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There was no way I've got a Canon AE-1 and a what's my new one? I can't remember the new one. Oh yeah I will just kind of guide you and if you want to tell something that happened

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that's good okay we're rolling okay I'm Deanie Parish and we're in the home of Gail Snell in Colorado Springs Colorado Gail was a WASP a member of class 44W9 today is the 14th of September 2000 okay Gail if you will just tell us who you are and where you were born and we'll go from there. I'm Gail Snell I was born in

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Pasadena California in 1923. And your parents? Frank Seymour Snell and Loretta Graham. You're kidding I hope you're kidding I'm not conscious of any particular. Oh yes. Okay tell us about your classmate how you got to school. Oh good lord I have no idea we usually live fairly close to the school so most the

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time I'm certain I've walked. My recollections of classes or classmates is not that grand. At the time you started school your very early years what was your dad doing? He probably had the car rental agency he supplied cars and chauffeurs for people that came out from the east that needed them. Really neat ones like Rolls Royces

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and Pierce Arrows and some of the old Cadillacs. Gail tell me about your grandparents. I did not know my mother's side the grandparents at all. I must have been very young when my grandfather died and probably just as young when my grandmother died because I don't remember at all. My grandfather on my dad's side

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both of them lived till I was 25 maybe something like that. My grandfather was an architect here in Denver of all things. He built a section of the city called Snell's addition and he built supposedly the main first cabin that was built in Denver. My grandmother was a Southern Belle from Louisiana and

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she was a lovely lady they both were. They were really neat people. I didn't get the name of the subdivision that he built. Snell's addition. As a young child what were your summer vacations like? Heaven. Where did you go? Here. We came here every summer spent our summers here because my dad's business was here in the summer and it was it was wonderful. Those were the days where a kid could go to a park and learn how to

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do things like carving, making soap carvings and all sorts of crafts and things they had for children and you know the children could walk. You didn't have the fear of what's happened to the world now with a bunch of kids and they had wonderful parks in Manitou. We lived in Manitou and I played with I played croquet

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and roquet and all the things like that with all these old codgers now I realized but then they were just people and I had a ball. I had an absolute ball all summer. I hated to go back to California in the winter and go to school. Do you remember any of the children that you met? Have you kept in contact with them? Here no. Most of them that I knew well other than one boy whose dad owned a hotel here. Most of them that were friends were from the East because

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the East people came out here you know to get rid of the heat. And Gail when you would come to Manitou Springs would you spend some time up in Denver with your grandparents? No my grandfather at that point was in California. He moved from Denver I don't have any idea when. Well before my mother and father got married I know that because it's sort of a funny thing. My mother worked at a place called Boo's Brothers Cafeteria in Los Angeles as a cashier and my grandfather it seems loved my mother like

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crazy and he used to come there and eat all the time and talk to mother and he told her that don't get married because I have a son in the war and when he comes back I'm gonna bring him and introduce you and you're gonna get married. You know she laughed at him evidently. I just recently found this out after my mother died I didn't even know it. And sure

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enough when dad came back from the war grandpa brought him over there and introduced them and they started dating and obviously they got married. What was the Christmas like in your home when you were growing up? It was heaven. It was just like you see on TV when it's wonderful. I was an only child so obviously I was gonna get all the gifts. Do you remember any of the activities

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around Christmas time that you would attend? Only my mother's family had a very large family. She had two, three, four brothers and a sister that were living and everybody always got together for any occasion whatsoever and it was a big family thing and it was fun and there was other kids on the other side of the family.

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I know you've told me that your mother belonged to the Catholic Church. Did you attend any Christmas type nativity things at Christmas at church? Other than having to sing in the choir and things like that no. Do you remember any of the songs that you sang? Yeah I don't care to discuss. Do you still sing in the choir? No I certainly don't. That was not one of my favorite things either.

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When you went on then to junior high or I guess you went to school through the eighth grade at one school is that correct? Yes. At a Catholic school. What were your ambitions? Frankly I don't think I had any. I don't think I had a direction even when I was in junior college because I used to remember talking to counselors and saying tell me what to be, tell me what to do or what to do.

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I had an interest in everything. I wanted to learn everything I could about everything. Everything fascinated me. I loved school. I always wanted to fly. Not necessarily in an airplane. Flapping my wings and off I go. I think that's about it. When you were going to school at Catholic school did you wear uniforms? Yes. Do you remember any special teachers that might have influenced you in some way?

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No not really. They were all nuns in the school. As you were growing up who were your role models? I don't think that I consciously thought of the word role model ever. Even when I was growing. As a child growing up what were you interested in? Sports? Yes. Tell me some of the things that interested you that you played. Everything. Every sport. Pasadena had almost every sport available in the schools.

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They had basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer, volleyball, tennis, swimming. All of them. And I was in all of them. In high school were you in a Catholic high school or a public high school? No. Were you on any of the sports teams in high school? Yes. Tell me about those. I don't know what I can tell you. It was just all of them. Did you enter competition, your team, with teams from other schools?

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Yes. Do you remember any special competition? No. Were you in other things? Were you in for example drama or speech or into the music department? No. So you spent most of your time in sports? Yes. In high school did you have any idea of what you wanted to do after high school? No. What were your social activities like in high school? I think they were pretty well normal. Just like everybody else. Nothing spectacular.

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Did you have a special boyfriend? Were you dating a lot? Probably. But unfortunately I don't remember it. Did you have a high school prom? Yes. Could you tell us about the prom? No. I can't even remember it. Could you tell me about your graduation from high school? Pasadena, when you live in Pasadena, it's a very different way. All schools in Pasadena graduate in Rose Bowl.

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I don't know if you knew that or not. From the littlest ones, the grammar school, all the way through all the grades, graduate in the Rose Bowl. So by the time you graduate from junior college or something, you've been there a lot. And you know all the songs and you know all the marching and you've got all the formals. As I say, we graduated in Rose Bowl. Did you have caps and gowns? At the high school, yes. Prior to that, no.

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In this ceremony at the Rose Bowl, would they have a special time for your class? Yes, for each school. But I honestly can't remember how they did it. I know each school was segregated as far as the graduation facilities. And you know, they're giving out diplomas and things. But I can't remember. I have trouble remembering yesterday. You're asking me to go back a thousand years.

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Gail, what is your earliest recollection of airplanes? I think probably one of the things that happened was my mother died when I was very suddenly of a heart attack. Maybe 16, 15, 16, somewhere in there. And I realized not that many years ago that I was in almost a trance. I needed help and nobody knew I needed help. And I didn't have enough intelligence to know I needed help.

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Because it affected me very badly. I loved my mother dearly. I was in her room one minute, she was fine. I was in there two minutes later and she was dead. It was just like that. And at that point, I think I seriously decided I wanted to do something and what I wanted to do was fly. Do you know where that love came from? That you wanted to fly?

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No, I have no idea. My mother was deathly against my father flying. She would never let him fly. So I know she would never let me fly. But to me it was a way of getting away. I wanted to escape. Very badly I was trying to. I was trying to escape and I found that out, as I say, just a few years ago. I didn't even realize it. So that was your way to cope with losing her?

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Yeah. I had my own horse. I used to take my horse out at night and ride all night long alone. So I know now that as you get older you get smarter. I never dwelt on something. I wanted to get on with something new and forget about whatever was bad and just go on from there. And so I decided on my own that I was going to learn to fly.

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Well, at that time my dad had the cliff house in Manitou and we were living there. I went out to the airport here, at that time it was a private airport, and told him that I wanted to learn to fly. But I really wasn't sure if I could do it because when I went on a roller coaster, the first dip I passed out. It just blasted me off. So they laughed and they gave me this little tiny woman. I bet she wasn't five foot as an instructor.

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And obviously I was supposed to think, "Well, she can do it, I can do it," which I did. And she took me up and we went on a preliminary ride, I'll never forget that, in the Cub. And I'd never been up for it, I'd never even seen a plane up close. And she said, "Okay, now we're going to do some spins," and she lined me up as they do, you know, so you got to cross things.

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She said, "As you turn, I want you to yell, 'One, two,' and then we'll pull out." Well, she put it in a spin, I'll never forget this, and I was trying to yell, "Nothing." Absolutely nothing came out. So when she recovered, she said, "Why didn't you say something?" I said, "I did, but nothing came out." I couldn't say a word.

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And from that point on, I became a fiend for acrobatics. I loved acrobatics. There was a thing you could do on a plane that ever bothered me. The more you did it, the more I loved it. And how old were you at this time? I was probably 17.

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Was this between high school and you were going to junior college? I graduated from high school when I was 15, so it had to be after that. After we had our sessions, this woman's boyfriend, who owned the airport, a very famous flyer evidently, used to take me up to the Waco UPF, and we looped the telephone wires in town here.

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That was my reward for a good session, and I just loved it. That's what really got me so that I could have no fear of acrobatics and loved it. In fact, I found out when I came back here, I tried to find him and found out that he had died doing that. Because every chance he got, he did it. He always did it.

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And I looped the Golden Gate Bridge. But I did, I remembered him, and I said, "I did it." Anyway, I went out there and I started flying. I had just about soloed, and I finally went to my dad and I told him, I said, "I'm learning to fly."

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He said, "Dear," he said, "I'm real busy now. I can't play around. I'll talk to you tonight." He started off, and I said, "Dad, I'm serious." He said, "You didn't believe me." The next time I went flying, I took one of the bellboys with me. And sure enough, he came back and he said, "Sir, she learned to fly."

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And I remember my dad said, "You don't fly anymore until I get insurance for you, and I've got to get a crash bracelet for you." And that's how I started flying. Oh, wow. Let me go back to your horse and ask you, when you first had a horse, how old were you? Oh, boy, I had a pony when I was a kid. Little.

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Did you keep your pony and your horses at home, or did they board? No. We had them at a stable that my dad had some kind of an interest in. I don't know what it was. Okay. After you graduated from high school, you then went on to Pasadena College? Junior College. It's college now.

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Why did you decide on that particular school? Oh, I'm certain just like everybody else, your friends are there. Okay. And you stay with your friends, and that's probably why I did.

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And while you were at the college, did you commute from home, or did you live at school? No, no. I was a very short distance, whatever it was. I know that. So I commuted. Did you have a particular goal in mind when you went to junior college? No.

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Did you just take... I think I was taking liberal arts at that point. Okay. And engineering. And it wasn't until, and there's got to be a time period in here, it wasn't until I decided to go into the WAS,

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that after I got through at Pasadena Junior College, for the two years I went to SC, because all my friends went to UCLA, and I had to go to SC because they were the only ones that had aeronautical courses. And I took all aeronautical, some math and some science courses. Okay. Just so I keep this in chronological order, you finished junior college,

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and then you came to Colorado Springs, and that's when you learned to fly. And you went back and went to SC? No. It's in between. We've got... I was flying when I was at SC. I probably was flying when I was at junior college.

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Okay. While you were in California, did you also fly as well as fly when you came to Colorado? I started flying here, then we went back to California for the winter, and I finished my flying at Atlanta, California, which was the closest place that you could fly from the coast. Because at that time they had the blackout.

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Right. Tell me about your first solo flight. Did you still have this little short lady instructor? Yeah. Tell me about your solo flight. Well, I'm certain it was very similar to everybody else.

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I had a good blouse on, naturally. I remember that. And it's probably just like everybody else. When you're shooting landings, you shoot a bunch of landings, and then, you know, eventually you come in. Well, this time she stopped out in the field and got out, and I said, "Where are you going?"

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And she said, "Go on and take it up." I said, "Great!" And off I went and shot a bunch of landings. And when I came in, naturally, they cut my shirt tail off.

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I do remember that. I don't even think I did. Right. And that was sort of a tradition. Yes. Yeah. Okay.

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When you went back to California then, did you fly after school each day? No. It was maybe 150 or 200 miles away was the landship from Pasadena. Or Los Angeles, where I was living. And I went up on the weekends and flew every weekend.

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Were you ever able to take your dad flying? No. No, and I regretted that. And when you finished Pasadena College, then what did you do? I went to SC, University of Southern California.

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Do you remember any of your professors at SC? None. It was a zoo. Compared to where I came from, it was a zoo. You know, you had 50 people in a class.

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Well, probably now they have 100, but you didn't even know the people that were in there. I didn't. Do you remember specifically your aeronautical classes that you took? I remember the classes.

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I remember some of the books, but I can't certainly remember the people or why they were there or anything. SC is--college is even in those days where it was mammoth. And you just--you went from class--I was carrying 19 units, I remember. You went from class to class in a hurry.

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The campuses were large. I don't know what to tell you. Do you remember any of your classmates from SC? None.

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I do remember a lab partner. I took one class other than aeronautical. I took one math and one bacteriology class. And I remember this one time, the professor--we were using live virus,

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and you were supposed to flame the test tube, you know, to keep it from going. He dwelt on it for so long, and it was TB. He dwelt on it and dwelt on it and dwelt on it until he had everybody scared to death. And I had this ding-a-ling lab partner.

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I remember that. She was--I don't think she had a brain in her head. And how I drew her, I have no idea. But she took off the stopper, and why I ever let her do it, I'll never know that either.

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And she took off the stopper, and instead of flaming it, she went like this. The whole class cleared. Everybody was out of that room in two seconds. That I remember.

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Do you remember and what were your thoughts when you heard about Pearl Harbor? It was something that happened a long way away, and it had no-- it made no impression on me, to be honest. How did World War II affect your family?

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I--again, at that age, I was not interested in my home surroundings, nor did I pay attention. I think it had very little effect. For example, my dad had a sightseeing company here that was-- utilized mainly, again, custom Puricero's and big Cadillacs, 12-passenger cars,

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that went on the sightseeing things here. And when that happened, because of the gas rationing, and Cap Carson came in here, it curtailed a lot of the gas, so he went all over the United States and picked up stagecoaches, tally hoes, and things like that, and horses,

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and ran his sightseeing business with them. And of course it went like crazy. Anybody would certainly rather be on a tally ho than in a car, seeing all these-- You haven't seen here.

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This is one of the biggest sightseeing areas in the United States. It's wonderful. So I don't think that bothered anything. I didn't pay attention.

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A lot of people did, I'm sure. I was not one of them. I was in a hurry. I wanted to see everything.

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I wanted to do everything. And I didn't want to be mirrored down with a whole bunch of other things. It's just that easy. Tell me about when you heard about a training--flying training program for women.

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As I said previously, I think that I heard about it from some very dear friends of mine in California that I've known since--one girl said we're six weeks old. And the three of us have been friends ever since we went to school together and we went into the law school together in the same class.

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I think I heard about it from them. I was here. I know that. As you were taking flying lessons and then flying-- I took flying lessons after I heard of it.

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After you heard about the training program. While you were taking flying lessons, did you know any other girls who were flying? Here, no. There, yes.

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My friends and a couple of others. And then once you heard about this flying training program, what did you do about it? I'm guessing, because I don't know. I told you, I can't remember yesterday.

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How can I remember that? I obviously must have applied. I must have been accepted for an interview, because I remember the interview. Tell me about the interview.

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We were interviewed by a fascinating woman. I remember that. I am not easily impressed. I rarely am impressed with anybody.

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All my life I've been that way. It's terrible. It's not a good thing. But I was impressed with this woman. I walked into her home and everything was white.

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Everything. Including, she was in white flannel slacks, gorgeous white blouse on, white shoes, everything. She was impressive. And she went through the interview.

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And obviously I must have passed. I don't remember what she asked or anything else. We've looked for a bunch of us, because everybody who was interviewed by her was fascinated by her. We don't even know her name.

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She was a personal friend of Cochran's, evidently. And she agreed to do this in Beverly Hills. She lived high up in the hills somewhere. And the day you went to be interviewed, were there other girls also being interviewed?

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If there were, I didn't see them. And I didn't have anybody with me. Then we got notification to have a physical at Long Beach Air Force Base. Which was a joke.

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Again, these were these two friends of mine. All three of us went down. At that time, they only handled men. So they had no idea what to do with three women.

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They didn't know how to give a physical. They didn't have a nurse that was required by law. They didn't know what to do with us. But I do remember one thing.

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One of my friends, who is still a very dear friend, I talk to maybe several times a week, had low blood pressure. And we did everything we could to frighten her to get her blood pressure up. We did everything.

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We pulled every trick you could ever imagine. The CIS. And one of the things that happened, their way of taking blood at that time from the potential cadets, were that they'd stand back and they'd take and they'd throw a needle at their arm.

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Without anything on it, just the needle, they'd throw it. Well, she took one look at that and passed out. We almost did too. And I thought to myself, I've got to worry about this.

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He's not going to do that to me, I'll guarantee it. See if he even attempted it. So we finally got her revived and we were in the line. And we got up there and I said, "I'm a punk kid.

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And here I'm talking to this guy and telling him what he can do." But I did. I told him, I said, "You're not doing that to us." So he said, "Okay, Madam, he goes and gets syringed and they take the blood."

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How we ever got to the rest of the physical, I have no idea. Then we had to take some kind of a written. I remember it was ludicrous because any kid in high school could have passed it in two seconds. There was a lot of physics in it.

00:31:02.400 - 00:31:11.400

There was a lot of airplane identification. And I didn't know any planes. I don't know about you, but I didn't know any planes at all. I had no idea.

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So we took that and then I remember I got a telegram from Cochran to report. I had been scheduled for a class sooner and something delayed it. I don't know what. Instead of April, it was March.

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And then I got this telegram telling me to report. And that was it. I reported. And the day we arrived, there was a midair collision right over the field and two of the gals were killed.

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How did that make you feel? It was them and not me, and I knew it would never happen to me. This sounds egotistical, and I really don't mean it to be. But it did not bother me that way.

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I felt terribly sorry for the death of a person. But it was just like that. Everybody came in with a blue bonnet and you registered and you went through all of this. And it was mass havoc.

00:32:20.400 - 00:32:43.400

And the incident just quickly disappeared. I don't think we thought about it for 20 minutes. How did your dad feel about this when you told him about going into flying? I don't remember my dad ever, ever, ever, ever telling me I couldn't do anything.

00:32:43.400 - 00:32:57.400

Ever. He always told me I could do anything I ever wanted if I wanted. I had to really want it, and then I could do it. So I don't remember him ever fighting me on it at all.

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Obviously he paid for it because I didn't have any money. And he must have supported it. He had a bad time too because my mother had died and he'd left him. So we both were having a very bad time.

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How about your grandparents? What did they think about their granddaughter? I don't really know because I didn't see that much of them. They lived in Los Angeles, my grandma and grandma, two different places.

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And I did not see that much of them before. When you went to Avenger, when you left Colorado Springs, did the other-- No, I left from Pasadena. From Pasadena.

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Did the other two girls go with you or were you by yourself? They were not with me. I don't remember--we all have talked about this before, and we can't figure out why they didn't drive there with me.

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I drove with my college roommate went with me. Again, there was about 10 of us who were very, very close friends from school. And she went with me. But did she go into training also?

00:34:09.400 - 00:34:28.400

No, no. She was just a friend keeping me company. And on the way, I rolled the car in the snow. Well, tell me about that. We were outside of Flagstaff, and this friend of mine had been driving.

00:34:28.400 - 00:34:43.400

She was a perfect college roommate because she was a character. We lived in an apartment that had a Murphy bed, which I'd never even seen. And her way of waking me up in the morning is she went to class, she put the bed up, and now my head's down there and I'm screaming.

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So we had a great rapport, and she said she'd drive there with me. Well, she had been driving, and she was driving, as far as I was concerned, too fast in the weather conditions because it was snowing and it was snowing the road and everything. So I took over. I was driving at more than 25, 20 miles an hour.

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And just outside of Flagstaff, I hit this patch of ice. And the people across the street who saw it said that I held it for about 250 feet, and then I had a convertible. The car started turning and turned into the side.

00:35:22.400 - 00:35:38.400

Well, we had all kinds of gas with us because at that time there was gas racing, and we were worried about getting there. So both of us had our eyes shut, and she kept saying, "Get off of me so I can get out." And I kept saying, "Get off of me so I can get out."

00:35:38.400 - 00:35:53.400

Neither one of us would open our eyes. And finally we got out, and we got the gas out of the trunk and everything, and the guys, people came from across the street and helped us. My car had very little damage.

00:35:53.400 - 00:36:09.400

It had not even a cut in the top. It was just on the front end where there was a few marks on the fender and stuff that had to be fixed. Didn't even cut the bowl, the wooden bowl in the back of the convertible. So we were there, I think, for a couple of days,

00:36:09.400 - 00:36:26.400

and then by that time she had to get back to school because we left SC. And she went back, and then I went down to Sweetwater alone from Flagstaff. Were you late for your appointment in Sweetwater? No, because I'd left early.

00:36:26.400 - 00:36:45.400

I was going to stop at my dad's and see him first before I went, because by that time he was in Colorado. I had that span in there, but it was okay. Can you remember your feelings when you first went out to a venture?

00:36:45.400 - 00:37:06.400

Mass confusion. Everybody talking, everybody doing something, everybody doing something different. People screaming, "You'll be sorry!" Remember that one? Not knowing who to talk to, what to do.

00:37:06.400 - 00:37:22.400

Total disorganization. That's how I remember the first day. Tell me how you were assigned to quarters. We were assigned alphabetically, I remember that, but I have no idea how.

00:37:22.400 - 00:37:47.400

There were six of us to a bay, or a bay being a room. They split the flight in half alphabetically again, and the first by the alphabet was of one flight, and we were in the second flight. Could you tell me about your bay mates?

00:37:47.400 - 00:38:11.400

I almost had the same bay mates all the way through, which was very unusual. Usually people would wash out, and they would scramble and put them together. So there was usually always six in a room. I think other than one gal who washed out in our bay, we stayed the whole time together.

00:38:11.400 - 00:38:33.400

I think that's probably why we were very close, because we had the same bay mates all the time. Tell me what those girls--where they came from, or what their interests were before they came to Sweetwater. How different they were from your interests.

00:38:33.400 - 00:38:53.400

Totally. We had one who used to get up an hour and a half earlier than anybody else to put on her false eyelashes and her makeup. We used to kill her. We had to get up early enough as it was.

00:38:53.400 - 00:39:06.400

She was not very well liked. We like her now, and we didn't like her then, I remember that. Most of us were fine. Then we had one who was a weirdo.

00:39:06.400 - 00:39:19.400

How was she a weirdo? Well, you couldn't talk to her. You couldn't talk and make sense to her. She was like she'd talk to you for two minutes and then go off somewhere.

00:39:19.400 - 00:39:29.400

I think she spaced out. She was really weird. She came home one weekend drunk. Most of us were in bed by that time.

00:39:29.400 - 00:39:41.400

I don't know why, but we were. She took a bottle of ink and threw it on the wall, and we were having inspection the next day. You know that. We were up all night cleaning up that ink all over the walls and all over the floors.

00:39:41.400 - 00:39:47.400

This is how weird she was. She was a weird person. She really was weird. She did graduate.

00:39:47.400 - 00:39:59.400

God, I can't believe it. She really did. One of my bay mates had a little girl, and she missed her terribly. She was a really nice person.

00:39:59.400 - 00:40:14.400

Her husband, I think, was in the service and had been killed. She was wanting to do her part. She left her little girl with her grandmother, and she used to cry at night. I remember hearing her.

00:40:14.400 - 00:40:38.400

One of my dear, dear friends now, I don't know what Betty did. I evidently was very fortunate, like a lot of people, I'm sure, but most of the people had to work their way through to pay for their flying. They got to know an awful lot of people who went into the WASPs that way, which I didn't.

00:40:38.400 - 00:40:44.400

Describe this. Okay. Before she does it, can I change to rolling? Okay.

00:40:44.400 - 00:41:03.400

Describe your bay for me. Well, after going to the Air Force Academy here and seeing how they lived, we lived in shambles, I'm sure, because we had-- Prior to that, it was a--

00:41:03.400 - 00:41:14.400

They trained cadets there. In fact, later, one of the fellows I was an engineer with happened to have been in the same bay I was right before me. Talk about a coincidence.

00:41:14.400 - 00:41:31.400

It was just a cement inside. It was a Quonset hut type. It was cement, and there were six bays--six cots and the mattresses and our little locker.

00:41:31.400 - 00:41:45.400

I don't think there was any table, maybe two tables and a few chairs. I think that was it. That's all we had in there. And how about the bathroom?

00:41:45.400 - 00:42:00.400

We had one bathroom for two bays--I mean, two rooms. There was 12 of us that shared the bathroom. I used to shower at 2 o'clock in the morning because I never could get in there, ever.

00:42:00.400 - 00:42:14.400

So I thought, "Well, I will go and take my showers late." So I would--half the time I'd be in there taking a shower and the officer of the day would come by, you know, checking with his little flashlight, and I'd stand on top of--go and race to the toilet,

00:42:14.400 - 00:42:27.400

stand on top of a toilet seat so they couldn't see any feet. Never got caught. Luckier than the devil. My teammates would all wake up and be laughing themselves silly in the other room.

00:42:27.400 - 00:42:42.400

They thought it was very funny. I didn't. Gail, tell me, what was the biggest adjustment you had to make in framing? Having somebody tell me something that I had absolutely no respect for.

00:42:42.400 - 00:43:01.400

Seriously. The military I had no respect for because of the way they treated people. Treated you as less than human. As a woman--now I can't speak for anybody else, nor do I attempt to.

00:43:01.400 - 00:43:27.400

I think we all had similar things. The people who were our instructors in Sweetwater on a whole did not like women pilots. They probably loved women, but not as a pilot who was going to take their place for doing something they wanted to do.

00:43:27.400 - 00:43:40.400

And they did everything they could to worsen it up. Everything. The injustices of it was terrible. Absolutely terrible.

00:43:40.400 - 00:43:56.400

We were allowed to change instructors, I think, twice. Because of personal conflicts, usually. I did not change ever. I got some of the toughest instructors there were.

00:43:56.400 - 00:44:09.400

And because they were tough, they were good. They were also the best. And that's what I was after. I wanted to learn from the best and I wanted to be the best.

00:44:09.400 - 00:44:27.400

They found out that nobody could frighten me in acrobatics, so they all made a determination they were going to do it. And I got all this extra time going up doing acrobatics because they were trying to ring this guy out with me, and I had a ball.

00:44:27.400 - 00:44:47.400

Some of the military pilots were very nasty. I got caught once, I remember, as an example. I was in instruments, and I was waiting for my plane to come down so I could go up.

00:44:47.400 - 00:44:56.400

Would you like to stop? Okay. Yeah, hold it. Up to where we were, Gail, you were telling that it was a VT, I think.

00:44:56.400 - 00:45:09.400

No. One of the--you asked about adjustment. One of the things that happened to me, I was in instruments, and I was waiting for a plane to come.

00:45:09.400 - 00:45:22.400

That's the VT, you're right. And I never could get enough sleep. I used to put the covers over my head at night and read with a flashlight. Consequently, I never got any sleep.

00:45:22.400 - 00:45:36.400

So I was always trying to grab a wink here and a wink there whenever we were on the ground waiting. And I was lying--I was in the ready room, and I was lying on a bench with the chute for my pillow

00:45:36.400 - 00:45:48.400

and trying to snooze, and this Marnellic Army guy came up and said, "You don't have anything to do?" And like an idiot, I always told the truth then. I didn't know what lying was.

00:45:48.400 - 00:46:01.400

And I said, "No, sir. I'm waiting for my ship so I can go up." And he said, "You know your PIF file?" And I said, "Yes, sir." Now, you've got to understand, when I went there,

00:46:01.400 - 00:46:15.400

I had teaching certificates in meteorology, navigation, theory of flights, and power plant. So I rarely took a test in the ground school on those subjects. The instructors found out in the beginning about it,

00:46:15.400 - 00:46:26.400

and I rarely took a test. So the PIF file, learning that instead of having to learn all the rest, was very easy. So I did know it.

00:46:26.400 - 00:46:35.400

So he said, "Well, see, come with me." He takes me out of the ready room, puts me in one of those rooms that were past there. I didn't even know it was there.

00:46:35.400 - 00:46:51.400

And he said he gave me the test for our 5010, our white card, our instrument card that we had to take the test for. Now, I hadn't even had that much instruments. So he gave me the test.

00:46:51.400 - 00:47:06.400

So I sat down and I took the bloody test, madder than you know what, because I was afraid I was going to miss my time when the plane came in. And finally got it done and took it to him. I never heard a word from that man.

00:47:06.400 - 00:47:23.400

I must have done all right, or I would have heard, I'm sure, but he never, ever did I see that man again. And I thought, "Ha, ha, ha, gotcha." Describe for me the ground school.

00:47:23.400 - 00:47:37.400

Boy. You mean the physical appearance of it or-- And then the courses that you had to take. Again, there was power plants, meteorology,

00:47:37.400 - 00:47:58.400

theory of flight, all the--I can't even remember them all now. And code. We had to have code. We had link training, which is like the simulators now,

00:47:58.400 - 00:48:11.400

but on a much smaller scale. That's--I don't know what else I can tell you. The instructors probably were very adequate. They were very nice people.

00:48:11.400 - 00:48:23.400

They were civilians. They were not military. Do you remember which course you really enjoyed? Was there one favorite course?

00:48:23.400 - 00:48:29.400

I can't even remember that. Okay. How about calisthenics? Were you required?

00:48:29.400 - 00:48:40.400

Oh, yes, we were required. We had Lieutenant LaRue. Everybody had Lieutenant LaRue. And funny things happened in the beginning, I remember,

00:48:40.400 - 00:48:56.400

because none of us, well, other than the gals who were in the CA or something like that, or programs, had ever marched. Didn't know what they were talking about. And my two friends, Thel, who just died, and Cis,

00:48:56.400 - 00:49:06.400

we found out didn't know their left hand from their right. So they'd say, "Left turn." They'd go right every time. And we finally realized that it really was a problem with them.

00:49:06.400 - 00:49:17.400

It wasn't something they were doing on purpose. And, of course, Lieutenant LaRue got madder than you know what, screamed, turned red in the face, everything at them. And they'd just stand there.

00:49:17.400 - 00:49:26.400

What else could they do? And we finally pinned a pin on their left side so that they could tell, because they really couldn't tell. It was terrible.

00:49:26.400 - 00:49:38.400

And then our marching went a little better, and the calisthenics moved a little better. What were your meals like? Oh, you shouldn't have asked that.

00:49:38.400 - 00:49:52.400

Oh, you never should have asked that. I have never in my life to this day had food as bad. Now, maybe other people will not remember it that way. Maybe their food at home was bad.

00:49:52.400 - 00:50:05.400

Mine wasn't. That food was not edible at all. We used to--those of us that couldn't stand it-- would march to the mess hall, which you had to do,

00:50:05.400 - 00:50:15.400

whether you liked it or not, go right through the door, come right back out again, and go back to our bay, or go back to the coffee shop, the little coffee shop. Same food.

00:50:15.400 - 00:50:23.400

And we paid for the one food that was really bad. Then we'd go pay at the coffee shop, because they at least know how to cook it, and we ate there.

00:50:23.400 - 00:50:36.400

The only time I ever ate in that mess hall-- I never ate breakfast-- but because they had powdered eggs, they had Spam, they had everything you could imagine that was really, really bad.

00:50:36.400 - 00:50:44.400

And cheap. And cheap. Was when they had visiting VIPs. Cochran and some of the generals came in.

00:50:44.400 - 00:50:54.400

The food was superlative. It was wonderful. Everybody on the base was in that mess hall eating, and sometimes going back for seconds,

00:50:54.400 - 00:51:02.400

because the food was that good. So no, the food was bad. We paid for our food. We paid for our clothing.

00:51:02.400 - 00:51:12.400

Tell me about your uniforms while you were in training. When we were in training, we didn't really, per se, have a uniform that was furnished. We had it furnished for ourselves,

00:51:12.400 - 00:51:29.400

pants similar to general's pants and a white shirt. And we had to have brown loafers, an A2 jacket that they furnished, and a hat that they furnished.

00:51:29.400 - 00:51:42.400

I wonder why they did that. And a turban. That was--we either wore a turban or we wore a hat. Or, once in a while, we got lucky and didn't have to wear either.

00:51:42.400 - 00:51:59.400

And how about to fly in? We had coveralls that in most cases would accommodate three people at once. I had several of my babies get in three at a time into these,

00:51:59.400 - 00:52:10.400

because they were always too big. Now, for me, I'm tall and I'm fairly big. It wasn't that bad. On me, I would roll up the legs maybe two feet.

00:52:10.400 - 00:52:21.400

I don't know where they ever found these giants that used them. They were from the--surplus from the fellows somewhere. They were camouflaged. They were hot. They were heavy.

00:52:21.400 - 00:52:30.400

They were hideous. They were truly hideous. That's what we flew in. Describe for me a schedule for a day.

00:52:30.400 - 00:52:38.400

What would you do? If I remember, that's going to be a miracle. It really is. We got up in the morning. I remember that.

00:52:38.400 - 00:52:49.400

They blew the bloody bucle. The hat woke us up. There is something that's irrelevant to the flying or anybody else. It just was for me.

00:52:49.400 - 00:53:01.400

I was a character. I really was a character. I was a clown. Because I'd been taught that there wasn't anything I couldn't do. So I never once thought I wouldn't make it.

00:53:01.400 - 00:53:14.400

I found out a lot of people didn't feel that way. I feel very sorry for them. They must have gone through the pangs of hell worrying about it. Two of them were my very dear friends.

00:53:14.400 - 00:53:29.400

I didn't even know them. I would have tried to help them if I had. But being a character, we were required to-- when the bloody bucle woke us, we were supposed to get up.

00:53:29.400 - 00:53:48.400

Then they would come around and they would yell between the two bays where our flights-- one flight was on one side and our flight was on the other. Somebody would yell 15 minutes in whatever flight it was. It was flight one or flight two.

00:53:48.400 - 00:54:03.400

I'd still be asleep. Then you'd come along and they'd yell, I think, five minutes. We had a five-minute warning. And then a two-minute warning.

00:54:03.400 - 00:54:14.400

And then they'd yell, "Fall out." Now people used to come to see this because you're not going to believe it. But they would come and stand there to see what I did. I'd be sound asleep.

00:54:14.400 - 00:54:26.400

The minute I'd hear, evidently subconsciously, to the fallout, I'd be out of that bed. I'd grab a pair of general pants that I had on the bottom of my bed. I'd put them on my shorty pajamas.

00:54:26.400 - 00:54:47.400

I'd grab an A2 jacket and I'd grab a turban and a hat because I had to be one of the two. And I'd be out that door and never miss the formation, ever. And they'd all stand around and laugh themselves silly, absolutely laugh themselves silly. Then I'd march to the mess hall, go through the door, come back, and do whatever I had to do.

00:54:47.400 - 00:55:07.400

So then we woke up in the morning and then we went usually either to ground school. Half of the group went to ground school and the other half went flying, either at the field or at the auxiliary fields. Somehow or another they got us back to lunch.

00:55:07.400 - 00:55:24.400

We had very little time to ourselves, if I remember correctly. We had more time when we got into cross countries to prepare for the cross country, for the navigation part of it. But most of the time, we didn't have that much time for studying, if I remember.

00:55:24.400 - 00:55:35.400

I didn't study. That's why I went to SC, so I wouldn't have studied. I really didn't want to study. I wanted to learn to fly and I wanted to divert all my energies to that,

00:55:35.400 - 00:55:50.400

so I honestly don't remember studying. But I'm certain I probably did sometime. Can you tell me about your solo, who your instructor is, if you remember, and what you flew and your solo flight?

00:55:50.400 - 00:56:03.400

It was a stearman. I can't remember the name of the instructor. He's one of the ones that rung me out. I remember that.

00:56:03.400 - 00:56:18.400

I don't know. I've soloed fairly early because I'd had stearman time before I got there. It was just about the same as it was here in the little old cub. He went to a certain point in the field and said, "Stop it here," and he got out,

00:56:18.400 - 00:56:30.400

and he said, "Take it up." And I had no qualms because I loved that ship. I think everybody who ever flew a stearman loved it. It was a wonderful ship.

00:56:30.400 - 00:56:47.400

Gail, what qualities in you do you feel that you have that made you succeed in finishing the course when so many of your classmates washed out? What was the difference? I have no idea.

00:56:47.400 - 00:57:07.400

Absolutely no idea. We've tried to figure out what the qualities were in each of us, why we were picked. We've circulated amongst our classmates a letter saying, "Hey, do you ever think about what it was that they picked us for?"

00:57:07.400 - 00:57:24.400

We have no idea what that one thing--there had to be something they were looking for. I have no idea what it was. Do you remember anything in primary, any incidents, or anything that happened to you during primary that would be interesting?

00:57:24.400 - 00:57:43.400

Well, other than always having to stop at the other end of the field and taking the branches out of my undercarriage, no. I loved to buzz. I loved to buzz, and I never missed an opportunity. And do you know what the penalty was if they caught you buzzing?

00:57:43.400 - 00:57:58.400

I did not find that out until I read Bert Grainger's book. I had no idea that you could get kicked out for that. It didn't even dawn on me. Because I usually had instructors that loved to buzz, too.

00:57:58.400 - 00:58:12.400

I just figured it was natural. I wasn't the only one doing it, believe me. But I didn't know you could get kicked out. I had no idea. Did you know any of the things that you could get kicked out for?

00:58:12.400 - 00:58:28.400

No, absolutely none. I knew if you failed your test, your flying test, you could get kicked out. I know that because everybody had friends that went up for big slips and stuff. I knew that. But that's all I knew.

00:58:28.400 - 00:58:46.400

I didn't realize that when somebody had an accident, for example, they were grounded and they went before a board. Everything to me was kept very quiet. I think any wasp who went through and had people in her immediate area that she knew

00:58:46.400 - 00:58:58.400

that washed out will say the same thing. One minute that person was there, the next minute they were gone. You had no chance to say goodbye. You had no chance to feel badly about it.

00:58:58.400 - 00:59:20.400

They undoubtedly found out that that was the best way to handle it. So, no. When you finished primary training, did you have some time off? We probably did. I can't remember what happened.

00:59:20.400 - 00:59:32.400

We lost one of our class in primary. There was an accident and she was killed. Do you know the story of that? I honestly don't know on her.

00:59:32.400 - 00:59:47.400

We also lost one in advanced, in AT-6s. I know the story on her. Why don't you go ahead and tell us that story? She was a very, very dear friend of one of my closest friends.

00:59:47.400 - 01:00:07.400

Margie Davis was her name. We were on a cross country. I have no idea where on the N-6s. She being Flight 1 was in a different thing than I was. We heard about it when we landed that night to RON.

01:00:07.400 - 01:00:32.400

Evidently, she had circled this little town, I think it was in Texas, for about 20 minutes. Nobody could figure out why because there was a tower there, a little water tower. The water tower had the name of the town, so she had to know where she was. She was lost, because she wasn't that far across.

01:00:32.400 - 01:00:49.400

Evidently, she for some reason started to come in. Nobody, I don't think, ever determined why. She had some high tension wires. They said the only mark was on her forehead.

01:00:49.400 - 01:01:04.400

There wasn't another mark on her body. She had all her seat belts and her shoulder straps and everything on. She was killed. At that time, that's why I say I don't know about primary.

01:01:04.400 - 01:01:22.400

It struck the class evidently very hard, and we were given time off. We were allowed to take, I don't know how long it was. That's how some of my friends morshed back to the next class, because they took longer. Everybody was very, very shippy.

01:01:22.400 - 01:01:43.400

I think that's when people are that--you go that far, certainly there's a much greater feeling of camaraderie and closeness. So we were all very much affected by it. I took off and came back to the ranch here and spent, I don't know, maybe five days.

01:01:43.400 - 01:01:59.400

We probably had a week. The rest of my friends went to California, and they stayed longer, and that's how they morshed back. They were very lenient about not morshing them out, which I understood they could.

01:01:59.400 - 01:02:18.400

Had a heck of a time getting back, because none of us had thought-- it was during the war--and you just didn't get on a bus or a plane or a train. You had to have orders. Well, I had hopped flights out of Abilene, I guess I started,

01:02:18.400 - 01:02:33.400

and I was able to hop flights on other airplanes coming here, but I couldn't get them back, so I had to try and get on the train. I got as far as Ratoon and got bumped for military, and I said, "I have no--" Well, I had nothing to prove it.

01:02:33.400 - 01:02:48.400

We had no uniform, per se, at that time, and so I had to get off and wire them. People didn't call in those days. I don't know, maybe the telephone was a foreign object or something. People didn't call like they did.

01:02:48.400 - 01:03:05.400

You know, you sent a telegram or a fact, twix, something, but not calling. So I had to communicate with the vendor, and they sent me some paperwork saying, "Return to base immediately so I can get back on the train." And I stayed with the class.

01:03:05.400 - 01:03:20.400

I was ahead of the hours. We have a picture that I took in the ready room of the speed graphic, and I got it blown up to 8 1/2 by 11, something like that. And you could read the board for our class.

01:03:20.400 - 01:03:39.400

And my time, I had all my time in, and other people didn't because of the instructors giving me all that extra time. So that's probably why I got to leave early. That's the time we had off.

01:03:39.400 - 01:03:52.400

I don't remember any other time off. I know, speaking of the speed graphic, that you had an outside activity while you were at Avenger. Tell us about that, a hobby.

01:03:52.400 - 01:04:00.400

What hobby? Taking pictures. Oh, yeah. It was just something I'd done for many, many years.

01:04:00.400 - 01:04:17.400

My dad had bought me the speed graphic, and I took it to Avenger. I think they had little cameras except Brownies and stuff like that in those days. And I took a great deal of photographs there in flying and on the ground and everything like that.

01:04:17.400 - 01:04:39.400

Do you remember any specific photograph you took that stands out in your mind? No, not really. When you finished primary training, then what did you do? We went into--I think we went into--

01:04:39.400 - 01:04:53.400

I'm not sure whether we had basic instrument flying next or we had advanced. I can't remember which. We went in one of the two. We either had instrument training or we went into advanced.

01:04:53.400 - 01:05:07.400

Describe what instrument training is about. You live your life under a black hood inside the airplane. What kind of airplane is this? It's a BT-13.

01:05:07.400 - 01:05:22.400

It was made by Volte. It's called the Volte Vibrator. Thousands of nuts and bolts in loose formation. You sat in there, and there was a hood that pulled over you and blacked the entire--

01:05:22.400 - 01:05:33.400

you couldn't see anything except your instruments, which was the object we were to rely on, the instruments, because your sensation--for example, if you get in an elevator, sometimes you know when you're going down and sometimes you don't.

01:05:33.400 - 01:05:45.400

It's the same with an airplane. Your sensations can fool you, so you had to use the instruments to determine whether you're at a turn, you're flying straight and level, where you're going.

01:05:45.400 - 01:06:05.400

That's why we were taught instrument training. Also, because of the weather conditions where you could not see, you couldn't navigate by sight, so you had to fly instruments. I don't remember how many hours we had.

01:06:05.400 - 01:06:27.400

Then at some point you were in advanced training? Yes, AT-6s. Tell me about any one cross-country that you might have taken in an AT-6. Well, there's only one that I remember,

01:06:27.400 - 01:06:41.400

and I really don't remember that one that much. I don't know how many were in the flight or anything else, but I think anybody who was a pilot in Avenger or anywhere else for that matter, when you take off--and I think we were taking off at one minute interval

01:06:41.400 - 01:07:09.400

or something, very close--and we were supposed to follow each other. Well, when you take off and you have prepared your course and your navigation and you feel confident in it, and you take up a heading X, whatever, and you're going this way, and you look over, and everybody else is going that way.

01:07:09.400 - 01:07:22.400

No one is in some panic. So the first thing you do, the first thing I did, was start checking all my stuff to be sure that I hadn't made a grievous error, because that's a lot over a period of two hours.

01:07:22.400 - 01:07:42.400

That's a big distance, a very big distance. And finally, everybody--may God strike me dead-- everybody that was on that cross-country was going that way, and I was going that way. And finally, I had great faith in myself, and still do.

01:07:42.400 - 01:07:56.400

I really do. Good confidence. I decided I was right, and they're wrong. I was going to sweat it out, and I'm going to worry like hell,

01:07:56.400 - 01:08:16.400

but I knew that I was right, so I went on. And sure enough, all my little checkpoints turned up right where they were supposed to, and I saw a few water towers, and there were wonderful names on them. And I think we were going into Kansas City. I'm not even sure now.

01:08:16.400 - 01:08:35.400

To make a long story short, including the military guy that went with one of the CEOs or somebody, I'm the only one that got there. And I was lonely. Nobody got there till the next day.

01:08:35.400 - 01:08:53.400

People must have followed each other. I have no idea. I have no explanation for it, because some of my bay mates were in that thing, and I know they prepared, and I know that's not where they were going. But at that point, I realized that no matter what happened to me later on in life,

01:08:53.400 - 01:09:07.400

I was going to trust my instincts, and I was not going to be influenced by somebody else. If I felt I was right, look out. I fairly well lived that. So that would have been a lasting impression.

01:09:07.400 - 01:09:28.400

That's the only one I can remember. At some point while you were at Sweetwater, were you issued new uniforms and describe those? We were issued them just before we graduated. A very short time. I can't remember how long, but it was a very short time.

01:09:28.400 - 01:09:56.400

We were issued a Santiago blue uniform of slacks, a battle jacket, a dress jacket. We had shirts, light blue shirts, summer, and a wonderful shirt for winter. I loved that shirt. Like a cotton-ish winter shirt. And then some white dress shirts, ties.

01:09:56.400 - 01:10:15.400

They outfitted us completely. Not shoes. We had very still on shoes. Purses, galoshes, coats, gloves. They gave us the works. They really did.

01:10:15.400 - 01:10:33.400

They made up for all the time we didn't have any. Can you describe your feelings when you put that uniform on and stood there at graduation? I was really proud. Emotional, too, obviously.

01:10:33.400 - 01:10:54.400

We wore them a while. I don't know how long, because I have a picture of me by the coffee shack in uniform. Well, without the jacket and hat on. So I know we had them for a period of time when we were still going to grad school. Can you describe for me your graduation?

01:10:54.400 - 01:11:09.400

Hectic. Did some dignitaries come? Yeah. There was generals, and there was Cochran. I have no idea who else.

01:11:09.400 - 01:11:28.400

My dad and my stepmother came in at that time. They had gotten married, and I got a telegram telling me, which I was obviously very unhappy about. They came in for the graduation. We had other family members and friends of mine who came in.

01:11:28.400 - 01:11:40.400

Was that the first time you had seen your stepmother? Oh, no. No, I saw her here. My stepmother was no good. I'd like it on record.

01:11:40.400 - 01:11:52.400

She really was no good. She was a vile, ugly person. I don't want to go into it, but there's much to it. She lived that way, and she died that way.

01:11:52.400 - 01:12:01.400

She was a very bad, evil woman. And so nice to your face. Oh, God. But God help you when you turn your back. That type of person.

01:12:01.400 - 01:12:12.400

But you were really proud to have your dad there. Yes, I was. But, again, it was hectic. We had our orders. We knew where we were going.

01:12:12.400 - 01:12:27.400

Most of the time we weren't happy where we were going. Whatever it was, we wanted to be somewhere else. We knew that. And we had only so much time to get there after graduation. I can remember walking around and trying to say goodbye to people

01:12:27.400 - 01:12:42.400

and trying to find them and having trouble doing that and packing. It was hectic. It really was hectic because we only had a day and a half, I think, to report. We did not have much time.

01:12:42.400 - 01:13:05.400

Tell me, Bob, you were still in training. When did you hear about the WASP being deactivated, and how did it make you feel? We heard it probably, I'd say, two months before we graduated. We heard rumors. There was always rumors.

01:13:05.400 - 01:13:26.400

And we didn't know if they were true or not true. And what we heard was--and many of us still believe it today-- that because Cochran demanded that she be given the highest rank of any woman in the service, they didn't want to do it.

01:13:26.400 - 01:13:47.400

And she said, "Either you're going to do that or you won't have my girls. I'll shut it down." Knowing Cochran, I believe she said that. I saw her at several dances, and I wouldn't doubt the least of what she said then. And in your opinion, was Cochran worthy of having that highest honor?

01:13:47.400 - 01:14:06.400

Cochran was the only person that probably could have ever done it. Ever. I had not respect for her at all. She was a very crude woman, and at that time I was very impressionable and very proper and very prim, everything I'm not now.

01:14:06.400 - 01:14:29.400

But she was very crude, particularly in the way she manipulated the generals. She really was. But she's the only one that could have ever done it. Ever. I'm sure of that. I don't think she was as fair with people, the WASP, as she should have been.

01:14:29.400 - 01:14:48.400

I had a funny thing happen. This is a little off subject, but let me tell you about it. Again, my friends washed back several of them to 10. And when they had the graduation, this was the last one, I went after permission to attend the graduation.

01:14:48.400 - 01:15:02.400

Any WASP knows that the only person who was allowed to go on that field was a WASP. Nobody else. Well, I appeared before some kind of a board. I have no idea what it was at the time, and I never even knew then what it was.

01:15:02.400 - 01:15:23.400

And they explained the situation, and I'd like to go to graduation. And they said, "You can't land the sweetwater." And I said, "I don't mean to argue, but I was very mild then. Not now." So I told them, I explained that the only person that could land was a WASP.

01:15:23.400 - 01:15:37.400

And I went round and round, got absolutely nowhere. And I said, "Okay, then may I do this. May I land my ship at Abilene, and I'll hitchhike in and stay at sweetwater." Okay, that was okay.

01:15:37.400 - 01:15:55.400

So I started out. Well, I can't remember where. There was weather at the time. And I got stuck at some field, and we couldn't get out because we had to be on instruments. I had a stupid white card.

01:15:55.400 - 01:16:14.400

Cochran landed there in AT-10, I think, or 11, one of the two, and proceeded to raise all kinds of you-know-what with the officer of the day, demanding that he release her. She had a green card, I guess.

01:16:14.400 - 01:16:24.400

Whatever it was, she had the big card. And I had this little old peasant's card, you know. I just graduated a month before. And she didn't talk to me.

01:16:24.400 - 01:16:35.400

She saw me. You know, I'm in uniform. Good God, I'm one of her WASPs. And I didn't rush over to her, probably in adoration or something. And she didn't even speak to me.

01:16:35.400 - 01:17:00.400

So finally, this guy got tired of her, I'm sure, and called me over, and he cleared me to get out of there. He didn't clear her. She came into Sweetwater about four hours after I did. So I flew into Abilene and left my plane there and then hitchhiked into Sweetwater and stayed there.

01:17:00.400 - 01:17:15.400

But I'm sure that every time she saw me, it really got her, because she knew that I got out of that field, and she didn't. And I didn't say a word. Not a word. So, I don't—she didn't treat people very fairly, I don't think. Maybe she treated others, I don't know.

01:17:15.400 - 01:17:31.400

That was my observation. At graduation, what did your orders say? Where were you going? I was transferred to Independence, Kansas, to do engineering testing.

01:17:31.400 - 01:17:47.400

I wanted fighters so bad I could die. But I'm tall, and I didn't find out until later that the short kids got the fighters and the tall people got in the big ships. I didn't know that. I would have, you know, I would have shrunk or something.

01:17:47.400 - 01:18:01.400

So I was really disappointed. But we got a lot of flying done. A lot. Let me go back to your graduation and ask you to describe your graduation. Was it outdoors? Where was it?

01:18:01.400 - 01:18:20.400

No, we graduated inside in the auditorium. And I honestly can't remember. I can't remember somebody handing my wings or anything, and yet I know they did. Your mind is spinning. My mind is spinning.

01:18:20.400 - 01:18:35.400

Can you remember your pride when your dad saw you in uniform? I felt great, yes. Again, you've got to remember something. I never thought I wouldn't go through.

01:18:35.400 - 01:18:48.400

But I guess a lot of people did think that people wouldn't go through. So maybe he thought I wouldn't make it. I don't know. So I'm sure he was proud. My dad was--my dad was God.

01:18:48.400 - 01:18:58.400

I better tell you this. He could do anything. There wasn't a thing in the world that my dad couldn't do. And he taught me to be like him. I could do anything as long as I wanted it, I could do it.

01:18:58.400 - 01:19:13.400

So he really was your role model? Oh, he was, yes. I guess he was. When you left Avenger, how did you get to your base? I drove.

01:19:13.400 - 01:19:22.400

When you arrived, to whom did you report? I have no idea. Were there other WASPs already stationed there? There were several WASPs.

01:19:22.400 - 01:19:37.400

There was at least four of us that were transferred there. I have no idea how the others got there. I remember we had trouble, even though there were at least four WASPs there previously, as far as quarters.

01:19:37.400 - 01:19:51.400

They had us in the nurses' quarters, and there weren't enough room, as always. They didn't know what to do with us. They had to put us in the officers' stuff, but they didn't know what to do. And I remember that.

01:19:51.400 - 01:20:10.400

And then everything is hazy. It really is. I remember testing. I forgot to ask you, while you were in training, what were your social activities that you got to do?

01:20:10.400 - 01:20:31.400

Get drunk on the weekends? No, we went into Sweetwater, and we'd walk around and talk to people. One time, a whole bunch of us, about 20 of us, rented a room with a blue bonnet to take a bath. A real live tub bath.

01:20:31.400 - 01:20:49.400

Then we'd go to Sweetwater Lake and have picnics. We had fun in the weekends. We really did. I know Sweetwater was dry. Whoops.

01:20:49.400 - 01:21:04.400

It was somewhere outside of town from a colored lady, I remember that. And it was terrible stuff. It was rot gut. It was so bad, the bottom was cut out, and they put something else in it. And it was so bad.

01:21:04.400 - 01:21:15.400

It was supposed to have been bourbon, but it was really bad. We used to get it from the bellboys at the Blue Bonnet Hotel. I don't know where they got it. And then if we had time, which we rarely did,

01:21:15.400 - 01:21:36.400

I'd drive into Big Springs, and we could get booze there, and beer. And we met some French pilots who came in. I don't know where. We must have met them in town on a weekend. And they flew in a case of scotch for us, which everybody loved it.

01:21:36.400 - 01:21:45.400

Me, I hated scotch. And they flew this in, I'll never forget that. That wonderful pinch-bottle scotch. They were so excited.

01:21:45.400 - 01:21:57.400

And didn't charge us for it, they just brought it. I don't know where they got it. Do you remember any regulations about liquor? Oh, wait, let me go back.

01:21:57.400 - 01:22:08.400

The first weekend we were allowed off base, I don't know how long we were restricted, six weeks or something, whatever it was, before we could go off base. And the first weekend that we were allowed,

01:22:08.400 - 01:22:24.400

our instructor told us to go into town and get drunk. And I just looked at the guy, I didn't drink. And he said, "You need to. You need to have a release for the tension,

01:22:24.400 - 01:22:40.400

and if you don't have it, you're going to crack up." Well, we took him at his word. And boy did we drink. I sometimes would drink a fifth a night on a Saturday night.

01:22:40.400 - 01:22:50.400

God, it was terrible. And one of my friends, we'd go out to the Sweetwater, we had this watermelon fest, you know, we'd drink watermelon like crazy and the booze like crazy.

01:22:50.400 - 01:22:58.400

She ended up in the hospital, because she had the booze and the watermelon. She was sicker than an odd. So yes, we followed his advice.

01:22:58.400 - 01:23:09.400

Very good. Do you know any of your classmates or any of the trainees who got washed out for drinking? I never heard of it.

01:23:09.400 - 01:23:26.400

We almost... Having a car was a distinct advantage, believe me, because most of the time everybody was so drunk they couldn't walk. And I took several people, you'd go in the gate,

01:23:26.400 - 01:23:39.400

as long as you got the gate you felt you had most of it passed, and then I'd bypass where we had to sign at the officers, the officer of the day, and I'd go out on the runway. I told you I did terrible things, and it's true.

01:23:39.400 - 01:23:52.400

I went out on the runway and I'd come right beside the bay that these people belonged at that couldn't walk. And we'd get a bunch of people and they'd carry them into the rooms. And then I'd go back around the other way.

01:23:52.400 - 01:24:04.400

Well, the night of our graduation dance was really bad, because we were late. I don't know how we were late, but something happened at the dance that delayed us all.

01:24:04.400 - 01:24:16.400

Not because we were drinking. We were drinking, but that's beside the point. So when we went to get through the gate, the guy wouldn't let us in. And we told him, "We're graduating tomorrow. You can't do this."

01:24:16.400 - 01:24:29.400

I never talked so hard in so long in my life. I was the only one that could talk. First off, everybody else was so blind drunk. So finally he let me go in, or we would have been washed out.

01:24:29.400 - 01:24:42.400

But I didn't know you could get washed out from being drunk until then. And the fact we couldn't get in told me that there was a problem. And when you got in, did you go to the dance? No, no, we'd been to the dance.

01:24:42.400 - 01:24:54.400

You had been to the dance. Yeah, that's where we got drunk, with all the generals. I was drinking straight Southern Comfort out in this huge water glass. Straight Southern Comfort.

01:24:54.400 - 01:25:06.400

And people would come up and say, "How about a drink?" I'd say, "Sure." They tasted it and almost died. It's a wonder I didn't become an alcoholic.

01:25:06.400 - 01:25:19.400

And it never frightened you, because you didn't realize you could get washed out. So it didn't frighten you to drink. Never. I would never drink if I had to fly the next day, ever.

01:25:19.400 - 01:25:29.400

Ever. Okay, let's go forward now. And you're at Independence? Yeah.

01:25:29.400 - 01:25:42.400

Tell me about your assignment at Independence. Actually, we were very lucky. There was a lot of flying to do. I know a lot of the girls did not get a lot of flying.

01:25:42.400 - 01:26:03.400

We were in the air all the time, constantly, flying, checking, engineering, testing, you know, do this, do that. And some of the time, the planes were cross-wired. You'd go to turn right and you'd go left, and typical everything.

01:26:03.400 - 01:26:16.400

What kind of airplanes were you flying? Most of them were BT-14s. A lot of people didn't know what a 14 was. It was exactly like an AT-6, except it did not have retractable landing gear.

01:26:16.400 - 01:26:27.400

The AT-6 was made by -- Boeing? No. Who made the AT-6?

01:26:27.400 - 01:26:41.400

North America. And the BT-14 was made by Volte, that made the BT-13. Had the same engine, same type engine, horsepower and everything else. It just did not have retractable gear.

01:26:41.400 - 01:27:00.400

And they pulled these planes in from all over the United States to be repaired and tested. That's the way they did it all. On an engineering test flight, describe that for me.

01:27:00.400 - 01:27:08.400

I don't understand the question. How would you test this airplane? Would you do maneuvers in it? Oh, yes.

01:27:08.400 - 01:27:20.400

Specific maneuvers? Specific maneuvers assigned to us and things that they wanted tested, depending on what had happened to the plane and how it was repaired. We had a checklist to go by.

01:27:20.400 - 01:27:34.400

We also happened to be right by Cherry Point. There was a P-38 base. Now, we used to go for a dogfight. We aren't supposed to be dogfighting, but we used to go for a dogfight.

01:27:34.400 - 01:27:44.400

That was our way of rigging the planes out and be sure everything was right. And we had a ball. And the P-38 pilots had a ball. Did you ever have--

01:27:44.400 - 01:27:59.400

I did. Everything was wrong, now that I think of it. But it was fun. While you were there, did you have occasionally assigned to, say, slow fly? Slow tie-in engines? No.

01:27:59.400 - 01:28:16.400

I never had that. It was cold. We were there in the winter, and there was a lot of ice, a lot of snow. We had a lot of Third Louis at our base.

01:28:16.400 - 01:28:23.400

What did they call them? They called them--were they flight officers or something? I don't remember what they were. And they resented the WASP terribly,

01:28:23.400 - 01:28:37.400

because we could have a plane every weekend to go wherever we wanted. And I never went. I never spent a weekend on the base, ever. And we could take off so many degrees downwind.

01:28:37.400 - 01:28:51.400

We could do all these things that they couldn't do. Tell me about one weekend flight that you took. Where did you go? I did the same thing every time.

01:28:51.400 - 01:29:04.400

I went to the weather shack. I found out where the worst weather was. And there were going to be solid instruments all the way there, and I flew there. I got all this AI time like crazy,

01:29:04.400 - 01:29:19.400

and I usually got stuck an extra two days before I could get back to my feet. I told you I'd do everything wrong. It was fun. I went to see--this one time I went down into Arkansas.

01:29:19.400 - 01:29:35.400

I don't remember where it was--to see one of my classmates stationed there. And there was really bad weather, and I was trying--fighting like crazy. I was having trouble with the radio, and I'd been beating on it like everybody did, trying to get the thing to work.

01:29:35.400 - 01:29:51.400

And it would come on and it would go, and I'd lose the beam, and it would come on and go. And I'm down in there beating on the thing, and I come up, and right in front of me is this Navy blimp. And I dove like crazy, split S-stop to get out of the way,

01:29:51.400 - 01:30:02.400

and I probably scared the devil out of them too. And that was the closest I've ever come to having any kind of inflation at all. I don't have any idea why they were there. They didn't know why I was there either.

01:30:02.400 - 01:30:21.400

And then I finally--I landed at this field in Arkansas, wherever it was, and my gas quit right on the runway. That's how tight it was. Was there ever a time during training or during your time at Independence

01:30:21.400 - 01:30:32.400

when you were really scared? No. That really doesn't scare me that bad. Startled, yes.

01:30:32.400 - 01:30:46.400

Really startled. I have really never been frightened in an airplane. It sounds so braggadocious. I hate to say things like this.

01:30:46.400 - 01:31:02.400

This is why I don't like to talk about it, because people think I'm a braggart, and I'm not. I really am not a braggart. It really was true. I really was never frightened. Can you think of any outstanding incidents that might have happened to either you

01:31:02.400 - 01:31:26.400

or to someone else at the base when you were stationed there that would be unusual? Almost nothing happened to me when I was in the service. Most of it happened after I was faring the other stuff. All sorts of things happened then, but not when I was in the WASP.

01:31:26.400 - 01:31:53.400

When you were deactivated, where did you go, and how did you get there? I drove home and went to Pasadena, California, which was my home. My father was in Colorado, and we had a home in Pasadena, and I went there. Then I worked at getting faring jobs for myself and some of my classmates,

01:31:53.400 - 01:32:18.400

and ended up with a faring job for the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. We were quartered in Blythe, California, and flew planes in from all over, either to be pickled or sold in the auctions in L.A. Was this a mixed group of pilots or just one?

01:32:18.400 - 01:32:36.400

No, most of them were WASPs. WASPs were all over the place working for faring outfits. I don't think there was any of the pilots when I was there. Do you remember any specific trip that you made that might have been a little unusual?

01:32:36.400 - 01:32:55.400

I had all kinds of unusual trips. The first one was always out of Texas. We'd check the logbooks, and we'd do the best we could. We'd refuse plane after plane after plane that was so in need of checking and had not been done.

01:32:55.400 - 01:33:16.400

Finally, maybe after about ten planes, you know, "God, I've got to take something," and we'd take a plane. It was a WPT-22, but I guess it was a 19. It was the Ryan low-wing Fairchild plane, a really nice plane. We were faring.

01:33:16.400 - 01:33:31.400

It was out of Fort-something in Texas. There were six of us on the flight, all WASPs. We get up, and we're going along. It must have been about an hour out.

01:33:31.400 - 01:33:52.400

All of a sudden, my engine starts quitting, and it's sputtering like crazy. Of course, there's no communication between the planes at this time. I'm signaling everybody that I'm in trouble. We saw this little dirt field, and I brought it in there, and then everybody brought it in.

01:33:52.400 - 01:34:24.400

We called our boss, told him where we were, and told him to send somebody to take care of the plane. When they went to check it, they found out that when they pickled it, their way of pickling it was to just fill the tanks with water. When they activated it for us, they drained out a little water and put some gas in, and that was it. They didn't drain all the water out, so the gas would get suctioned up, and when it ran out, you're just on pure water.

01:34:24.400 - 01:34:44.400

They finally couldn't drain it. It was a rail plane. That was one of the times. Then I had a plane, again, a PT-19 I was fairing. I was on almost the top of Micah Mountain in Arizona, 14-something.

01:34:44.400 - 01:35:07.400

I had my seat down. I had my A-2 jacket on backwards. I didn't have my helmet on. I had my goggles on. I had maps all over the cockpit, and all of a sudden, the plane blew two plugs right through the engine and the cowling. Boom.

01:35:07.400 - 01:35:28.400

In two seconds, I had the A-2 jacket on right, I had my helmet on, I had my goggles on, I had the maps stored, and I was on the way down. I thought about jumping, but it was such a wonderful ship. It was a really good ship, and I really didn't want to ditch it. I saw this little tiny road down below, out in the middle of nowhere.

01:35:28.400 - 01:35:49.400

Texas is nowhere, and then Arizona is next to it. I landed on this little road with just a little bit of room between my wings and the fence post. I was there no more than ten minutes on the ground. I was just getting out, and all these people arrived.

01:35:49.400 - 01:36:15.400

This is really close to this mountain, and all these people arrived. They were so wonderful to me. They cut down the fence, they put the plane over there, they staked it out, they agreed to stay with it, because somebody had to stay with the plane. When I took off my helmet and they found out I was a woman, they went crazy. They had never seen a plane, a military plane before, from this little tiny town of paradise.

01:36:15.400 - 01:36:36.400

They took me in, and they fed me, and they were so wonderful to me. I called my boss again, and he came, and they had to truck it out. Things like that, that's about it. But again, I never thought of hurting the ship or hurting myself. It never even dawned on me.

01:36:36.400 - 01:36:47.400

How did you get that airplane out? They trucked it. They had to take it and dismantle it and put it on a truck. Did you ride in the truck?

01:36:47.400 - 01:37:09.400

No, no. I had to ride with some other people. We used to go that same route all the time. I got some cigarettes, which was very hard to get in those days, and I made a little parachute. I'd go over this little tiny town, and I'd throw this parachute with the cigarettes to the people.

01:37:09.400 - 01:37:30.400

They'd wave. We were like friends on the ground. After you finished that job, then what did you do? I went back into photography, which I had done when I was in school.

01:37:30.400 - 01:37:54.400

I did what's called kidnapping. It's portraiture at home, and I did that for a lot of years. Then I decided that I wanted to go into electronics. God knows why. I have no idea. I went to work at Bendix Aviation in Burbank.

01:37:54.400 - 01:38:15.400

Worked there a while, and then I wanted to get into Lockheed Missile, because there was a new division forming that was going to be all missiles, which was the coming thing. I wanted to get in there. My cousin and I worked there, and every week we'd go and talk to the guy at the personnel. He said, "There's nothing open yet."

01:38:15.400 - 01:38:29.400

I knew they were hiring, and I knew we were very highly skilled people. We were good. We were really good. I kept telling him how good we were. He said, "I believe you, but I can't hire you."

01:38:29.400 - 01:38:45.400

Finally, one day I got to know him enough, and he told us that they were not allowed to hire somebody who was working for another company. That was in the agreement with the aircraft companies. We said, "We'll fix that." He said, "You quit today, and I'll hire you today."

01:38:45.400 - 01:39:03.400

We went back, quit, and went to work at Lockheed Missile. The division was just forming. They had engineering, and they had the shop that was doing nothing but research and development. It was fascinating, absolutely fascinating.

01:39:03.400 - 01:39:27.400

Kelly: In research and development, what were they researching for? Rupp: Preparation for space. They sent probes into space and got the information back. Then from that, it proceeded to one thing after another after another, and finally it got a little bigger. Then they set missiles in.

01:39:27.400 - 01:39:53.400

Then I worked on the Polaris contracts. I worked on almost everything that Lockheed ever shot up into space. I had several pads at Vandenberg that was under my charge. I had some at Cape Canaveral.

01:39:53.400 - 01:40:17.400

Again, I was in charge of the ground support. This is later on. I was going to tell you something terribly important, obviously. I designed the cable for the first moonshot.

01:40:17.400 - 01:40:28.400

It was JPL's, and that was a thrill. That was a real thrill, the first moonshot. I designed that cable. Kelly: Did it have your name on it?

01:40:28.400 - 01:40:49.400

Rupp: No, but I knew I did it. Kelly: During that time, Gail, did you have a desire to go into space? Rupp: No. Never even thought about it. Kelly: At that point, when you were working for Lockheed, were your flying days behind you?

01:40:49.400 - 01:41:04.400

Rupp: Yeah. I flew as long as I could get any kind of money to sustain me. In fact, I don't know how I sustained myself during those times. We did not get that money faring. If you got $50 a trip, you were doing good.

01:41:04.400 - 01:41:20.400

That was big pay in those days. They paid for your food and everything, and we made sure they paid dearly. But nevertheless, money in your pocket was not that great. We were never home when I worked for this other faring outfit,

01:41:20.400 - 01:41:40.400

because they would put you in a car that they would take you into Durant, Oklahoma. You'd get there probably maybe two or three o'clock in the morning, and by five o'clock, you'd be on a flight line in a ship ready to fly it back here. We never had any sleep, ever.

01:41:40.400 - 01:41:58.400

One funny thing that happened, I went a long time. I hadn't stayed in Pasadena for maybe overnight. That was it. I came into town this one time, and incidentally, when you fly that much and you haven't driven, it's a wild sensation to get in a car.

01:41:58.400 - 01:42:10.400

It really is funny to try and drive. You want to pull back every time you see somebody coming at you. I came to my house, and here's all these police. Cis is a very dear friend of mine who had been in the service and everything.

01:42:10.400 - 01:42:31.400

They thought something had happened to me, and I died because I hadn't been there in so long. I decided that I had to let people know where I was, because I actually got tired. But I probably would have kept going if I could have made it there. Levy-Gordon And at Lockheed, did you stay there until you retired?

01:42:31.400 - 01:43:10.400

McClellan I stayed there until they moved up to Palo Alto, San Jose, actually. I didn't make the move with them, and I then worked at Douglas as a design checker for a while. Didn't like it, and went back up to Lockheed at San Jose for, I don't know, maybe four or five months, and then came back down and went to work at Lockheed in Burbank on the L-1011 contract.

01:43:10.400 - 01:43:32.400

Corporate work rather than missile. Levy-Gordon And then what was your job in corporate work? Why were you doing that? McClellan I was in charge of all the electrical requirements for the 1011.

01:43:32.400 - 01:43:58.400

Now that doesn't sound like a lot, but what happens, we had all these different aircraft companies. Each aircraft company that was buying a ship wanted a different— let's be ridiculous and say one wanted a windshield wiper and one didn't, but it was worse than that. The pitch of the seats, the engines, everything was different.

01:43:58.400 - 01:44:26.400

As such, the electrical requirements were all different. There had to be a coordination between these seven giant—United, Delta, all of these. There had to be a correlation so that you could try to pick what was common and build to that common part, and then add all the things that were for a certain plane that made it Deltas instead of North Americans.

01:44:26.400 - 01:44:49.400

That was my job, to pick all of that from the contract requirements, put it together, and make sure that we were in agreement with what had to be. Because we're talking billions of dollars if there's aerospace, billions. Kelly: Then did you stay with Lockheed then?

01:44:49.400 - 01:45:30.400

Cohn: I stayed with Lockheed for quite a while. Lockheed and all aerospace industries was going through a very bad time. Layoffs were prevalent. An engineer or a member of management in the past, if you didn't notify them at least two months ahead of time, you were blacklisted and you couldn't get a job. Well, it got so bad that Lockheed and everybody else was notifying their managerial,

01:45:30.400 - 01:45:49.400

as well as all engineering, and giving them two days' notice. Now, that's not a lot. You constantly worried because of the acts, because of budget cuts and everything else that was going to affect you. So I decided that I wanted to do something else.

01:45:49.400 - 01:46:11.400

Now, I'm a double-A engineer and I didn't want to go backwards. So I decided that what I could do would be a court reporter. I wouldn't have to take the terrible pay cut that you normally would have to if you wanted something else. I was training to become a court reporter, and I hurt my back.

01:46:11.400 - 01:46:28.400

I woke up one morning and I couldn't get out of bed. I was crippled. They discovered I had five crushed discs. I don't know, it was a long time recovery, a long time. I was back braces for years.

01:46:28.400 - 01:46:51.400

Finally found a doctor who had a new method of treatment and was able to get me on my feet again. But I couldn't walk, couldn't do anything. So that ended the lot. And since then, you have just been retired, or have you done other things?

01:46:51.400 - 01:47:14.400

I've been retired, but I've done many things. I am a commercial fly tire for fishing lines. I had a vinyl repair business. Anything that I felt that I could physically do would make a bunch of money.

01:47:14.400 - 01:47:23.400

I told you I wanted to know everything, and I just about have known everything. Are you a fisherman? Oh yes. What kind of fishing do you do?

01:47:23.400 - 01:47:44.400

Fly fishing, trout. And what do you do now for recreation? Take care of my friends. Steve's been very, very ill and to no fault of her own.

01:47:44.400 - 01:47:59.400

So we have not had much recreation. The only thing we have is going up to my trailer. It's a membership place up there, and there's 14 lakes with trout. And I love it up there so much I don't even bother fishing.

01:47:59.400 - 01:48:22.400

It's so peaceful. Of all the things that you have done, what is the one thing that you're most proud of? I, like every other WASP, I'm sure would say the WASP. It's made a lasting impression that I don't think any of us can analyze.

01:48:22.400 - 01:48:30.400

We've tried. Because it was such a short period of time. The gals were in the beginning. We are so eternally envious.

01:48:30.400 - 01:48:46.400

It's ridiculous. But for the short time we were in, we can't understand it. A lot of them put on their tombstone that their biggest accomplishment in life was being a member of the WASP. And they had five kids, five wonderful children they raised, for example,

01:48:46.400 - 01:49:07.400

and yet they think the WASP was the most wonderful thing. It's hard to describe. It was the busiest I've ever been, the most hectic I've ever gone through, the most maddening experiences.

01:49:07.400 - 01:49:26.400

I got into trouble that was through no fault of my own, and there was no defense because people would not believe, for example. I knew people who got washed out for going with instructors. I had a fellow on the field that I had gone with for four years and learned to fly with.

01:49:26.400 - 01:49:46.400

I wouldn't even talk to him. I was about to get kicked out for that. So I don't know why it's made such a lasting impression. But the camaraderie, the people you didn't like, the people you did like, was like nothing since.

01:49:46.400 - 01:50:05.400

I don't care if you went to a sorority house. It's a similar experience, I'm sure, but it's different. And I've never been able to find anybody to explain it. So that I would have to say was it.

01:50:05.400 - 01:50:26.400

Even when the first wound shot, it was not as good. Have you found WASP that you did not like? Or is that camaraderie more overcome? It's usually because you know them a lot.

01:50:26.400 - 01:50:38.400

Most WASPs you don't know them. At a convention, for example, you have the opportunity to see classes. When we were fairing, we saw many of the classes. I know a tremendous amount of people from there.

01:50:38.400 - 01:50:59.400

And most all, I liked. Once in a while, like anything else, you get some snot-nosed who's trying to be lording it over somebody, and that's something nobody takes. But I think as a whole, the WASPs are a very special group of people.

01:50:59.400 - 01:51:14.400

And I hate to say that, because again, it sounds like you're blowing your own horn. I was taught as a child never to blow your own horn. What do you think the common thread is that runs through all WASPs? I have no idea.

01:51:14.400 - 01:51:29.400

I wish I did. Determination? Most were aggressive, I would say. Very aggressive.

01:51:29.400 - 01:51:55.400

I don't know. Could I ask you, what do you feel the legacy of the WASPs will be? I am not one of those that I'm certain you've encountered often who feels that we should go down in perpetuity so that everybody knows how great we were.

01:51:55.400 - 01:52:04.400

Again, that's my background. I was taught as a child never to praise yourself. If you're good enough, somebody's going to praise you. Don't do it.

01:52:04.400 - 01:52:22.400

Therefore, that's got a lot to do with it. But I'm one of the ones that think that the organization should just die out, the last of us drinking a toast to all our friends who are gone and the accomplishments they did.

01:52:22.400 - 01:52:38.400

And then, on the other hand, I meet somebody like this nice lady we met up at where I have my trailer, who was so fascinated by the WASPs. I went to the VA. I go to the VA a lot now.

01:52:38.400 - 01:52:49.400

A girl came up to me and said, "Thank you." I looked at her. I had on the WASP shirt, which is a neat shirt. This is the 50th anniversary on it.

01:52:49.400 - 01:53:01.400

I said, "What for?" She said, "You gals did a tremendous job." I thought, "Well, isn't that nice?" I have a WASP banner up there on my trailer that should say my name.

01:53:01.400 - 01:53:19.400

I hang it, and it says, "Los Angeles Air Force Service Pilots, World War II." People come by and say, "Thank you." I realize they're not being phony. They are genuinely sincere in what they're saying.

01:53:19.400 - 01:53:36.400

It obviously means a lot to some people. I think the first time that any of us ever--and I'm sorry you weren't able to attend this-- had a feeling of doing something, in particular our latter classes, where we weren't in long enough to do what we wanted to do,

01:53:36.400 - 01:53:56.400

not what we could do, but what we wanted to do. The convention here at Mississippi Antlers, the Academy was greatly involved. They had their band. They made a song up, and that night at the banquet they played it.

01:53:56.400 - 01:54:09.400

Somehow it makes you proud, right? It did. For the first time, you could feel a feeling of the people around you that we had the pride that we had not had before.

01:54:09.400 - 01:54:26.400

They went to that. We've been to many, many reunions before that. But when that band played that song, it just turned you. Evidently, my feeling is wrong.

01:54:26.400 - 01:54:38.400

I'll admit that. I should be more-- It's not that I hide from people the fact that I was a wasp, but I don't just go around blowing about it.

01:54:38.400 - 01:55:04.400

Maybe somebody should, as people are doing, keep it so people know about it. Because once in a while--I'll joke about it-- I had a very dear friend, Diane, and her wish was to be ashes strung on the East Coast. The '99ers knew, found out that I was in trouble,

01:55:04.400 - 01:55:19.400

and I was trying to find somebody. They arranged for somebody down there. When I went up to this young fella, who was a pilot, took me up on a--it says nothing-- and I said, "Now, you be careful because you're flying with a piece of history."

01:55:19.400 - 01:55:34.400

I found out he didn't even know who Jacqueline Cochran was. But I'll kid around that way, you know, tell somebody I'm a piece of history, which in reality we are. How many times do we get to meet somebody that is a piece of history?

01:55:34.400 - 01:55:44.400

I should be more broad-minded, obviously. It's a feeling, indeed. Right. Well, Dale, let me ask you this. How do you feel about the history of the WASP?

01:55:44.400 - 01:56:11.400

This project, Wings Across America, is trying to document the history of every WASP so that children and future generations can study the history of the WASP in their history books. How do you feel about that endeavor? Well, if you'd asked me that question prior to this interview,

01:56:11.400 - 01:56:29.400

I would have had a totally different concept. Now, I think what you are doing is wonderful. I think it's an unbelievable undertaking on your part to try and do it. I think it's very, very hard, very expensive, very everything,

01:56:29.400 - 01:56:37.400

and you need all the support anybody could ever give you. I think it's wonderful. Thank you. I applaud you.

01:56:37.400 - 01:56:48.400

Thank you. Is there anything that I have left out that you would like to say? God, I hope not. Well, let me ask you as a last thing,

01:56:48.400 - 01:57:16.400

what you would say to children and future generations that might encourage them to have the same feelings that you did, that they, too, could do anything they want to do. What could you say to them to encourage them to want to succeed? How to reach a youngster, with the proper words, with failing.

01:57:16.400 - 01:57:34.400

I'm not--other than when I was kidnapping and dealing with children in photography, I've not had children, so I can't know what would reach them. I can only tell them the one thing that somebody told me. Anything you want to do, you can do.

01:57:34.400 - 01:57:42.400

Anything. And believe it. And then you can do it. Don't let people tell you you can't.

01:57:42.400 - 01:57:51.400

Don't let people tell you you aren't good enough. Be good enough. That's great. Wow.

01:57:51.400 - 01:58:05.400

I want to thank you very, very much. This has been a wonderful experience. Thank you, but I know that you're the type of person who says those wonderful things to everybody. You're just that sweet person.

01:58:05.400 - 01:58:14.400

No, you just made me cry. I'm tearing up. I'm sorry. You made me cry, Gail, and I don't cry. I made myself.

01:58:14.400 - 01:58:23.400

Wow. Gail, you left out a few things that I can remember. What? What's everybody crying for?

01:58:23.400 - 01:58:32.400

Okay, we're going to stop crying. I'm going to cry about that one. Okay, I'm rolling. Could you tell us about the incident with Pam?

01:58:32.400 - 01:58:52.400

Well, Pam--I've known since I was six weeks old. She washed back when one of her friends died into W10. So when I flew in for graduation, she hadn't got all her instrument time in. I said, "Okay, I'll go up and I'll fly a buddy for you."

01:58:52.400 - 01:59:08.400

So I went up. Now, I didn't know that Pam was frightened. It never, ever dawned on me anyone was frightened, because I never, ever heard anybody. We're flying along, and she's under the hood, and everything's going fine.

01:59:08.400 - 01:59:21.400

I reached over and I turned the gas off. When you do that, that horn goes like crazy. Well, she came out from under that hood, and I thought she was going to take the dang plane away. She went, "Choo! What's the matter? What's the matter?"

01:59:21.400 - 01:59:34.400

I said, "I don't know. I don't know. It's your plane." Why did she found out what I did? I think to this day she's going to kill me if she ever gets me alone, because she really got spooked.

01:59:34.400 - 01:59:46.400

I was doing crazy things like that. I flew into somewhere when I was at Independence. I don't remember where I was. I had radioed and asked them to have somebody meet me at the tie-down.

01:59:46.400 - 02:00:02.400

When I got there, nobody was there. So this truck, some kind of a big old Army truck, I don't know, was just there by the hangar. I threw my bag in there, and I started the engine. I put it in reverse, and I gave it the gas with my head going backwards,

02:00:02.400 - 02:00:15.400

and went right through the hangar, right through the wall. Boy, did I hear about that one. They were really, really angry. Another time when I was ferrying, I'd forgotten all these things.

02:00:15.400 - 02:00:27.400

There were so many of them. We had a flight, the last flight of the tailor crafts. Remember the tea crafts? From the factory, we brought them in.

02:00:27.400 - 02:00:49.400

There were six of us, seven of us, all lost. When you were in the air, and all the cars on the ground are going faster than you are, it's very, very disconcerting, because everybody's going faster than the tea craft. It was a 40-horse, and we had terrible air-brakes.

02:00:49.400 - 02:01:07.400

We were trying to get into Las Cruces. The only way that I figured we could do it is if we went right through the danger zone, right through Los Alamos, where the atomic bomb went. That's the only way we could get there without running out of gas, and I knew it.

02:01:07.400 - 02:01:17.400

We signaled everybody, and we went down. We were right on the deck. We couldn't have been three feet off the deck, no more. Every sagebrush, we had to go like this to get over it,

02:01:17.400 - 02:01:34.400

figuring that they wouldn't see us on the radar. That was my logic. It wasn't very good, but it was my logic. We're flying along, and I'm in the lead ship, and they're flying off my wings. Up right in front of me come these guns, these great big anti-aircraft guns.

02:01:34.400 - 02:01:43.400

Naturally, I had to go up and hold them. I thought, "Oh, God, please don't let them shoot. They're little tiny planes. They won't bother us." We did get through.

02:01:43.400 - 02:01:57.400

When we landed, oh, my God, did we go through the— They thought we were spies, and I said, "Spies with a stinking little tangly—come on." I talked my way out of it. It was terrible.

02:01:57.400 - 02:02:12.400

Another time, I had to try and get into Tucumcari. You ever been to Tucumcari? Little tiny town out in the middle of Arizona, nowhere again. We're never going to get this story on here. I've got to switch tapes.

02:02:12.400 - 02:02:25.400

You've got to let me stop and put— She got a kick out of it because it's a little tiny town. It's a little western town, actually. Some famous gunfighter was there.

02:02:25.400 - 02:02:30.400

I don't know who he was. We saved the town again. She hadn't got a— I got it. It's rolling.

02:02:30.400 - 02:02:34.400

Are you ready? We're rolling. You're rolling? I'm rolling.

02:02:34.400 - 02:02:45.400

Why are you photographing the back of her head? [Laughs] We got you. Anyway, we were on a can of Faring, and we were running low on gas,

02:02:45.400 - 02:03:01.400

and we were running late on time. We were trying to get into Tucumcari. We had no navigational equipment whatsoever on there, no lights, no nothing. It was dark, so we buzzed the town.

02:03:01.400 - 02:03:12.400

The whole town came out and lined the runway with their cars. They finally figured out what we were doing. There were six planes buzzing that little town. They knew something was up.

02:03:12.400 - 02:03:27.400

We start coming in. I'm in the lead ship again, and I rolled my wheels on top of the hotel. All of a sudden, I'm right on top of this hotel, and I'm rolling my wheels. I'm going right off the edge of it.

02:03:27.400 - 02:03:39.400

Ooh, that was pretty close. We landed, and the town just adopted us again. When something like that happens, particularly when women-- I don't think they do the same thing with men--

02:03:39.400 - 02:03:48.400

but they were all excited about us getting there. What else was I going to tell you? Did you spend the night? Yeah. Oh, yes.

02:03:48.400 - 02:03:55.400

Tell us about that. I don't even remember. Was the hotel big enough? It was a little, tiny hotel. It was just a two-story.

02:03:55.400 - 02:04:04.400

They didn't even have a light on top of it. I didn't know I was on top of it. [Laughs] I should have cracked and burned, but I didn't.

02:04:04.400 - 02:04:15.400

That's what it means. If you want to do something, do it. What else was I going to tell you? Something else. Something about a square or something. Oh, two things happened.

02:04:15.400 - 02:04:26.400

I did the square loop, but then let me tell you-- Have you ever heard of the Donovan Hotel in El Paso? Anybody who ferried usually heard about it. Donovan was a ferrying pilot.

02:04:26.400 - 02:04:43.400

I think he was in the Air Force. Ferrying pilots never could find places to stay during the war. It was terribly difficult to find a place to stay. He vowed when he got out he was going to set up a hotel for ferrying pilots only, and that's all.

02:04:43.400 - 02:05:07.400

Anybody who was ferrying knew about it, so we always used to stay there. This one time I'll never forget, there was seven of us women. We got our key, registered, got our key, and we were heading down the hall. Here comes this big marine we found out later with a pitcher of water and nothing on but a pair of skivvies.

02:05:07.400 - 02:05:25.400

Took one look at these women, threw the pitcher up in the air and said, "I thought this was for ferrying pilots only!" Dashed down the hall. Who did we laugh? He saw us and apologized for not realizing that we were pilots later.

02:05:25.400 - 02:05:53.400

Anyway, that same day before that, over the Air Force field in El Paso, the winds were terrible. I was in a light ship. I don't know what I was, a Muskegon or Cessna or something. I knew that we were ferrying. I knew that the conditions were absolutely ideal to do a square loop. You probably have never done a square loop.

02:05:53.400 - 02:06:12.400

What happens is you go forward, and then because of the wind you can go straight up, and then the wind blows you backwards. I write in the pattern. I write in the pattern when I did this. What kind of airplane was it?

02:06:12.400 - 02:06:28.400

It was a Luscombe, I think, or a Cessna, one of the two. I went through more hell than God ever could rain down on any person's head from the seal of that base for doing that. I kept saying, "Sir, I didn't have a thing to do what the wind was doing. I didn't do that.

02:06:28.400 - 02:06:42.400

I would not do a square loop, sir!" He said, "Well, you did one." I said, "Gee, I wish I had a picture of that." I knew damn right what I wanted to do. I got out of it. Oh, he was mad. Oh, Lord, he was mad.

02:06:42.400 - 02:06:54.400

I was always getting in trouble. Again, I never realized I could get kicked out. I remember that. At that point I was out, so it didn't matter. That's it.

02:06:54.400 - 02:07:05.400

Anything else? I can't think of anything else. You've been great. I won't forget this day, I'll tell you.