spin. Yeah.

00:41:22.580 - 00:41:29.420

That's a wonderful way to do it. Turn the lights off and... [beep] Molly, you can talk to her and I'll turn it on.

00:41:29.600 - 00:41:49.180

[beep] Okay. I want to know, on weekends at Avenger, what did you do for fun? Well, sometimes we went down to Sweetwater, at the hotel there, and went around. We were pretty good friends with the primary instructor.

00:41:49.250 - 00:42:00.100

We used to go out to his house sometimes. Was that allowed? Oh, yeah. It was allowed, but we did. Never occurred to me it wasn't.

00:42:00.940 - 00:42:18.280

And, well, he was married and everything, he had a wife and all. And then also Sweetwater, I know at one time the Chamber of Commerce gave us a barbecue. We went out there and barbecued by somebody's place on the lake. It was very nice.

00:42:19.280 - 00:42:46.260

And then sometimes when there was a dance over at, what was it, Big Springs? Big Springs, thank you, thank you. big springs, why we would gather in Connie's car and go over there for the evening and have a great time. I know one time we were driving back and Connie said, "I know I shouldn't

00:42:46.320 - 00:43:11.020

be driving on the grass by the road," but I said, "Well, they've got it all cut down and everything, why not?" So I gather we were a little looped like that, and very happy. How did Connie get gas? She had a good friend that was a pilot, too, that managed—he could get anything.

00:43:11.340 - 00:43:38.420

He managed to get a bunch of extra gas tickets and give them to Connie to use. So we got to be able to drive into Sweetwater and places like that. And then we also could drive—sweet water was dry, but the little towns around it weren't, so you had to drive a little ways out to be able to pick up some liquor, which we would

00:43:38.520 - 00:43:54.280

do every so often and come back. And was that not against the rules? Oh, yes, it was against the rules. But you know, somebody always said, "Rooms are made to be broken."

00:43:54.280 - 00:44:01.740

That's what we figured. Did you have inspections? Tell me about inspections. Oh, yes, inspections with white gloves.

00:44:03.620 - 00:44:23.880

They'd come in, officers in white gloves, wipe above the doorways. I had a bed that had to be just so made, there was not a wrinkle anywhere, and clothes hung so in the place. Very nuisance, we considered it a darn nuisance.

00:44:24.420 - 00:44:37.700

Kelly: And if they did find us, what happened? Black: We had demerits, but I do not know what the demerits ever turned into. I guess I never got enough of them to know. Kelly: Tell me about your beds.

00:44:39.500 - 00:45:03.100

Well, as my opinion, thinking about it, it's sort of like a cot. I was just—there were six, three together, and that was it. And we had dark army blankets that we had to fold just so, and like that. What were your uniforms like?

00:45:04.600 - 00:45:29.680

That was a great variety. When we first went in, our uniforms were just, I guess, like a private or so. They were just khaki, although we spent most of the day in the big flight coveralls. We wore those most of the day, which were set up for boys, I'm sure, because they

00:45:29.680 - 00:46:05.660

were all about three sizes too big. Then when we got to Love Field, we were considered as officers, so that we went into what they called pinks, which is a light gray or light gray brown pants and then a white top. We sometimes wore blue, there was a light blue top.

00:46:08.080 - 00:46:29.400

Although, I guess those were later on when we finally—Cochran was trying to get us into a uniform of blue. And finally, she got blue pants and a jacket. Then we also had what they called the Eisenhower jacket that just came with a tight sort of

00:46:29.120 - 00:46:49.960

It was a nice jacket. And finally, she got through what she wanted, and so we went into a total blue. Kelly: While you were in training, did Ms. Cochran ever come to the field? Dixon: I would know.

00:46:50.280 - 00:47:08.700

I only remember—I know she was there for our graduation. She came in, but she would probably come in other times. Of the girls that you met after you got to Avenger, have any of those girls remained close?

00:47:10.480 - 00:47:37.200

Well, of course, my husband's sister, although I do not see too much of her. But mainly the one that stayed the closest was Connie, the one that had the car and the gasoline, and also had a friend that she managed. One of the few—our airport was restricted from anybody landing there, although one of

00:47:37.260 - 00:48:01.000

her friends, one of her Navy friends, managed—he managed—this is the one that got the gas He managed to talk them into letting him land there once. I think he claimed he had an emergency or something, because I remember they went out and she went out with him and I dated the mechanic that flew with him, and we had a

00:48:01.000 - 00:48:12.220

great date. In the meantime, were you corresponding with your husband-to-be? Did you see him any time? Yeah, because he used to come up.

00:48:12.360 - 00:48:25.840

He came up, I think, to Sweetwater maybe once or so, but he used to come up to Dallas on train. They used to have a train that went straight from Houston to Dallas. But I was corresponding with him, yeah.

00:48:27.230 - 00:48:46.380

At this point, when you graduated, was it serious? Well, I figured if it turned out, I would, yeah. When you graduated, where were your orders? What did your orders say?

00:48:47.190 - 00:49:01.040

They said we would report to Love Field at Sussex Church of Time. Did you go home? I think I probably did. Do you remember the attitude of your family once you had finished and graduated?

00:49:01.720 - 00:49:16.040

They were proud as peacocks of me. I thought I was just doing wonderful. Were some of the other girls in your class also sent to Love Field? Reid: Yeah.

00:49:17.460 - 00:49:33.840

Connie went, and I don't remember the others, but some of them were, yeah. Kelly: When you reported to Love Field, to whom did you report? Reid: I wouldn't know at this time. Whoever they told us to.

00:49:35.120 - 00:49:51.360

But I must say that Love Field, I think, was one of the best places that the WASPs were. As far as I know, there was practically no prejudice there at all. It was just wonderful. They had them set up, and as you came in from your flight, back from your flight, you were

00:49:51.440 - 00:50:06.900

put right back on the list, and you just rotated with the boys. There was never any question. Kelly: When you first got there, where did you live? One of the boys' barracks was turned over to WASP, made into a WASP barracks.

00:50:07.870 - 00:50:23.540

Who was your immediate supervisor? One of the WAFs was our supervisor there. How did the WAFs treat you? as the train was coming in?

00:50:23.600 - 00:50:37.340

Fine and dandy, I think. I don't remember any question or any arguments or anything about anything. Where did you eat? Officer's Mess.

00:50:41.340 - 00:50:59.740

Take us through the first time you reported for duty on the flight line. I have no idea. I just know that we were given orders and we would go pick the plane up. A lot of them came out of Wichita, Kansas.

00:51:05.540 - 00:51:34.900

A bunch of the little yellow barrels were picked up at the manufacturing place there and then flown out to California, which was quite an event. We went as groups, and one of the WASPs—and I didn't realize it, but one of the WASPs that she remembered, she flew out, and I was commander of the group.

00:51:35.310 - 00:51:56.800

I have no idea about it at all. I just remember that the flight out there was something, because they didn't have too far range, so we had to keep stopping in all the little tiny ports, airports along the way. And then we had to go way south around Bakersfield to be able to get around the mountains

00:51:56.920 - 00:52:21.640

because they did not have the altitude to fly over the mountains, so we had to go around them. And it was really quite a time. So it usually took us almost a week to get out there, going from one little field to another little field to another, and then we'd go. I still remember, at the Sweet Fluids groups, most all the time we took them out there.

00:52:24.360 - 00:52:44.540

I remember one winter we were all in these sort of fur-lined jackets and pants, and we had a chamois mask that went over our face, underneath the helmet. So you could just see the eyes and practically nose and mouth because it often caught me. It was so cold in the wintertime.

00:52:44.540 - 00:52:59.660

It was just ice because you couldn't move. The big jackets on you were stuck in one position. And I got down off of one field and the mechanic came out and said, "Sir, can I gas it up now?"

00:52:59.660 - 00:53:13.000

And I said, "Yes, you can." And he said, "Oh, I'm sorry, madam. I thought you were a man." over your face and everything, you couldn't tell who was who. But it always struck me

00:53:13.000 - 00:53:39.220

as funny. But very shortly after, we went down to pursuit school, and then we got to fly the pursuits. And of course, that was almost just single flying. You just flew yourself. Let me back up to the trips. Describe for me a typical mission, what you would take

00:53:39.340 - 00:53:56.340

with you, how you would get back. What you took with you in the smaller planes, probably about the same thing. You have a briefcase with you, which I usually put behind me because I'm sort of short, so I could reach the rudder pedals and stuff.

00:53:57.360 - 00:54:19.080

And usually took maybe an extra shirt and your orders, and that's it. And you'd pick up your plane and take it to the first stage place and then the next until you delivered it. And when you delivered it then, how would you get back to your base?

00:54:19.880 - 00:54:40.900

We had A-1 priority on commercial airplanes, so we could knock anybody off. Did you have your own parachute? Yeah, which we had to carry with us. It was just given to you for the trip.

00:54:41.680 - 00:55:01.020

We just picked up a regular enemy parachute and took it for that trip. Of course, once we started flying pursuits, we usually carried a gun with us, too. I got into trouble over that, because I thought there was no sense having a gun if you had never shot it.

00:55:02.560 - 00:55:22.820

So one time, I would pick up fifty ones and would take them up to Newark, New Jersey, for invocation. Our home house in Brown Brook was on the hill, which was the first hill sort of in New Jersey, and right on the airline, airway.

00:55:24.200 - 00:55:40.360

So I would begin to let down quite a ways back. So by the time I got to our house, I was probably going top speed, you know, five, six hundred miles an hour. And I would just go right down in front of our house, make a chandelier, come back down

00:55:40.320 - 00:55:54.440

by the house and go to Newark. So Mama would know that within about a half an hour I would call to say whether I had time to lay over or whether I just talked to her on the telephone and I would go off on further orders.

00:55:56.240 - 00:56:12.800

So if we had time to, she would go down and pick up the gas and the gas guy would say, "Well, I heard your daughter was just by." Because it would just shake all the neighborhoods, something going forth like that. We'd just rattle everything off of us.

00:56:14.290 - 00:56:32.840

And then she'd come in and we'd come off and go back home for the night, and then she'd drive me back again and pick up the commercial by. But our best flight would be to take a P-51 from Fort Worth, where they were manufactured, to Newark.

00:56:33.660 - 00:56:53.400

And then we'd pick up orders from Newark. Our next order would be to go up to Buffalo Commercial and then pick up a P-39 at Buffalo, which was usually in Russian markings, and fly it to Great Falls. And then the men would take it up to Alaska, and then the Russians would come over and

00:56:53.400 - 00:57:06.880

pick it up there. And then when we got to Great Falls, we'd take it to Commercial down to Los Angeles, where they also made P-51s. And then we'd pick up a P-51 there and take it across the country to Newark.

00:57:07.660 - 00:57:25.300

And usually by that time, our home base would say, "You better come home." But we just loved that whole swing around the U.S. That was a marvelous trip. Usually, how many would be in one flight doing that?

00:57:25.420 - 00:57:43.940

And would it be both WASP and male pilots? No. Once you went into pursuits, there was nobody with you. Let's back up just a moment and let me ask you about going to pursuit school training.

00:57:44.660 - 00:57:57.340

How were you selected to go to that? We applied. We found that and we applied. I think we were one of the first girl classes down there.

00:57:58.080 - 00:58:15.040

down, there were two or three of us from Love Field that went down. Connie went down, I went down, and that first class. Where did you go? Brownsville. They had an air base there, which was training pursuits.

00:58:16.040 - 00:58:25.300

And who were your instructors? I have no idea. Were they Air Force officers? Oh, yes. We were completely in the Air Force base there.

00:58:26.280 - 00:58:51.800

Tell me about the checkout procedure. Well, the checkout procedure in pursuit is they give you the manual, you read it and memorize it, then you sit in the cockpit and memorize all the places and things it goes. And then he sort of gives you a test, and he said, "Okay, take it off."

00:58:51.800 - 00:59:06.920

And so you took it off. And then I would go up in the clouds up above and practice landing on the tops of clouds and things to get the idea of how it came in at that—acted at the speed we were supposed to come in at.

00:59:06.960 - 00:59:24.860

And then after I played around up there and practiced a while, then I'd come on back down to earth and land there. Kelly: How long were you in school? I think we trained four different planes, I think it was.

00:59:25.540 - 00:59:37.900

I think we were there about a month. What were the airplanes? The 51, the 39, the 47, and 40. Of those airplanes, which was your favorite?

00:59:39.280 - 00:59:57.820

Why? We flew the 51 most, because we were right next to Fort Worth, so when they were ready, we'd take them. Although they were supposed to have been flown before, most of the time it was just by pen.

00:59:58.260 - 01:00:14.220

They just marked in one-hour flight. The first hour, we would take them. If anything happened, we took them back to the manufacturer. After the first hour, then it was the Army's plane, and you took them to an Army field

01:00:14.460 - 01:00:35.580

for repairs or anything. So actually, we were test flying for the first hour for the Army. So I liked the P-51, but I thought that the P-39 was better on acrobatics than the 51. It was very easy to handle.

01:00:37.400 - 01:00:51.500

But of course, we weren't supposed to do acrobatics. Well, most of your flights to where? To Newark? To Newark. Okay. And where were those airplanes' final destination? Do you know?

01:00:52.540 - 01:01:12.200

Europe, but I do not know where. No, they put them on ships. They mothballed them and stuck them on the decks of the ships and stuff and took them overseas and took them off. So I do not know where. While you were at Love Field, did you get orders to go to additional training?

01:01:14.060 - 01:01:30.620

Yeah. Besides the pursuit, later on they sent us to officers' training in Florida, which we all resented very much because it took away from our flight time. What was the purpose of that training?

01:01:30.620 - 01:01:46.620

When did they claim they were going to make us officers? Which of course they never did for thirty-seven years. Can you describe that training, how long you were there and what it consisted of? I think we were there only about three weeks.

01:01:47.860 - 01:02:07.560

It consisted of learning—I remember—recognition of all the airplanes. We had to learn those and all the different officers' training stuff. I don't know, we just liked it anyway. Did you actually have a graduation from that school?

01:02:08.760 - 01:02:23.460

Well, we got a paper saying we had completed it, but that's all I can remember is the graduation. Then we went back to Love Field and got back to flying again. Could I back up just a minute and ask you about this gun that you were supposed to carry?

01:02:23.720 - 01:02:44.500

Which flights did that happen? The pursuits, they thought for a while, they claimed we were supposed to guard the pursuits because it had all kinds of sensitive instruments on it that they did not want anybody to have. I had the fight with them.

01:02:44.620 - 01:03:06.060

It was one of the times that I got to stay over, go back to my home in Balmbrook. I had the gun and I thought, "Well, it is silly to have a gun I have never shot." So I took it out and shot it a couple of times. And I come back to Love Field, and they said that two of the bullets were missing.

01:03:06.920 - 01:03:24.080

And I said, "Yeah, I shot it because I thought I ought to shoot a gun that I had never shot." And they just raised all kinds of heck about that, because I had used up two bullets, Army bullets. I couldn't understand it.

01:03:24.780 - 01:03:39.080

They just didn't see my logic that I thought I should shoot at guns. It was Army property, and I used it up. Was there ever a time when you were flying when you were really afraid? If so, tell me about it.

01:03:40.320 - 01:04:04.960

I was afraid. I remember I listened to one gal go take a parachute on the intercom. One of her oil lines broke and just smattered all over the windshield, so she couldn't see a thing.

01:04:05.900 - 01:04:14.600

So she had to bail out. I remember listening to that. But no, there wasn't any time that I was really afraid, because I never had anything much go wrong.

01:04:17.420 - 01:04:35.020

Once there was a light that indicated that my landing gear wasn't down like it should be when I first took off, but I took it back and the mechanic said, "No, it must have been just the light." But that was the only trouble I ever had.

01:04:35.020 - 01:05:01.400

I was just lucky. I took off on Greensboro. We had to stop there, usually pick up gas before getting to Newark. I got talking with one of the Army guys, and he was saying about, "Could the B-51 do a

01:05:01.460 - 01:05:14.380

good chandelle or something?" I said, "Yeah, it could do a good chandelle." So I took off, and that was after the Navy. The Army had said, when we first flew, they said takeoff was only seventy-five percent

01:05:14.660 - 01:05:25.660

throttle, because it was better on the engine. And I thought, "Nah, we're test-flying these things. Take off with full throttle." So that was at that time.

01:05:25.820 - 01:05:44.080

So I took off from Greensville full throttle and stayed with the runway about two feet above the runway until I got to the end of it going full blast. Then I just went whoop whoop, up and made a beautiful shoundel. Just I mean that he could climb almost straight out.

01:05:45.120 - 01:05:53.940

Then I swung around and called the tower and I said, "I got a red light on my landing gear. Will you check it as I come by?" And they said, "Sure."

01:05:53.940 - 01:06:04.160

So I came back by and whew! I don't think they could have seen me at the bottom. They said it looked all right to us. I said, "Okay, it's probably just the light," and went on up to Newark.

01:06:05.580 - 01:06:25.960

But yeah, it was fun doing that. Levy: While you were at Love Field, what was your social life like? Steele: Well, we of course met some of the boys there. If the officers met us, we'd go out with them some.

01:06:30.520 - 01:06:46.540

But of course, off flying, you didn't see many people. You were off there and back, and were usually only home two or three days before you got your next order. I don't remember anything in particular.

01:06:47.920 - 01:07:08.780

Heinrich would come up to see me, ride the train up from Houston to see me, and I would go out with him. Then if I happened to have been off on orders, he would go out with the other WASPs. I know when we went for reunion, I think there were more girls that said, "Heinrich, how

01:07:08.800 - 01:07:16.280

are you doing? How are you doing?" I said, "No, he really may not quite be." Kelly: Did you know it at the time?

01:07:16.280 - 01:07:24.160

Oh yeah, oh sure. Yeah, I knew he was going out with them. One day with me. How serious was your relationship?

01:07:27.480 - 01:07:35.820

It was getting pretty serious. We got married while we were there. We got married and then— Tell me about that.

01:07:37.320 - 01:08:02.200

Well, we got married on the base, and his dad came out. Marin was supposedly my best gal. His dad was the best man. I was late getting to the chapel, so I flagged down with a guy in a Jeep and asked him would he take me there. Well, he was supposed to be going to the provost marshal because he had done something he wasn't

01:08:02.320 - 01:08:26.360

supposed to do. But he dropped me off at the chapel and went on, so I made it in time. I think we took probably a week off and went up and spent honeymoon up with my folks in New Jersey. At the time, I did not realize it was strange, but everybody said, "You spent your honeymoon

01:08:26.520 - 01:08:40.720

with your folks?" I said, "Yeah." We went one time, but I did not realize at the time it was strange because Mother wanted to come down when we were married, and I said, "Oh, don't bother.

01:08:40.860 - 01:08:47.980

We'll come up for our honeymoon." So that's what we did. Did you get married in your uniform or what? No.

01:08:48.320 - 01:09:00.720

I went down and got a fancy dress, and Neiman's and Marcus, and a little hat, and that was it. Had your mom and dad ever met him before? No.

01:09:01.640 - 01:09:20.640

And what was their reaction? Well, fine and dandy. They would have been too polite to say anything, but they seemed to like it. I was amazed he and Dad got along real well, because he's a liberal from way back and Dad's

01:09:20.660 - 01:09:31.840

a Republican. But they got along fine. Finances, they all agreed on. Dad, a mechanical engineer, and he, a chemical sort of mechanic engineer.

01:09:32.120 - 01:09:53.580

you just got plenty to talk about and stuff. They got along fine. Let me ask you, at that time you could have resigned. Why did you not resign? You were married and— Oh, Lord, I wouldn't be able to fly. Nowhere could we pay for that type of flying, any

01:09:54.000 - 01:10:10.160

engine with that much horsepower and stuff. Is there, in addition to that, a sense that you owed it to your government? No. I'm afraid I wasn't that patriotic.

01:10:11.180 - 01:10:29.640

We just loved to fly. Tell me your thoughts when you first heard, and how did you hear that we might be deactivated? I don't know. There were rumors first, and then finally it just came up and deactivated us.

01:10:32.560 - 01:10:53.980

I remember we were quite mad about it, because we wanted to fly. How did your husband feel? I do not think I have asked him. But I know we still had all our Army passes and our Army stuff.

01:10:54.720 - 01:11:13.420

And so they did that to aid us. We hitched a ride, four of us hitched a ride, one of the Army planes up to Newark. And then Mom came and got us, and we spent Christmas up at my house. And then we went and hitched a ride from Newark.

01:11:14.030 - 01:11:29.120

We wanted to go to Jacksonville, but Newark to Miami was the only thing we could find. So we went down to Miami, hitched down there. It was on a General's plane, matter of fact. And so it landed there, and boy, they had the red carpet out and everything.

01:11:29.300 - 01:11:51.740

And then here all these four wasps came off and things just vanished. And we went to stay with one of the wasps was from close to Miami. So we stayed at her house for a couple of days. And then we decided, I guess it was about time maybe to go home a little, but the only

01:11:51.900 - 01:12:12.640

thing we could get was a flight to New Orleans. And so the three of us decided, "Yeah, that's a good place to be." So we took a flight to New Orleans. And then we decided that we didn't have seaplanes on our license, so why not check out in a

01:12:12.720 - 01:12:28.020

seaplane. New Orleans for a couple of weeks and flew seaplanes, got a license in the seaplanes in the afternoon and went out to the honky-tonkys at night and had a great time. Who were these other two girls?

01:12:28.720 - 01:12:44.080

Well, one of them is Connie that lived in Jacksonville, and the other one was Marie Carlstrom that I had met in college. And she lives up in Caldwick, Colorado. She has a ranch up there.

01:12:44.190 - 01:12:47.800

Kelly: Okay. But she was not a WASP? Reid: Oh, yes. Kelly: Oh, she was a WASP.

01:12:47.800 - 01:12:58.940

Reid: She tried to come back. She learned to fly. She has a much more fascinating story. She went down to Peru, and she was studying Spanish and archaeology.

01:13:05.080 - 01:13:24.680

They have two months off in the winter where you go doing work in what you are interested in. She went down to Peru and planned to spend a semester down there. That's where she learned to fly.

01:13:25.000 - 01:13:35.420

One of the boys down there was the Army, and she learned to fly. They let her fly in the Army planes down there. She just had a marvelous time. What was her complete name?

01:13:36.880 - 01:13:53.740

Her complete name was Maren Carlston, and then she married Trick, who was my check pilot at Brownsville in pursuits. I went out with him quite a bit, and I thought he was such a nice guy that I thought she should learn.

01:13:54.620 - 01:14:15.700

She tried to come back from Peru and try to get into our class, but she had trouble with the physical and stuff, taking it down to Panama. She got in a couple of days too late for our class, so she had to go in the next class. So she came down to the pursuit, and the next, when we were leaving, she came down.

01:14:16.000 - 01:14:24.740

So I just told her she had to meet this man, and I introduced him to her. Are you still friends? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

01:14:25.120 - 01:14:41.640

Could I back up just a minute and ask you, when you left Love Field, what did the base do for you? They gave us a nice banquet and gave us a wonderful present of compact with the wasp wings on it and our name and everything.

01:14:42.600 - 01:14:51.520

We thought it was wonderful. End of tape. End of this tape. How are we doing?

01:14:55.900 - 01:15:38.140

[ Background noise ] >> You mean you never hedge hopped when you were in? >> Yes. We had a hotel, lived in a hotel.

01:15:38.260 - 01:15:53.940

It was a funny hotel. I do not know how we found it. But anyways, the whole second floor was chess. They had chess games and all kinds of chess stuff.

01:15:54.790 - 01:16:09.540

But we were up above, and we discovered that there was sort of a secret - not - well, sort of secret stairway that went down from our floor, went down, and came out a little door in the street. So we used to go down and up that all the time.

01:16:10.940 - 01:16:36.600

And we had a marvelous time there. We would just, off on our own, we would go and we had one singer that we liked very much, Fats Pichon. And we would go listen to him sing and play piano and drink Absinthe Frappes.

01:16:37.780 - 01:16:56.000

Had a marvelous time. But eventually you left there and went and did what? Well, we stayed there about two weeks, got our seaplane rating. And then my husband came over and he said he thought it was time I came home.

01:16:58.000 - 01:17:19.340

So we went home, and the rest of them split to their different places. What did you intend to do with that seaplane rating? wanted it, so that our thing said, "Commercial, private, land and sea, single and multi-engine." It just sounded good.

01:17:20.400 - 01:17:35.380

I was not really planning to do anything, but it is fascinating to fly them and land them with all the water coming out when you hit and everything. Very fascinating. So when your husband came over, did you come back then with him?

01:17:35.400 - 01:17:43.800

Yep. Okay, take us then from there. What did you do? Then I came back and—

01:17:44.240 - 01:17:57.840

Did he have a house? No. Actually, he had one room in somebody else's house, and I joined him in that one room. We had one hot plate with Coke on the hot plate.

01:17:59.140 - 01:18:15.960

And it took him—it was during the war, of course, so it took him—we took us about, oh, a month or two before we got an apartment. We got a little garage apartment. It was above three garages, and they made an apartment up there in Beton.

01:18:18.200 - 01:18:33.740

And we lived there. Butchie was born. My mother came down and she said, "Well, if you'd seen this house before, I cleaned it up when you came."

01:18:34.600 - 01:18:52.260

She couldn't believe any house that could have so much clutter in it in her life. Into our bedroom, there was just one little walkway that went around a marble table and a few other things, and that's where we had a bed and his crib and stuff. It just went from there.

01:18:52.260 - 01:19:09.680

It always was kind of a collection, always collected things. Not only did I collect, but he collected. And then after he was born, how long before you had another child? I spaced him two years apart.

01:19:10.640 - 01:19:23.640

Was that an intentional on your part? Yeah. I spaced him two years, had him in the fall so they would not have to go through a summer when they're just born because it's so hot.

01:19:26.580 - 01:19:47.260

When the second one was about three or four months old, we started building this house. We had it built and then he used to do a lot of work on it. We'd come out and I'd put her in a—well, she was in a clothes basket—and I'd put her under a heat lamp.

01:19:47.300 - 01:20:13.480

We had a heat lamp we would put on and we would work and keep an eye on her. We finished the house before we moved in and then we moved out. Kelly: During those early years of having those children, where did you take vacations? Newman: Well, he always said that he would take off on vacation the day after he quit

01:20:14.240 - 01:20:28.880

work. So the next day we were supposed to take off. So usually what happened is one year we'd go east and see my folks, and then the next year we'd go west and see the national parks and stuff like that out there.

01:20:29.000 - 01:20:47.480

We just usually did that. And we always just took the kids with us. And the last one was—well, seemed to be eager to come into the world. So she got born prematurely, coming back from one of our trips out west.

01:20:48.120 - 01:21:11.100

We'd been up at the ranch, down to see some folks in another ranch. And then we went on way home. And in Brady, Texas, she decided it was time to come into the world. So we stopped at the hospital, got in, got the poor doctor.

01:21:11.940 - 01:21:22.600

He said he's moaned and groaned. He said it was the first bridge game he had been winning at for months, and I hauled him out of it. He came over and had the gal.

01:21:25.100 - 01:21:52.740

She was about two months premature, so she was only about two and a half pounds or something. I said we stayed there about two weeks with all the kids in the motel, and then came on home and left her there. When she got up to Four Pines, we had gone back two or three times to see if all was

01:21:52.840 - 01:22:04.060

well. Then at Four Pines, we brought her home. I was such a scaredy, I brought one of the nurses with me. that came back here and all went well.

01:22:04.820 - 01:22:16.980

But of course, it was when they did not have air conditioning and cars and everything, so we were a little leery about that heat. She came through. Grew up to be an adult.

01:22:19.600 - 01:22:36.980

Levy: As your children were growing up, what did you get involved in with their activities? What did we get involved in? Well, luckily, you never wanted to play football. We got involved in science fairs.

01:22:40.260 - 01:22:49.900

Mainly that. I know Kathy. I used to take her to dance school. That is about it.

01:22:53.960 - 01:23:05.440

What were your dreams for your children? Just to be happy. They were all quite different. You could not figure any one thing.

01:23:05.940 - 01:23:20.060

They all went on their own ways, just trying to keep peace in the family. Tell me about your children. About your children. Well, they were individuals, and they all seemed to be happy.

01:23:20.240 - 01:23:30.440

So I think we did a pretty good job. Though I sometimes question this. I have no grandchildren. I wonder if they thought they always had a hard childhood.

01:23:31.800 - 01:23:41.520

They claim they did not, but so I will believe them. Kelly: Tell me what they are doing. What makes you proud of them now? Steele: They are happy.

01:23:43.480 - 01:24:02.500

The oldest one is an electrical engineer, I call him. I'm sorry, a computer electrical engineer. The next one is, that's Kathy. Well, she's married, a very strange man.

01:24:04.040 - 01:24:21.700

And we consider it strange because he's scared to meet the parents, so we've never met him. And he does artwork, art films, and special effects. He made the special effects for Right Stuff. And what was the one where they flew around the world?

01:24:23.160 - 01:24:42.620

Shuttle, the shuttle, I don't know. Anyways, he made special effects for that, and there are other ones he's had. But he mainly does sort of art effect films and matches music to it and stuff. and she helps him a lot and works with him on that.

01:24:43.620 - 01:25:02.600

And then the next one wants to be a playwriter and constantly writes plays but has never had one accepted and has a very nice girl. How she can put up with him, I don't know, but she does. And so I think she's wonderful.

01:25:04.440 - 01:25:27.260

And then the next one is Paul, who is a geologist, and he's gone through geology. And we used to drive the other kids crazy because we would tell them which way we were going on our trips. And we'd say, "Now if there's anything you want to see, let us know."

01:25:27.480 - 01:25:47.940

And the only one that would bother to look up things and things would be Paul, who would We look up places to hunt fossils, which normally are out in the middle of God knows where. We had got to see some very interesting scenery, but it got a little boresome for the other kids.

01:25:48.160 - 01:26:04.420

They did not appreciate it too much. I know the youngest daughter, when she finally came along, she would go with loads of books and she'd read books while we were off fossil hunting. And it got pretty hot.

01:26:04.480 - 01:26:23.900

I know one of the times in the middle of the Mojave Desert, it was so hot you couldn't sit on the rocks or any place if you were digging the fossil. If you laid your hammer down, the iron in the sun would be too hot to handle. You had to be sure and grab it by the handle.

01:26:25.200 - 01:26:40.500

I don't know, but they put up with it. Poor things had to, I guess. But we roamed all over the place. As my oldest daughter said, it wasn't until she got to college that she realized that

01:26:40.580 - 01:26:54.940

that was kind of an unusual upbringing. He said, "I'd get up there." And he said, "Half the girls had never even been out of their hometown." She said, "I thought everybody went off on vacations the minute the husband got a

01:26:56.340 - 01:27:11.780

vacation." She said, "I was utterly amazed." And your youngest daughter? She went through the University of Texas, and the University of Texas Medical School,

01:27:14.400 - 01:27:38.400

and did trauma work at a vet hospital here in Houston. And then she got a job offer out in California somewhere and went out there and tried private practice and decided there was just too much paperwork to that. So then she went into Kaiser Permanente and she's been there ever since.

01:27:39.600 - 01:28:05.580

Are you ever able to have family reunions when all your children can come back home? Well, the closest to that was I guess the fiftieth anniversary when we met at Joe Place. Everybody was there but Roger. He's sort of an oddball. He was busy doing something, but I don't think he enjoys it. I think he finds the family boring or something.

01:28:10.260 - 01:28:27.440

He doesn't mind that. What is your opinion of Jacqueline Cochran? We thought she was wonderful. I know when we left the Walson and did spend that Christmas at my house, we went into New

01:28:27.440 - 01:28:47.520

York and saw her a couple of times at her apartment there and tried to see if she couldn't do anything about getting us to go over to Russia and fly. And she tried, but she couldn't make it, couldn't make the connections for us. Kelly: But she was receptive?

01:28:47.640 - 01:28:57.240

Neeland: Oh, yes. She was wonderful. Yeah, she was just as nice as could be. She tried to do a bunch of work for us, but never could make connections.

01:28:58.100 - 01:29:11.860

Kelly: Did you ever meet General Arnold? No, I don't think so. He might have been at our graduation, but I don't know. What do you feel the legacy of the WASP is?

01:29:13.600 - 01:29:25.440

I guess it's telling the girls that if they want to do anything, do it. They can do it. They just push hard enough. Of course, it was handed to us on a silver platter.

01:29:29.840 - 01:29:48.700

All the things that you have done, what are you most proud of? Jernigan: Raising five kids that turned out pretty good. Other than your family, what are you most proud of? Jernigan: I guess the only other thing I ever did was fly for the Wasp.

01:29:50.320 - 01:30:27.720

I've never done any mock any other way. In twenty-five years from now, when children in classrooms are watching this, who might have lost hope and don't have anything to look forward to, what would you say to them? I have no idea, because I was sort of a privileged raising, so I had it just handed to me.

01:30:30.520 - 01:31:17.400

I'm just mainly that if they really believe in it and try, they can probably get anywhere they want to if they'll just keep pushing. school, my son's wonder. you would like to have on this tape?

01:31:19.540 - 01:31:35.380

No, that's about the only thing I remember, which is mischief I've gotten into, and that doesn't need to be on the tape. I think that's a good place to leave it. Ray, do you have anything that you think?

01:31:35.660 - 01:31:43.580

Oh, there was the—remember the door— Oh, darling. I don't know. That's a problem.

01:31:43.580 - 01:32:06.380

Yeah, in P-51s, when I was bringing them back, there's no place for any kind of luggage. So we used to stop in El Paso when we were bringing them back from Los Angeles and pick up gas in El Paso, and then we'd go across the border. And so I picked up some real nice doilies, hand-embroidered doilies that I was going

01:32:06.380 - 01:32:22.640

to give to Mama when I got to Newark. I put them in the ammunition compartments, because they were empty at the time. So I picked up the lid and that and put the doilies in. Then of course when I got to Newark, I forgot all about them.

01:32:22.740 - 01:32:35.240

I just always can visualize the face of the mechanic when he's going to put ammunition in. Here he opens up and there's a set of doilies. I'm wondering, "What in the world are those there for?"

01:32:36.340 - 01:32:52.660

I forgot about them. It was so much of a hustle and bustle when you finally got to some place and you had to sign in and sign the papers and sign it over and figure out whether you were going home or getting further orders or what.

01:32:53.460 - 01:33:09.980

I just forgot about them. Do you have any idea how many airplanes you delivered? No, I don't. I would not imagine. I have no idea really. I would have to be fifty, a hundred or more

01:33:09.980 - 01:33:29.620

like that. I know then in all of our lives that there are some disappointments and there are some times when we have sadness. What has gotten you through those times? I don't remember any.

01:33:33.800 - 01:33:44.600

I guess, I don't know. Just got to live, so you do. But I don't remember. You see, my life hasn't been what you call very sad.

01:33:47.380 - 01:33:59.300

Thank you very, very much. Welcome. Any questions from NPR? No?

01:33:59.540 - 01:34:08.000

Sounds like you covered it pretty well. Well, I'm sure. Tomorrow I'll think of things. A different way.

01:34:08.340 - 01:34:30.380

When was the last time you piloted a plane? Probably, I think it was around '68. we lost our sailboat down the bay over here. It got off in the marshes and there was no way of finding it, so I reinstated my license, did a couple of landings for the airport out

01:34:30.500 - 01:34:49.560

here. Four landings we did. He said, "Well, you're roughers, heck," but he said, "You won't kill yourself." So he gave me the plan and my husband joined us and we went off and circled and circled over there until we finally found the boat and knew where it was so we could go get it. I think that's about the last time I flew.

01:34:49.620 - 01:35:02.000

How did you lose the boat? Was it a hurricane? It broke moorings and in a storm, windstorm, and got blown across the bay over in the marshes where you couldn't find it. Have you been here during a hurricane?

01:35:02.740 - 01:35:17.560

Oh yeah. What was that like? Oh, it's sort of exciting. We're not people that think it's bad, the wind blows like mad, because during the - one

01:35:17.600 - 01:35:33.640

of the ones where I came over here, there was a lull, a complete lull. Kids went down, played in the water and everything, and then as the wind came back the other way, I said, "All right, everybody back home." I went in, and people looked at me and said, "You let them go down and play in the water

01:35:33.600 - 01:35:49.540

because it came up to just below the street down, you know, down the hill there. And they said, "Don't you know there were all kinds of snakes and everything in the water?" And I said, "Well, we didn't see any." So they had a great time. We just, we thoroughly enjoy hurricanes, absolutely.

01:35:51.140 - 01:35:57.640

[Laughter] Okay. Inspiration. One altitude. Wait, wait, do you want to give her a part though?

01:35:57.780 - 01:36:27.420

She's going to say something. No, you can leave that one on, that's okay. Okay, I'll just turn it on low though. We were supposed to be doing for the Army. We were such noble people and we were having just so much fun flying airplanes.

01:36:28.240 - 01:36:49.160

So I was flying, I was picking up the 51, I was flying over, and you just have this sad attitude and you know, it gets boring. And I looked down and here's this number, a lovely "V" of Navy planes coming down, about a thousand feet under me, because you're usually a thousand foot stratus going east

01:36:49.260 - 01:36:59.820

or west. And so I looked down and I thought, "Oh, they look awful peaceful." So I just peeled off and went right down between the "V." I tell you, they scattered in all directions.

01:37:01.200 - 01:37:18.280

It just was a dangerous thing. So then we ended up in a rat race trying to fight on each other's tail. The Don Navy has a plane that's set up with flaps that they can drop in full flight. And our Army, you can't do it.

01:37:18.340 - 01:37:38.960

It would tear the flaps off. But so when you get on the tail of a Navy one, he'd just drop his flaps and you'd just went ahead of him. Well, we ran around there and all of a sudden we saw a commercial plane coming so we all just went our way. And my friend Connie was at the base where the Navy

01:37:39.080 - 01:37:56.540

landed. And they landed and they said, "You know what happened to us? Some plane came down and broke up our foundation and then started rat racing with us." And they said, You know what? It was a blonde girl."

01:37:56.540 - 01:38:11.040

And Connie said she sat there and snorted. She said, "I knew exactly who it was." And I had another time. Coming out of San Francisco, I talked them into letting me fly.

01:38:11.100 - 01:38:23.920

We weren't supposed to fly instrument, but there was a big heavy cloud cover. But where I was going to land, it was open. So I talked them into letting me take off. So I took off and got up above the clouds.

01:38:24.480 - 01:38:38.420

And there's just a, you know, just a wide sea of clouds. And I was going along and finally getting on board. And so I looked up and here's this little plane ahead of me. So I thought, "Hmm, that's fun."

01:38:38.580 - 01:38:52.720

So I gave it the gas and got up just so my shadow came down on this cockpit. I thought he was going to come out of his seat. He came out and all of a sudden it was the radio, "Who's that? Who's that?

01:38:52.800 - 01:38:57.880

Who's there? Who's that?" So I just dropped down behind his tail and dropped back where he couldn't possibly see me.

01:38:58.500 - 01:39:12.420

I tell you, he was on that radio for ages. He just had a fit. It scared him to death. And so I let him land and usually I made my ETA, my estimate time of arrival, about 15

01:39:12.580 - 01:39:28.520

minutes ahead of time. So I'd get to my place I was going and I'd go up in the clouds and play around in the clouds. You try to go down the valleys of the clouds and try to make the turns they make and if you don't you just go into the clouds and it's fine and dandy.

01:39:29.140 - 01:39:54.280

So I play up there for 10 or 15 minutes and then I come back down and land. So I came down, waited 10 minutes before he landed and came in and he was still fussing with the operational officer. Somebody being up there got close on his and everything, was having a fit about it. I didn't know a thing about it. But there's

01:39:54.360 - 01:40:23.040

things like that, they're just a lot of fun. Then we went down to Florida one time. I was picking up an old P-40 up around Chicago, and my oldest brother was living down not far from Chicago. So I went and the first stop for gas was close to where he was, so I called him up and I

01:40:23.040 - 01:40:39.740

took the train down and spent the night there. Because on these trips you're pretty well—as long as you delivered in reasonable time, you could vary. Of course, eventually that changed and you had to stay on line, but at that time they

01:40:39.940 - 01:40:57.580

let us do—it's gone, we got the reason. So I went down and spent the night there, and I looked the place over, and there was a house on the end of the road, and it had a beautiful cornfield here, and there were no wires around it and everything, so I thought, "That's fine."

01:40:57.740 - 01:41:13.580

So I went back and picked up the old B40 the next day and then came off and did the same at home. I just got there and I just let off and came down right by the house, right on top of the car and then did a big Chantel and then came on back down and by that time of

01:41:13.600 - 01:41:33.140

course when I first went by everybody came out and my aunt and little niece was saying jumping up and down this porch saying "God damn it, it's Aunt Bobby! God damn it, it's Aunt Bobby!" and just having a wonderful time. She said, "I never did take credit for it because one of my neighbors came out and broke her ankle trying to see what the

01:41:33.560 - 01:41:49.240

I never dared tell anybody who it was. When I landed, one of the boys said, "How come there's corn on the wheels here?" Cornstalk, corn leaves. I don't know, I must have gotten them taken off or something.

01:41:51.900 - 01:42:12.520

That was one of the best buzz jumps I ever did, because I had it right on top of the carpet, corn, just gorgeous. It was a P-40. And they had nasty things in the crosswind.

01:42:13.200 - 01:42:26.180

They wanted to dip a wing all the time. They were just terrible. I think what they did was they must have put the landing gate too close together. They just come across one and she wants to dip that wing.

01:42:27.360 - 01:42:42.360

Did you ever ground loop? No. No, went down and landed in some place, Tallahassee, I guess it was. I was taken down to mid-Florida, landed there and got talking with another guy that had

01:42:42.400 - 01:43:04.260

a P-40, was transporting it too. And it was a school that was instructing in flying. And so the kids were quite excited about the fact we're coming with a fighter plane and everything. And so they talked to us and they said, "Can't you take off formation?"

01:43:05.040 - 01:43:26.140

And I said, "Well, I've never flown formation. It is illegal." And so the next morning he said, "No, take off formation. I'll lead. You come on in the wing." And I said, "Okay." So we took off in formation. Very successful, very nice formation. Then he went his way and I went my way and delivered our fines.

01:43:28.160 - 01:43:37.500

But yeah, there were a few things you just had to do. And none of your children are really interested? Interested in fines? Yeah.

01:43:38.320 - 01:43:56.580

I don't think so. I don't know any of them that really are. They're just having to come up, really. I tried to—as I say, I gave my second one, Roger—yeah, I had him taking flying lessons,

01:43:56.940 - 01:44:13.960

but they needed to keep him in high school. And he went almost to his license, but he came in and was somehow wet or something, and he got the plane off the runway, skidded off the runway or something, and he never did fly again.

01:44:14.780 - 01:44:36.960

Besides, he didn't like all the ground work, navigational work and stuff. He said that was too much of that work. But none of the rest of them, no, they haven't seen the war in five. But then, of course, they never—I wasn't really doing it when I was raising them, so.

01:44:38.660 - 01:44:53.280

Did you miss it? Not particularly, because there's no way that I could fly what I had been flying. You could fly a tailor craft and practice landings, takeoff, but there was no reason for it.

01:44:54.260 - 01:45:14.420

And it just was too much money for what reason, five kids and all. The only thing I'd ever really inclined to think I'd like to have checked out in a helicopter, But that was way too expensive for us to handle, so we never did. Did you ever have any desire for bombers?

01:45:15.480 - 01:45:20.120

For what? Bombers. Big ones? No, I liked the little fighters.

01:45:21.000 - 01:45:28.500

More fun. Something tells me that's absolutely true. Yeah. Yeah?

01:45:29.200 - 01:45:38.560

Yeah, you sure couldn't roll or do a loop-the-loop in a bomber. Kind of hard to land on the ground. top of those clouds. Yeah.

01:45:44.640 - 01:45:50.680

Very fascinating. I'm afraid to turn it off. I just want to say something. You get on a train to go between places.

01:45:50.680 - 01:45:58.180

It wasn't all fun. You had to stand up all the time. You never could get a seat. Now, of course, on the airplanes we did have class one.

01:45:58.280 - 01:46:15.040

We could kick them. But a lot of the times they'd send you back on an Army plane. You'd be back in the cargo end of it with the plane. no heat and everything. It got pretty rough at times. I got so I could sleep on anything,

01:46:15.260 - 01:46:55.780

a table, radio, made a good pillow. Sometimes it was just rough getting around. I was sent up to a company somewhere up in the mids of things to pick up an old P-36. I got there and I had the hotel reservations and everything, but they said I had to get out come Friday because it was the beginning of hunting season and they were all booked

01:46:55.920 - 01:47:09.740

up. the weather clouded in and I couldn't get out Thursday. So I didn't know what in the heck I was going to do. And I had dinner and had the evening with a major there.

01:47:11.060 - 01:47:31.360

And he said, "Well my roommate's off for the weekend." He said, "Come on in and I'll put you - you can bunk in his bed for the day," with the airport I was flying out of. And he said, "You can bunk in his bed for the night."

01:47:31.360 - 01:47:43.180

And he said, "I'll play God at the john for you." And I said, "Okay." Having no other answer, I just gathered my stuff and went out there and slept with his room.

01:47:43.260 - 01:47:58.780

And he thought it was pretty neat. You can have a major stand out the bathroom door for you. And so he got out the door and everything was fine. fine until that morning one of his aides came to wake him up, knocked on the door, and opened

01:47:58.840 - 01:48:26.040

the door and said, "Sir, it's time to get up." And shut the door and left. He said, "You know," he said, "you have really put me in a wonderful position. I'll be the talk of the town around here." He said, "And they'll be so pleased to have someone know I had a girl overnight there, they said, "Oh," he said, "my rating will be up ten thousand

01:48:26.720 - 01:48:43.940

times." And thank God I got to take off that morning. But it was very low taking off things, because I just followed a river down, and I could see TV poles above me over here and things over there, but I just took the river down

01:48:43.980 - 01:48:56.820

until it broke clear and then I was off. But I was so pleased that I could get out that day. [Laughter] [Off camera]

01:48:58.330 - 01:49:04.560

In WASC training, in Lake Trainers? Oh, I did fine. [Off camera] Did you help anybody out then? Because you were really good at it?

01:49:05.520 - 01:49:21.800

No, because we didn't get the instrument flying until we got to Love Field. And then you were on your own. But it was very easy, I mean. It was in your class and mine, because we had 70 out on all the other days.

01:49:22.260 - 01:49:42.960

And it came back and, oh, so help me, we woke up the next day and it was just beautiful. We had to fly out. I tell you, I had a little barf bag with me that I took out because we... Really? Yeah, because I felt as if I was going to be sick. I never was, but I felt like I was going to be.

01:49:43.760 - 01:49:54.160

Because we had had a rough night the night before. We'd stayed up all night drinking and stuff, and then suddenly we had to go. We didn't think we were going to have to fly the next day. >> Uh-huh.

01:49:54.680 - 01:50:03.440

>> Surprise. >> Surprise. >> Get him to take one of the three of us. Let's go stand behind her and get him to take it with your cameras.

01:50:03.660 - 01:50:16.240

>> There. >> Okay. >> So I got in the front and they'd always said, "Never pull the release on the thing with your left hand."

01:50:17.520 - 01:50:30.220

And so help me pull the brakes on with your left hand. And so help me, I did. And I dropped my belly tank right in front of everybody and I had to stay overnight and put it back on.

01:50:30.920 - 01:50:41.700

I was so embarrassed 'cause they were all so excited about this girl and this 51 and me and the old bombers I dropped my belly tape. (laughter)

01:50:41.700 - 01:50:50.160

Sheesh! That's just too many stories. Or the funniest thing. Or what's the funniest thing?

01:50:50.200 - 01:50:59.360

I just love all the planes. And your class number. I actually don't know what in the world I could do with this. But the fact that they're there.

01:50:59.480 - 01:51:06.000

Well, it might, um, it wasn't a big deal. It wasn't like a big deal or anything. But it was a big deal to me.

01:51:06.200 - 01:51:20.420

I always thought it was just so great. I don't think my kids ever, I don't ever remember even mentioning it to them. But when they found out, they must have been impressed. Well, when Nancy really found out, then she started this project.

01:51:20.460 - 01:51:29.060

Well, my... He was a good pilot. What do you think?