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I see. Uh huh. Isn't that great? At Langley?

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No. Oh sure. Uh huh. A lot of history.

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And what did they fly there? There's the 27th. And I'm rolling. Okay. I'm Deanie Parrish and we're in the home of Sandy Thompson in Houston, Texas.

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It's the 27th day of May 2000. You start out by telling us who you are. Who are your parents? Yes, I'm Marjorie Sanford Thompson.

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My parents were Mr. and Mrs. Charles W. Sanford. I was born in Peoria, Illinois, February the 18th, 1915. I attended elementary and high school and then went to Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. And I...

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Let's go back to your child. And in my childhood... I'm going to stop for one second. She turned to the camera.

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I had an older brother, William, and a younger sister, Elizabeth. We all attended schools in Peoria. I then attended Bradley University and was a teacher. I taught sixth grade and then...

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Let me go back to your elementary school. Did you live in the city? In the city of Peoria. Went to White School Elementary and Peoria High School.

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Okay. And elementary school. Do you remember any of your teachers? A few of them.

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Okay. What did you do for fun? What did you... Especially in junior high and high school.

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Well, at that time, they didn't have a junior high. You had eight grades of elementary and then you went into high school. I loved to play basketball. I loved school.

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I really did enjoy school. I had Miss Matson was a sixth grade teacher. Miss Working was an eighth grade teacher. In those days, it's interesting in looking back, you could not be a teacher if you married.

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If you married, you had to resign. It seems such a strange... Of course, thank goodness that is no longer true. But I do remember those two.

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They were outstanding teachers. In high school, I had a Mr. Epstein who was a teacher of psychology. And in college, Dr. Gorslein who also taught psychology, which interested me. And I was interested in becoming a doctor.

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I took pre-med courses. My professor, Dr. Packard at Bradley University, didn't think that... He thought I wouldn't want to be a doctor. In those days, they thought women doctors wore business suits.

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He said, "I just think you impress me as one who would like to be married and have children." And so in order to deter me, he had me watch operations. And in one operation, the patient nearly died. And I said, "That's not for me."

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Of course, looking back, I wanted to be a pediatrician. And pediatricians don't operate. They refer them to surgeons. But I didn't know that then.

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I ended up flying a B-26 where I could have killed a crew every day through pilot error. So life is a little strange in many ways. But I did change and became a teacher. And I was teaching biology and aeronautics when I received the telegram to become a WASP.

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Let's go back to high school. Do you remember anything about the high school prom? What was your social dating? Yes, loved it.

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Could you tell me about your high school social activities? I don't—just the ordinary. Loved dancing and, of course, I loved volleyball, basketball, archery, those things. Did you play on some of the teams?

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I was the center of the basketball team. What was the difference in a basketball court when you were playing in the basketball court? I really couldn't tell you. I don't know that much about the present, but I enjoyed sports.

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Were you interested in anything such as drama or dancing or swimming? No. Well, I was interested in cinema. I was the writer on the Bradley Hill Topics. It was called Hill Topics Paper, and so I had a pass.

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I could go to all the movies for free, which was a thrill to me, because I would write reviews about them. And I don't recall that I ever appeared in a play, but I liked drama. Tell me what your vacations were like when you were growing up.

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We used to go up to Wisconsin for vacations. Illinois, Peoria, Illinois is in the central part of the state, and we'd go up there, places like Wasaukee and places in Wisconsin, Wisconsin Dells. Were you visiting relatives?

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No, just vacations. Where did your grandparents live? In Carthage, Illinois. My grandfather was a Lutheran minister, and they lived in Carthage.

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What influence did that have on you? I had great admiration for my grandfather, but he died when I was only six, so my recollections of him are very dim. I'm said to resemble him physically very much, but I really can't remember him very well.

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Can you remember your favorite subject in high school? What did you enjoy the most? I really don't think I had a favorite then. I did when I went to college.

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I liked biology. I liked science. I was not very good at languages. They didn't interest me as much as they should have. I always felt a language is a tool,

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and since I had one tool by which I could learn other things, I felt it wasn't so important, which was wrong. I should have been more interested. Can you think of any role model that you had when you were growing up?

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No, I can remember being very impressed with Lindbergh's flight. I was just absolutely amazed. We would hardly go to sleep at night, worrying about whether or not he'd ever make it to Paris.

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But he, of course, was an idol. Everybody worshipped Lindbergh. Why do you think he was an idol? Because he had the courage of his convictions,

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and to fly across the ocean without even being able to see out of the front of the plane, he had to use a periscope like a submarine because he had so much gas. It took a lot of courage. I have great admiration for him.

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Tell me about your high school graduation. I don't recall much about it. Once you got out of high school, then you went on to Bradley College. To Bradley.

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Where was Bradley? In Peoria. Tell me about your mother and your father. What were they interested in?

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How did they watch you? I can't say. I know that my father was very excited about my flying. My mother was very nervous about it.

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She didn't want me to fly at all. My mother was an organist at our church, Grace Lutheran Church. She was the choir director. So music was a very important part of her life.

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Was music an important part of your life? Yes. I studied piano, and I really enjoyed it. Did you have recitals? Oh, yes.

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What did your dad do? My dad was in a small appliance business. When do you remember was the first time you ever saw an airplane? We went out to Peoria Airport one time.

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I can't remember how old I was, but it was a Ford tri-motor. They were giving rides, and it was like a dollar or two, I've forgotten, for a ten-minute ride. My mother was terrified of airplanes. My father and I went up.

00:09:02.000 - 00:09:21.000

My sister didn't want to go, and I fell in love with flying. I just thought that was the most thrilling experience that I had ever had. So that really was sort of a turning point as far as I was concerned. I just thought the idea of flying was absolutely fantastic.

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And Lindbergh, Charles Lindbergh, had been an air mail pilot. He used to fly from St. Louis to Chicago and land in Peoria before he went overseas. So I felt a little close to him in that way. Do you ever remember seeing him?

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Oh, no. I never saw him. Once you left home to go to college-- I didn't leave home. I went to college in Peoria. In Peoria. So that you stayed home?

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Yes, and I taught school in Peoria. While you were in college, what was your social life like? Oh, I was a member of a sorority. I just loved college.

00:10:05.000 - 00:10:21.000

I just thought Bradley was just marvelous. I just thought it was the best experience that I had ever had. And I did enjoy teaching very much. I loved teaching. Did you make lifelong friends in college?

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Oh, yes. And they're still your friends? Oh, yes. What was your graduation like from college?

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Well, there were, I think, a little over--only about 105 in our graduating class. It wasn't a large school. But then I, as I said, began to teach in, first of all, fifth and sixth grade, and then later on teaching biology and aeronautics.

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And, you know, to be teaching biology, and you're talking about the circulation of the frog's leg, and five minutes later you're down the hall talking about the angle of attack of an airplane. It's a strange combination. But I had built up time.

00:11:05.000 - 00:11:27.000

At that time, well, when I became a WASP, I had 250 hours. Tell me about why--what do you think it was about flying that made you want to take lessons? Well, I just thought it was the most thrilling thing in the world to be up there in the air. It just--it was so--it's hard to describe.

00:11:27.000 - 00:11:40.000

I just had that feeling that that was something I would love to do if I had the opportunity. When did you take your first lesson, and tell me about how that happened? Under civilian pilot training. Civilian pilot training.

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I was teaching, and they had a civilian pilot training program. I think other WASPs probably have told you about. They were training three classes of ten men each, and all you got was a private license. But at least you got that, and that was for free.

00:11:59.000 - 00:12:11.000

And, of course, learning to fly is expensive. Tell me about your first flight, your first instructor. The first time that I ever went up? I had an instructor.

00:12:11.000 - 00:12:34.000

His name was Richard Clark, out at the airport at Peoria, and we had a little Piper Cub. And, of course, it was--in those days, you didn't wear a parachute every time you went up. But it was an exciting experience for me. I remember one time going out to the plane, and he said, "Put on a parachute."

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And he had a parachute on, and I thought, "Oh, you know, this is exciting." And we had to kind of yell at each other. They didn't have good radio communication then. And he said, "Climb to 3,000 feet and level off."

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So I climbed to 3,000 and leveled off. And then he said, "Throttle back and do some gliding turns." So I throttled back, and I was doing some gliding turns. And then he said, "Clean the engine."

00:13:01.000 - 00:13:13.000

And I thought, "Clean the engine?" To me, that meant you get a rag and you wipe it off, you know. If he had said, "Clear the engine" or "Gun the engine," but he didn't. He said, "Clean the engine."

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So I thought, "I must have misunderstood him." So I tapped him on the shoulder, and I said, "What did you say?" And he said, "Clean the engine." And I thought, "Well, that's what he said."

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And that's ridiculous. Here we are, up here at 3,000 feet, and he wants me to get out there and wipe that engine off when the plane sits on the ground most of the time.

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But I thought, "Also, if the boys can do it, I can too." He's not going to wash me out because I'm afraid to get out there. So I tapped him again, and I said, "Right now?" And he said, "Yes, right now."

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And I looked around, and there's always an old rag in an airplane. And I found an old rag, and I undid my seatbelt. And I looked down, and ooh, those houses were so tiny. But I thought, "I'll do it, but I've got to ask him just one more thing."

00:14:03.000 - 00:14:20.000

And here the poor instructor is just waiting for me to gun it. So I tapped him again, and I said, "Way up here?" And with that, he turned around, and here was his girl student, seatbelt unfastened, a rag in one hand, and my hand on the door handle.

00:14:20.000 - 00:14:32.000

Well, he took over. He was a son. And he flew back to the field. Well, on the way back, I realized what a mistake I had made, how stupid that he had meant for me to gun it.

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And I knew that he was going to wash me out. Anybody as stupid as that would certainly not forget a pilot's license. And his reaction was just the opposite. He said, "Well, if you want a pilot's license so badly

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that you're willing to get out there and hang on the cowling at 3,000 feet and wipe all the--you certainly deserve one." But I said, "Well, remember, never tell a girl to clean anything." And he said, "Believe me, I never will."

00:15:03.000 - 00:15:14.000

I'm sure he never did. -Marion, was this before World War II? -This is Sandy. -Sandy. Sorry, Marion, Sandy. -This was before World War II.

00:15:14.000 - 00:15:28.000

Inasmuch as a women's program was not even conceptualized at that point, what did you intend to do with your flying? -I just enjoy it. There were three boys in my class, and when we got our private license,

00:15:28.000 - 00:15:42.000

we bought an old beat-up Iranca airplane. None of us could afford to own an airplane by ourselves. There's hanger rent and maintenance, as you know, and all of that business. But at any rate, I had the plane one weekend,

00:15:42.000 - 00:15:55.000

and then one of the boys could have it the next weekend, and I built up my time. So that's why I had 250 hours, approximately. -While you were flying, did you sometimes go a little cross-country to another town?

00:15:55.000 - 00:16:11.000

-Oh, yes. I took my nieces and my reluctant mother. She just hung on to everything she could hold on to. -Tell me how you talked her into that. -Oh, it wasn't easy, but my grandmother went up--her mother.

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-Faught an airplane. -So you hung flying. -Well, my grandmother went up with me, and that's my mother's mother, so I think my mother decided that she just had to, if her mother was willing to go up.

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But she was so happy to get back on the ground. -And how did your grandmother react? -Oh, she loved it. She loved it. You know, she said, "Well, show me where our house is, where we live."

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And I had to bang it steeple. She was practically--because it had been an open window, she had been leaning out the window. She didn't have any fear whatsoever, but not my mother. And our daughter doesn't like to fly.

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We have two sons who have their pilot's license, but our daughter is much happier on the ground. -While you were teaching in school, are you flying on weekends? When are you flying? And then when did you first hear about the WASP?

00:17:13.000 - 00:17:34.000

-I received a telegram from Jacqueline Cochran. And in the telegram, she--I don't recall what the minimum number of hours was at that time. It was reduced, as you know, later on, the requirement. But the telegram warned that you could wash out.

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You could be washed out. And she said, "If you liked what you're doing," which I loved, "I didn't resign. I took a leave of absence. In case I were washed out, I could go back to teaching."

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And, of course, you take the physical and then report to Sweetwater. -Let me back up just a minute and ask you, where were you--when did you hear about Pearl Harbor? And how did that affect you? -Oh, I was flying on Sunday morning out of Peoria Airport.

00:18:01.000 - 00:18:14.000

I had taken off early, just at dawn, as soon as it was light. There must have been eight or ten men sitting in the ready room when I came back, and they all had such long faces. And I said, "What is the matter?"

00:18:14.000 - 00:18:29.000

And they said, "Pearl Harbor has been bombed." And of those men, four of them were killed during the war. So I think about those people often, not just on Memorial Day, but often. But that's when I learned.

00:18:29.000 - 00:18:47.000

It was a Sunday morning, December the 7th, '41. -How did Pearl Harbor affect your outlook on life? -Well, of course, the war was declared then on Monday. As I recall, it was Monday that President Roosevelt declared war.

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And it was a shock to all of us to find that we were in the war, and there had been war in Europe for at least two years before we became involved. But I really looked forward to being part of a women's organization that would fly and relieve the men so they could go overseas to fight,

00:19:14.000 - 00:19:27.000

relieve them in the Ferry Command. -As you look back at Peoria after Pearl Harbor, how did that change the attitudes of people, the jobs that they did, and their whole attitude?

00:19:27.000 - 00:19:43.000

-I really don't know, because, you see, I didn't live there then. I went to Sweetwater shortly-- well, I didn't report to Sweetwater, actually, until March the 24th, and that was in 1943.

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-How did Jacqueline Cochran know about you? -Through pilot registration. They have all the records of people and their pilot's licenses and how many hours they had.

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-When you got this telegram from her, how did your mother and dad react? -Well, my father thought it was just wonderful, and my mother didn't like it at all. She--and when I married, she wanted me to stop flying.

00:20:14.000 - 00:20:28.000

She said, "You know, don't go back towing those targets. It's so dangerous. You're happily married." But I didn't--I not only loved it, but I didn't think that was right. The government had spent $500 an hour on my training,

00:20:28.000 - 00:20:45.000

and it was up to me to continue to serve my country as best as I could. It just wouldn't be right, I didn't think, for me to resign. Men couldn't resign, you know. -Tell me about your grandmother's reaction.

00:20:45.000 - 00:20:59.000

-Oh, my grandmother had died by the time. -When you got the telegram from Jacqueline Cochran, had you already heard about this group of women, or was that the first time? -I had not heard of them, no.

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I really hadn't. It was new. Of course, at that time, they didn't call them WASP. That was later.

00:21:05.000 - 00:21:18.000

But it was just an opportunity for women to fly military aircraft. -Where did you take your physical? -In Chicago. I don't know why, but I had to go to Chicago for the physical.

00:21:18.000 - 00:21:31.000

-Can you describe that? -Just a regular routine physical. We checked eyes and blood pressure. I was told that there were three girls ahead of me on the waiting list

00:21:31.000 - 00:21:46.000

to get into the civilian pilot training thing, but they had all failed the physical. One was diabetic, one had problems with eyes and so forth. But you had to be in good physical condition, which made sense.

00:21:46.000 - 00:21:53.000

-And then did you have an interview with anybody? -No. -No. Okay, tell me about leaving from Peoria to go to Sweetwater.

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How did you get there? -By train. -By train. Did you meet other girls en route?

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-No. No, I didn't. -Once you got to Sweetwater, what was your first impression? -Well, the first place, a telegram that said,

00:22:10.000 - 00:22:22.000

"You report to the Blue Bonnet Hotel." I'd never heard of a Blue Bonnet. And Sweetwater sounded such like a strange name. And the name of the field that we were to fly, Avenger Field,

00:22:22.000 - 00:22:41.000

all three of those terms were foreign to me. But I was just so excited to participate, and I met other girls who were arriving at the Blue Bonnet Hotel in Sweetwater. And I saw a girl--we had lived together for six months, six girls at a bay,

00:22:41.000 - 00:22:56.000

and I thought, "I want to find someone that's going to be compatible." So I saw this girl that I thought was so nice. I introduced myself, and she was from Chicago, and I being from Peoria, both of us from Illinois.

00:22:56.000 - 00:23:10.000

And her name was Shirley Slade. And so we decided that that would be nice, we'd room together. Now let's look around for somebody else we think would be nice. And we saw this tall, lovely girl who was from Georgia.

00:23:10.000 - 00:23:26.000

So we went over, and she introduced herself, and we introduced ourselves. And I said, "Where are you from?" And she said, "Georgia," in that lovely southern drawl. And I said, "Oh, I thought Gone with the Wind was the best movie that I ever saw."

00:23:26.000 - 00:23:37.000

And she said, "Well, thank you," as though she had written, directed, and acted the main role. She had no more to do with Gone with the Wind than I did, so I nicknamed her Scarlet.

00:23:37.000 - 00:23:52.000

And she remained Scarlet throughout the WASP program. And she's a wonderful person. Tell me about being assigned to your bays, what the barracks were like. The barracks--well, they were long--

00:23:52.000 - 00:24:06.000

there were six girls in one room, then a bathroom, and then six girls in the other room. In other words, 12 girls shared one shower and one bathroom. One commode.

00:24:06.000 - 00:24:17.000

But we got along beautifully. What was the biggest adjustment that you had to make? Well, I didn't get homesick. Now I know some who did.

00:24:17.000 - 00:24:31.000

I didn't have that problem. I wrote to my family religiously every Wednesday night, as long as I was there. But I just was so--of course, I was sorry when two of ours in our bay were washed out.

00:24:31.000 - 00:24:41.000

It's not easy to be washed out. You had to--the civilian instructors, it could not give you the checkride that washed you out. That was done by military.

00:24:41.000 - 00:24:56.000

And a military instructor couldn't wash you out just by himself. It could be a personnel problem. So if you were told that you weren't up to snuff, as they would say, you weren't doing as well as you should be doing,

00:24:56.000 - 00:25:09.000

another military pilot would check you out. And if he agreed, then you went home. And you went home that day. You packed your bags, you paid your old bus fare or whatever, and went home.

00:25:09.000 - 00:25:21.000

And I was group commander of my class, and it was hard. Here's this girl who's only been there a month, and she's crying. People have given her going-away parties. And it's cool.

00:25:21.000 - 00:25:33.000

Sally's going to be a pilot, and four weeks later, she's home. And the instructors told me to tell the girls, "It's not that you can't fly. You can fly, or you wouldn't be here.

00:25:33.000 - 00:25:43.000

You already have a pilot's license. Obviously, you can fly. But you're not learning quickly enough. We have a schedule that we have to keep.

00:25:43.000 - 00:25:59.000

Now, you can go home and fly for the rest of your life and enjoy it, but you're just not learning as fast as you have to in order to stay in the program. We're really doing you a favor, in other words, looking at it that way.

00:25:59.000 - 00:26:12.000

But it was hard for them to accept it, and I could see why. But we did--two of ours were washed out. Tell me about some of the regulations that you had while you were at Sweetwater.

00:26:12.000 - 00:26:27.000

Well, I don't know. We had to abide by all of the rules, for example. I can remember how we'd go to the mess hall, and we'd be hungry, and we'd have all these scrambled eggs and all this food,

00:26:27.000 - 00:26:44.000

and we'd put far more on our plates than we could eat. And then at the end, when you finished, you'd have to scrape off your plate, and that was not right. So they finally put a sign up there, "Take all you want, but eat all you take."

00:26:44.000 - 00:26:53.000

And there were demerits. They had somebody standing where you cleaned your plate. And believe me, it worked, because if you were continuing to throw food away, you got demerits.

00:26:53.000 - 00:27:05.000

You didn't get weekend off or anything. It was just something you had to learn. But it was a great, great program. Tell me about ground school.

00:27:05.000 - 00:27:16.000

The ground school--they'd go to ground school in the afternoons of one week and fly in the morning, and then the next week it was just the opposite. We had wonderful ground school instructors. We had link trainers.

00:27:16.000 - 00:27:26.000

We studied Morse code, aircraft identification. It was a wonderful ground school. What was your favorite? My favorite?

00:27:26.000 - 00:27:35.000

Subject in ground school. What do you think? Well, I loved aircraft identification. I just thought that--and ships.

00:27:35.000 - 00:27:47.000

We had to identify ships also. I thought that was fascinating. Can you tell us about your first instructor in the airplane you flew? Johnny Hewitt was my first instructor,

00:27:47.000 - 00:28:05.000

and the first airplane was a PT-19 Fairchild, open cockpit. I had a friend who--I had to take my checkride, and Meredith Rolfe was her name. And Meredith was so afraid of going up and getting a checkride,

00:28:05.000 - 00:28:19.000

and I said, "Meredith, it isn't as bad as you think it's going to be. You'll only be off the ground about 30 minutes. And remember that if he says climb to 2,000 feet and do a two-turn spin to the right, say, 'I'm sorry, sir, we can't spin under 3,000,'

00:28:19.000 - 00:28:30.000

because they'll try to trick you that way. Keep in mind the wind, so if he pulls the throttles back for a forced landing that you're flying into the wind so forth and so on." Meredith was short.

00:28:30.000 - 00:28:40.000

She was the minimum, 5 feet 2. She sat on two pillows, and she was sitting in the front and the instructor in the back. And she said, "Well, will you wait for me?"

00:28:40.000 - 00:28:51.000

And I said, "Yes, I'll wait for you." So they took off, and it was not more than five or six minutes later. He came back, and the front seat was empty. Meredith was gone.

00:28:51.000 - 00:29:02.000

He was as white as a sheet. And I ran out there, and I said, "Where's Meredith?" And she said she fell out. What had happened was when we first came,

00:29:02.000 - 00:29:16.000

they didn't have flying suits that were small. We were wearing what the cadets wore, and she was small. And as I said, she got into a spin. When he told her to do a three-turn spin, she got into an inverted spin.

00:29:16.000 - 00:29:29.000

So instead of the plane that way, it was this way, and the prop was just windmilling. And when she popped the stick to get over the spin, her sleeve caught the seat belt and unfastened the seat belt.

00:29:29.000 - 00:29:36.000

So out she went. She told me later, pillows were flying down. She was wearing moccasins. Her shoes fell off.

00:29:36.000 - 00:29:49.000

But she pulled the ripcord and made her landing. And the instructor flew over and waved and wobbled his wings, and she was all right. But he said, "I've never had a student fall out of an airplane before."

00:29:49.000 - 00:30:01.000

But at any rate, it was a good airplane. How far was she from the base? Oh, he was back in five minutes, so I don't know. I don't know really how many miles,

00:30:01.000 - 00:30:12.000

but he probably asked her to do the spin, climb to 3,000 and spin, maybe 10 minutes. Do you know if she had to go before the board? They were very unhappy about that.

00:30:12.000 - 00:30:29.000

They dropped her back one class because they felt that was carelessness. You know, you're supposed to watch what you're doing and not make mistakes like that. At any rate, she finished.

00:30:29.000 - 00:30:41.000

When you finished primary, did you have some time off? I don't recall. I really don't. I know we went into basic training then, BT-13.

00:30:41.000 - 00:30:51.000

Tell me about basic training. I wasn't crazy about that air. Of course, any time you get a heavier engine, it's an improvement you think, "Oh," you know.

00:30:51.000 - 00:31:06.000

We used to call it the Vulcan Vibrator. Yeah. It was an airplane that had--it was an open cockpit. You slide the things over the top of the canopy.

00:31:06.000 - 00:31:21.000

But we had to do, well, two months of primary, two months of basic, and then finally two months of advanced, the AT-6. If I could back up a minute, in primary, you're in open cockpits. What did you do about your hair?

00:31:21.000 - 00:31:32.000

Did you have long hair? Oh, we had helmets and goggles. I remember flying upside down, and a pen fell out of my-- it was my favorite Schaefer pen.

00:31:32.000 - 00:31:47.000

I was just--tried to grab--here you are hanging, and you're seeing the farms and everything else and the dust and the dirt falling from the floor of the cockpit in your face. All of a sudden, I lost my pen, which, of course, I never did retrieve.

00:31:47.000 - 00:31:59.000

But it was--I really loved that airplane. I thought that PT-19 was something special. What did they teach you in the PT-19? Did you have cross country?

00:31:59.000 - 00:32:10.000

Oh, yes. We had cross country, and we did acrobatics, force landings. Describe for me the auxiliary field. The what field?

00:32:10.000 - 00:32:24.000

The auxiliary field. Oh, they did--yes, they had auxiliary small fields. We had some people that had trouble with cross country that weren't very good at navigating that would follow railroad tracks

00:32:24.000 - 00:32:39.000

or things like that. We had great instructors, I thought. I just think that those instructors-- and, of course, I don't know that they were all that happy about instructing girls,

00:32:39.000 - 00:32:55.000

but they were wonderful as far as I was concerned. Once you got into basic training, tell me what that consisted of. It was the same thing, cross country and flying under the hood, instrument flying. Can you explain what flying under the hood was?

00:32:55.000 - 00:33:13.000

Well, yes. Flying under the hood--today, they don't have a hood they put around you. What they're teaching you is instrument flying in case you get into bad weather that you can fly without visual contact outside of the cockpit.

00:33:13.000 - 00:33:33.000

You fly only by your instruments. It's very important, very important that people learn to fly with instruments because bad weather is the cause of lots of accidents if you're not instrument trained.

00:33:33.000 - 00:33:49.000

I thought instrument training was extremely important. The two girls that washed out in your bay, can you tell me how that affected the rest of you? Well, we were just sorry that they were gone.

00:33:49.000 - 00:34:03.000

They were sorry, too. It's not easy to be told, even though you thought you could fly, that you can't fly that well. I like to go back to flying under the hood to an incident that occurred,

00:34:03.000 - 00:34:25.000

and I believe it was August 30 or 31 of 1943. We were assigned alphabetically to our instructors, and my maiden name was Sanford. There was Margaret Seip, S-E-I-P, Helen Jo Severson, and Sylvia Swartz.

00:34:25.000 - 00:34:43.000

We were assigned--and this is in an advanced stream-- we were assigned to a Mr. Atwood, and he was an excellent instructor. It was at 1 o'clock in the afternoon on this Monday, beautiful bluebird weather, not a cloud in the sky,

00:34:43.000 - 00:34:57.000

and we were to fly to Big Spring under the hood. I was to fly over, and Helen Jo Severson, who was sitting in the back seat, was to fly back. It's like you just gear yourself for an exam in school.

00:34:57.000 - 00:35:14.000

I mean, you cram, you get ready. You know, if I take that test today, I can pass it. Well, I felt that way. I was just so eager to go. At 1 o'clock, we had both engines--a twin engine, I'm sorry, the UC-78,

00:35:14.000 - 00:35:29.000

or what you used to call it, AT-17s, twin engine. We were starting to taxi out, and the dispatcher ran out, waved his hands, and said, "Long-distance call, long-distance call for Miss Sanford." And I said to Mr. Atwood, "Well, I'll take it when I get back.

00:35:29.000 - 00:35:38.000

I'll be back at 3." He said, "No, it's important. It could be important. It's wartime. Long-distance calls are hard to get through. It could be an emergency.

00:35:38.000 - 00:35:47.000

So you ask Margaret Syke to take your place. What difference does it make whether you go up with me now or you go up with me at 3?" And he ordered me out.

00:35:47.000 - 00:35:58.000

So I told Margaret to take my place, and off they went. Well, as I said earlier, I used to write to my family every Wednesday night religiously. I had forgotten to write a letter.

00:35:58.000 - 00:36:10.000

I was so excited about getting my wings a week from the following Friday that I simply forgot. Well, my mother usually got the letter. My parents usually got the letter on Friday, almost always on Saturday.

00:36:10.000 - 00:36:22.000

Well, here came Monday, and still no letter. My mother, who was a worrier, went to the phone, and how she got through, I don't know. She said, "My daughter is flying military aircraft, and I haven't heard."

00:36:22.000 - 00:36:32.000

And I said, "Oh, Mom, I'm so sorry. I completely forgot to write. I am just fine. I'm going to get my wings a week from Friday.

00:36:32.000 - 00:36:44.000

I can be home for a whole week, and I'll write to you and Dad tonight and everything." So I went back to the flight line, and at 2.30 a mechanic came out, and he said, "When Mr. Atwood gets back with 2x,"

00:36:44.000 - 00:36:53.000

whatever the number was, "he'll leave that and take 2x something else." And I said, "All right, I'll tell him." And I thought to myself, "That's strange.

00:36:53.000 - 00:37:05.000

Why would they switch aircraft in the middle of an afternoon training session?" Well, the plane never came back. 3.30, 4, 4.30, they knew it was down. It had to be down.

00:37:05.000 - 00:37:17.000

It wouldn't have enough fuel to be aloft any longer. So they called off flying and sent the military up to look for it, and they couldn't find it. And they got a call from Big Spring Airport.

00:37:17.000 - 00:37:27.000

They also had a training field, and there was a farmer, a rancher, who that afternoon, he said it was about 10 minutes of 2, which would have been about where it should have been,

00:37:27.000 - 00:37:37.000

that an airplane was flying overhead, and something fell off the back of it, he said. He didn't use the word "tail." Something fell off the back of it,

00:37:37.000 - 00:37:47.000

and it went into one of his cornfields, and it didn't burn up. It was made a mess, you know. And he said, "Nobody got out."

00:37:47.000 - 00:37:58.000

This is what he said later. He didn't use the word "bailout." "Nobody got out." So he went right on plowing. It was so stupid, he should have reported it right away.

00:37:58.000 - 00:38:13.000

Well, when it started to get dark, he went back to his farm. He didn't have a telephone, so he got in his pickup truck and drove to a little beer joint, he said, on the outskirts of Big Spring. He called Big Spring and he said, "One of your airplanes

00:38:13.000 - 00:38:26.000

crashed into my cornfield this afternoon about 2 o'clock, and I want you to come out and clean up that mess." It was just awful the way he acted. Well, they called us immediately, because they knew we had lost one.

00:38:26.000 - 00:38:38.000

Well, what they could find of the remains, they put in plaster, little plaster casks, in big coffins, and sent them home. And the flight surgeon called me in the next morning,

00:38:38.000 - 00:38:54.000

because I was determined to write to Margaret Sipes' parents. I didn't know them, of course, but they lived in Milwaukee. And I was going to write and say, "I am so sorry that your daughter lost her life,

00:38:54.000 - 00:39:06.000

because I forgot to write to my parents." And the flight surgeon said, "Don't do that. That won't make them feel any better. That will only make them feel worse, to think their daughter lost her life

00:39:06.000 - 00:39:15.000

because you forgot to write a letter. Don't do that. I'm not concerned about Margaret Sipes. She's asleep. She's at rest.

00:39:15.000 - 00:39:25.000

I'm concerned about you. Now, number one, you've got to get over that guilty feeling. You were ordered out of the aircraft. You had no choice.

00:39:25.000 - 00:39:36.000

Number two, if you want to continue to fly, you've got to learn to become fatalistic. It wasn't your turn." And I did.

00:39:36.000 - 00:39:51.000

You just have to become fatalistic. But whenever I see the memorials to the 38 girls that were killed and I read the word "Margaret Sipes" on that marble, it's awfully hard for me.

00:39:51.000 - 00:40:09.000

I say to myself, "Peggy, I'm just so sorry." Because if I had been a good girl and written as I was supposed to, if my mother had not been a warrior, if the postman in Peoria had been ten minutes, five minutes late,

00:40:09.000 - 00:40:22.000

if the telephones had been busy, if the dispatcher had not run, if Mr. Atwood had not insisted, it's an iffy, iffy situation where just seconds counted.

00:40:22.000 - 00:40:38.000

Margaret would be alive today. But you just have to learn to become fatalistic. It just wasn't--I guess it just wasn't my turn. That's cut.

00:40:38.000 - 00:40:47.000

Just about the end of the tape. But that is something, isn't it? That's really true. They both lost their lives.

00:40:47.000 - 00:40:58.000

Well, Helen would have died anyway. And she was in the front seat when they uncovered-- I mean, removed the bodies. And I think what happened, when he sent me in to get Margaret to take my place,

00:40:58.000 - 00:41:07.000

he said, "Oh, Helen, will you get up here in front?" And then Peggy got in the back seat. Did it burn? No, he must have turned off the switch.

00:41:07.000 - 00:41:19.000

And I never found out what was the cause of that accident. Now that, I think, was pure material failure. Because they were both good, and both of those girls got their wings posthumously.

00:41:19.000 - 00:41:28.000

Oh, that's great. They should have. Of course, that's the only thing their family got. No star up there?

00:41:28.000 - 00:41:35.000

No. And of course the body has to be accompanied. We passed the hat twice. I don't know whether that--

00:41:35.000 - 00:41:44.000

I won't put that on there. To send dead girls home. Because they just-- I don't want to say anything derogatory about the WASP program,

00:41:44.000 - 00:41:52.000

because I thought it was so great. Oh, I thought it was too. But there were things that are truthful-- Well, that's true.

00:41:52.000 - 00:42:02.000

--that people need to know. While it's off, I want to tell you something that you both might consider as funny as I do. I'm going to turn it off, but she'll say something.

00:42:02.000 - 00:42:13.000

--a bed in her life anyhow. And so Shirley said, "Well, I was used to my privacy too before I joined your outfit." And she turned around and walked out.

00:42:13.000 - 00:42:24.000

Well, Miss Cochran didn't see her. See, she didn't know who she was. So she had no way of getting back at her. That's not going to be on there.

00:42:24.000 - 00:42:38.000

That's something. I wanted to find out how you got that job. I don't know. I guess nobody else wanted it. In the WASP book, it shows us marching around the wishing well,

00:42:38.000 - 00:42:48.000

and I'm at the end, and Scarlett's right in front of me. I'll show you that picture later. But do you know how they selected you as the squadron commander? No, I don't.

00:42:48.000 - 00:43:01.000

Mary Wiggins, the class ahead of me, was the group commander of her class. And Mary Wiggins was a-- she'd been a stunt actress in Hollywood.

00:43:01.000 - 00:43:17.000

She's the kind to jump off a high dive into a bucket of water, you know, and trains are going to hit each other, collide, and she'd jump out of the cabin just before they hit and all that stuff. She showed me a scrapbook of all the stuff she had done.

00:43:17.000 - 00:43:32.000

And then when the WASP had disbanded, she committed suicide. She went out, and she took her two days to die. She shot herself in the head. Well, she couldn't find jobs, I guess, the way she had done before.

00:43:32.000 - 00:43:38.000

I don't know. And she was in your class? No, she was 43-4. If you look at the book, I'll show you her picture,

00:43:38.000 - 00:43:47.000

because my book is 43-4 and 43-5. You have your album, don't you? Yeah, well, see, they had two classes in each one. Long after you left.

00:43:47.000 - 00:44:00.000

Yeah. Yeah, she committed suicide. Let's back up for just a minute. When these two girls were killed, what did the base do with their bodies?

00:44:00.000 - 00:44:19.000

Well, the bodies are sent home, of course, and they have to be accompanied. A body is never sent without someone accompanying it. So a WASP went home with each girl. And it was just tragic, but I think it must have been purely material failure,

00:44:19.000 - 00:44:33.000

because Mr. Atwood was an excellent pilot, and these girls were to get their wings the following week, and they were both very good pilots. And the only witness said something fell off the back of them.

00:44:33.000 - 00:44:47.000

And the fact they wanted to change airplanes in the middle of that afternoon, I never was told the cause of the accident. I've often wondered. Did the military pay to send those bodies home?

00:44:47.000 - 00:44:59.000

Oh, no, no, because we were not military. We were civil service. We passed a hat twice in my class to send dead girls home, to raise money, because we were not military.

00:44:59.000 - 00:45:12.000

Now, if you were killed in a plane with a military pilot in the plane, and they both were killed, the military pilot, all expenses were paid. Insurance, they had everything. I don't mean to sound like poor me.

00:45:12.000 - 00:45:32.000

I'm just stating a fact that we were civil service and that we were not given the military privileges that we really didn't have. We didn't deserve them because we didn't have them. And yet we flew everything that the men flew, B-29s, P-38s, P-51s.

00:45:32.000 - 00:45:48.000

Did you know the girls that accompanied those two bodies? No, I don't recall. I don't remember. While you were in training, were you kept aware of what girls were doing who had already graduated?

00:45:48.000 - 00:46:06.000

No, I don't recall that we were. I knew at that time that the principal reason for the WASP program was to ferry aircraft from factories to points of embarkation to relieve the men who were doing it so they could go overseas to fight.

00:46:06.000 - 00:46:21.000

And one of the reasons, the main reason the WASP was disbanded is because, and most people don't know this, we lost more men in training in this country than we lost overseas. So when more men were returning from overseas, thank goodness,

00:46:21.000 - 00:46:33.000

than had been anticipated, and they were still in the military, and even though the war was over in Europe, the war was still going on in the Pacific, you couldn't send them home.

00:46:33.000 - 00:46:44.000

They had to continue to fly. So it was time to send the girls home. We were no longer needed. It was not an easy thing to accept, but it was true that we were no longer needed.

00:46:44.000 - 00:47:02.000

While you were in training, and classes graduated every month or month and a half, what would happen? How would that ceremony be held? Well, of course, we all attended the graduation of the class, and they had military bands, and they had important speakers.

00:47:02.000 - 00:47:16.000

General Barton K. Yount was one of the speakers. General Hap Arnold came and spoke at one of the ceremonies, and Jacqueline Cochran was there every time. Jacqueline Cochran was really an amazing, amazing person.

00:47:16.000 - 00:47:33.000

I think anyone interested in pioneers in aviation should read her book, because she, according to her book, she was a very poor person. She didn't own a pair of shoes until she was six or seven. She picked her name out of the phone book.

00:47:33.000 - 00:47:57.000

She doesn't really know who her parents were. It's a very, very interesting story, and yet she became an excellent pilot. She's the first woman to fly faster than the speed of sound. Chuck Yager, Y-A-G-E-R, was a marvelous pilot.

00:47:57.000 - 00:48:14.000

He's the first one, pilot, to ever fly faster than the speed of sound. But in his book, he writes that he asked Jacqueline Cochran-- that she asked him, rather, to be her co-pilot. Can you imagine asking Chuck Yager to be your co-pilot when she flew to Russia?

00:48:14.000 - 00:48:31.000

He said they came in, I believe it was Minsk, and she just greased that plane in with snow on the ground. He had nothing but praise for her ability. She was really an outstanding pilot, she and Amelia Earhart.

00:48:31.000 - 00:48:50.000

Tell me your opinion of her as far as the WASP program. I thought she handled the WASP program extremely well. Nancy Love Harkness had required many more hours of the girls, and Jacqueline Cochran reduced that requirement.

00:48:50.000 - 00:49:07.000

And it finally was down to the fact that they only had to have a minimum of 25 hours. And I remember some instructors saying, "Oh, I'd rather have a student pilot who had never been in an airplane, because then we wouldn't have to undo all the mistakes that they are making,

00:49:07.000 - 00:49:22.000

the bad things that they're doing that they've learned." But if you look at the statistics, it is just the opposite. If you look at the WASP book, the early classes that had the most experience, the most hours, had the fewest warshouts.

00:49:22.000 - 00:49:39.000

The last classes, like 4310, that had only the minimum, I believe the last class had as many warshouts, if not more, than those who graduated. So experience did count. The more hours you had, the better.

00:49:39.000 - 00:49:54.000

It just makes sense to me. Tell me about your graduation. Who was your speaker? I really don't recall. I could look it up in the book, but I don't recall. It was a very thrilling experience.

00:49:54.000 - 00:50:10.000

I was sent to Love Field at Dallas. But we got to go home after our graduation and, of course, be so proud to have my wings. And then I reported to Love Field. We were checked out at Love Field.

00:50:10.000 - 00:50:26.000

I didn't have a chance to even fly an airplane from Love Field before I received orders to report to Dodge City, Kansas, to learn to fly the B-26. Who did you report to at Love Field? I think his name was Oldfield at Dodge City, Kansas.

00:50:26.000 - 00:50:47.000

The commanding officer at Love Field, I can recall we were in ground school that morning, and the man came in and gave the instructor a note. He said, "The following WASPs are to report immediately to the commanding officer's office." So he gave the names of the three of us who were to report.

00:50:47.000 - 00:51:06.000

So we reported, and he said, "I don't understand these orders. You girls are going to be trained to fly a B-26? That is ridiculous. You've had no heavier twin-engine time than AT-17s. The cadets, the men pilots, have to have some time in C-46, C-40s, whatever,

00:51:06.000 - 00:51:17.000

before they ever get in the cockpit of a B-26. You'll probably be driving a gas truck. But here are the orders, so pack your B-4 bags." And within an hour we were gone.

00:51:17.000 - 00:51:41.000

When we landed at Dodge City, the sergeant that met us drove us by what he called the "bone yard." Four B-26s had cracked up within the previous month, killing the entire crews. He said, "If you girls have any sense, you'll turn right around and go back where you came from, because that thing is a killer."

00:51:41.000 - 00:51:59.000

Well, of course we didn't do that. We reported to his office, commanding officer. There were three from Romulus, Michigan, three from Long Beach, California, three from Love Field. At any rate, 18 girls. And the commanding officer said, "We have had four aircraft crack up within the last month.

00:51:59.000 - 00:52:24.000

And now instructors are telling me that the boys are scared. They are giving poor rides on purpose. They don't want to fly the B-26. They want the B-25." Now General Hap Arnold and Jacqueline Cochran and I agree that the B-26 is a perfectly safe airplane.

00:52:24.000 - 00:52:42.000

We have all the confidence in the world in this aircraft. So we have decided to have the girls fly it as a morale booster, so the boys won't be afraid of it. Now, you're not all going to make it. All the cadets, we warshot cadets too.

00:52:42.000 - 00:53:02.000

You're not all going to make it. So if you like the field you came from, think it over carefully, because I can't guarantee where you'll go. But if you stay and if you pass, you will be the first women in the history of the Air Force to fly a bomber. So he left the room for us to talk it over.

00:53:02.000 - 00:53:14.000

And of course we all wanted to fly it. So he took us then from his office to the adjutant's office to make out our wills. And I didn't know what to say. Here I was living at home, teaching school.

00:53:14.000 - 00:53:26.000

I didn't have anything. So I wrote. I thought and thought. I knew I had to write something. So I wrote, "To my mother and father, I leave my billfold." I didn't mean to be facetious, but I didn't know what to say.

00:53:26.000 - 00:53:44.000

Then he took us to the dentist's office, and he made plaster casts of our teeth in case we burned up, we could be identified. And I began to think, "Do I want to fly this airplane or don't I?" Well, they washed out seven, and the 11 of us had finished towed targets for gunners. It was a great airplane.

00:53:44.000 - 00:53:57.000

Tell me about the first time you went up in it. The first time that I went up in the B-26, my instructor was I.H. Young. We used to call him "Itchy" Young. He was a character.

00:53:57.000 - 00:54:16.000

He had one time done an outside loop in an AT-6. And an outside loop, he barely could see enough to land, all the blood rushing to his head. But he was a wonderful instructor. And I just thought the world of him.

00:54:16.000 - 00:54:35.000

Well, we had an experience one time. It was on a Sunday morning, and we were to learn what to do if you lose an engine on takeoff. Now, nobody liked that. That's a terribly dangerous procedure, because both engines are going full bore,

00:54:35.000 - 00:54:47.000

and just as you're getting off the ground, one engine quits, and the other engine flips you over. It's an extremely dangerous time. But at any rate, it had to be taught. Nobody liked it--students, the crew chief, nobody.

00:54:47.000 - 00:55:01.000

But the girl had had her time in the left front seat, and she came back, and then I went up. They don't let you get out. It's just like when you take driver's ed, you have to stay in the car. So I got--no, I'm sorry.

00:55:01.000 - 00:55:11.000

I had that backwards. I had done my bit, and he had this girl up in the left seat. And what they do is pull the fuel mixture back on one engine, and then you get the plane under control,

00:55:11.000 - 00:55:24.000

and the engine that has the fuel mixture pulled back. The propeller is windmilling, and that's a drag. You don't want a drag. So you push a button called a feathering button, and you push the feathering button,

00:55:24.000 - 00:55:43.000

and instead of the propeller going this way into the wind, it goes this way. So it knifes--so it doesn't drag anymore. Well, he pulled the fuel mixture back on the left engine, and she hit the left feather button. No wonder he told me later that the propeller didn't fly right off the aircraft.

00:55:43.000 - 00:55:59.000

Well, I truly, truly thought--and he told me later too-- he truly thought we had less than a minute to live. Here we were with no power at like 350, 400 feet off the ground. Well, he obviously got the thing back.

00:55:59.000 - 00:56:11.000

He got the engine back, or I wouldn't be here. We were practically skimming treetops by the time he got that engine. Of course, he washed her out immediately. When we got back to the field, you can fly a fighter and kill yourself

00:56:11.000 - 00:56:25.000

if you do something as stupid as that, but you can't fly a bomber and be responsible for a crew. But the interesting thing about that is I had gotten tired of listening to the tower, and I turned on the only commercial station I could get.

00:56:25.000 - 00:56:43.000

And as I said, it was a Sunday morning, and it was an evangelistic program. And just when this thing occurred, and I thought I had less than a minute to live, the minister said, "We will now sing 'O For a Closer Walk with God.'" I was not familiar with that hymn, but I looked it up later.

00:56:43.000 - 00:56:55.000

There is a hymn. The next time I went to church, I looked it up-- "O For a Closer Walk with God." But when I truly thought that I had less than a minute to live--

00:56:55.000 - 00:57:09.000

and I like to share this with people because I've only met one other person in my life who thought he had less than a minute to live. He didn't know how to swim, thought he was drowning, and he had not been married long. He thought only about his young wife.

00:57:09.000 - 00:57:31.000

My only thoughts were my mother and dad. I was so--I could just see the telegram coming, "The commanding officer of Dodge City regrets to inform that," and so forth. And I was saying to myself, "Mom and Dad, I am so sorry that I've caused you this grief."

00:57:31.000 - 00:57:44.000

Don't think about yourself. You're not going to be here anyway. And that is really and truly--I think--of course, you don't go around asking people, "Do you ever have experience thinking you're going to have one minute to live?" So I don't know.

00:57:44.000 - 00:58:02.000

But my belief--that if you think you're going to die within a matter of seconds, that you don't think about yourself. You think about those that are going to be grieving for you because, you know, they're the losers.

00:58:02.000 - 00:58:16.000

Could I ask you, do you think that made you have a closer walk with God? Well, I've been a religious person. As I said, my grandfather was a Lutheran minister. My mother was the organist of a church.

00:58:16.000 - 00:58:40.000

Yes, I think the book called "God" is my co-pilot. It's a wonderful book because I do have faith. And the other--let's see, I'm trying to think of the other experience that I had. In the B26, I was the first one to go up without an instructor.

00:58:40.000 - 00:58:58.000

Not that I learned any faster than the other girls at all, but my instructor always gave you another 25 minutes, another 35 minutes. So I built up my required time of 25 hours before the others. And I remember being so thrilled to be the first girl to go up without an instructor in a B26.

00:58:58.000 - 00:59:12.000

So I was in the left seat. A young cadet who's only been on the field about a month was in the right seat. And the crew chief, Sergeant Black, he hauled himself up and walked down to Bombay and came back and said, "Where's your instructor?"

00:59:12.000 - 00:59:25.000

And I was terrible. I was so cocky. I said, "Don't have an instructor today," and he got right out. He crawled right out and stood down on the attirement. And I said, "You know, I'm only going to--I can understand how you feel.

00:59:25.000 - 00:59:39.000

I'm the first girl to go up without an instructor, but my instructor's in the tower." Well, he didn't want him in the tower. He wanted him in the airplane. And I said, "I'll only be off the ground about 30 minutes, make a few gentle turns and land." He still didn't want to go up.

00:59:39.000 - 00:59:54.000

So I said, "Well, you know I can't take this plane up without a crew chief, so I'll call the tower and get a replacement." Well, he didn't want me to call Dodge Tower from Army 2X04. Sergeant Black won't go up with me, you know.

00:59:54.000 - 01:00:08.000

So he spit on the runway and he said, "Oh, hell, I'm tired of living anyway." And he crawled back in. [laughs] He became one of my favorite crew chiefs. He later on said he liked the way women fly.

01:00:08.000 - 01:00:19.000

They weren't quite as rough with the controls. They didn't slam the throttles and jerk the rudders and all that stuff. He really liked--they were a little smoother. He thought better coordinated.

01:00:19.000 - 01:00:30.000

Where did you live when you were at Dodge? We lived on the field. When it came time for cross country, the girls wanted--all the other girls, the 11 of us-- they wanted to go to California.

01:00:30.000 - 01:00:41.000

For some reason, I wanted to go east, so I picked Richmond, Virginia. And Richmond, Virginia was a P-47 school. P meaning pursuit ship. It had only a single engine.

01:00:41.000 - 01:01:01.000

Same kind of engine as the B-26, but single engine. And I filed my flight plan. Either my handwriting is too large or they don't give you enough room for your signature. But there wasn't room for Marjory Sanford, so I put for pilot M. Sanford and filed the flight plan.

01:01:01.000 - 01:01:19.000

Well, the B-26 had a bad reputation all over the country, and that was kind of exciting. "Oh, a B-26 is coming in this afternoon about 2 o'clock." So I finally knew I had the tower, but I couldn't see the field yet, but I could hear them. And, you know, we wore a throat mic and you press a button.

01:01:19.000 - 01:01:37.000

So I called and I said, "Richmond Tower from Army 2X06, a B-26, approximately 15 minutes west of the field at 7,500 feet, requesting landing instructions, please, over." And there was dead silence. And I was about to push the button again, and this voice came back, and he said,

01:01:37.000 - 01:01:49.000

"Army 2X06 from Richmond Tower, what type aircraft did you say you're flying?" And I said, "A B-26, a B-26, over." Silence again. Well, that time I could see the field.

01:01:49.000 - 01:02:00.000

And these P-47s, of course, they were on the same radio transmission. They were going, "Choop, choop." They were getting out of that traffic pattern. I wish I'd had a camera.

01:02:00.000 - 01:02:15.000

They would have been caught dead in the traffic pattern with a woman coming in in a B-26. So they hadn't answered, so I was about to push the button again when he said, "Are you kidding?" And I assured him I wasn't. So they switched runways.

01:02:15.000 - 01:02:30.000

They gave me the longest runway they had, even though it was crosswind, and they had an ambulance and a fire engine at the end of the runway. That's the kind of reputation. And Sergeant Black, the one who was so scared about going up with me, was with me that day.

01:02:30.000 - 01:02:47.000

And people came out from hangars and everything else, and they said, "You ought to--these mechanics said I wouldn't put my big toe in that airplane with the best manned pilot in the world, but with a woman, you're crazy. You ought to have the Distinguished Flying Cross."

01:02:47.000 - 01:03:04.000

And, of course, he was being, "Hmm," you know. He was quite different from when he first went up. How long were you in training at Dodge? At Dodge City we reported--I guess we reported in October.

01:03:04.000 - 01:03:20.000

We finished December the 18th. So it was in the middle of October to December the 18th. And then did you have a ceremony or--? A graduation ceremony.

01:03:20.000 - 01:03:39.000

Well, I don't recall. I know that I was awfully glad when we got our orders that eight of us were to go to Harlingen and three to Laredo, and my friend Shirley Slade, who later appeared on the cover of Life magazine--she was the cover girl--

01:03:39.000 - 01:03:56.000

when they had the article about the WASP program. She and I were among the group that were sent to Harlingen, Texas, where we towed targets for gunners and B-24s over the Gulf of Mexico. The girls who went to Laredo towed over the ground.

01:03:56.000 - 01:04:17.000

Do you know how--you're checking out in that 26. How did that affect the attitude of the pilots who were training to fly those, the male pilots? I don't recall. Some girls felt there was a little, "Oh,"

01:04:17.000 - 01:04:31.000

a feeling that girls shouldn't be flying that kind of equipment, but I never came across that myself. I really didn't. There was no animosity that I was aware of.

01:04:31.000 - 01:04:39.000

Do you know how it affected their training? Were they still afraid? Oh, no, it worked at Dodge City. It worked.

01:04:39.000 - 01:04:55.000

They thought to themselves, "If those dumb girls can fly, it can't be that bad." They finally added three feet to each wing tip to make it a little more stable. But it was a great airplane. It had the best record overseas.

01:04:55.000 - 01:05:14.000

My husband flew overseas, flew 50 missions with the 9th Air Force and B-26s, and it had a marvelous--they came back with a-- it had the best reputation of any twin-engine bomb. While you and the other WASPs were training at Dodge, what was your social life like?

01:05:14.000 - 01:05:28.000

Oh, of course, you were allowed then to date instructors. I mean, I married my squadron commander at Harlingen, but you could date instructors then because we had our wings. We weren't in training.

01:05:28.000 - 01:05:45.000

And Dodge City was a wonderful city. It's not like the Dodge City you see on television with the guns and the horses, but it was a wonderful city and a good field, a good training field. Do you remember when you got your orders how you felt about going back to Texas?

01:05:45.000 - 01:05:59.000

Oh, I loved the thought of going back to Texas. Indeed I did. Of course, the girls that went to Laredo were going to Texas also. Then how did you get from Dodge City to your assignment?

01:05:59.000 - 01:06:11.000

Well, I had a chance to go home, and then I took a train. In those days they had trains. By this time, did you have the new uniforms? Oh, no.

01:06:11.000 - 01:06:25.000

What were you wearing? Flying suits. And for dress? Yeah, we had skirts and white--well, we had khaki pants and a white shirt.

01:06:25.000 - 01:06:46.000

But Jacqueline Cochran insisted that once we were off the base, we wear skirts. And she wanted us to be feminine, not go around-- I'm going to ask you what effect her style-- Well, I agreed with her.

01:06:46.000 - 01:07:02.000

She wanted us to always look well-groomed. She later had a cosmetic line, the Cochran Cosmetic Line. But I would urge anyone to read the story of her life because it's something that you wouldn't believe, really.

01:07:02.000 - 01:07:17.000

It's just amazing what she did, what she accomplished. And then later on, of course, she had several head heart problems. She was no longer allowed even to fly commercially. At the last convention that I saw, when she came to the last convention,

01:07:17.000 - 01:07:30.000

she was able to attend. She had to come by bus--I mean, she had her van. She wasn't allowed to go in the air at all because of heart problems. But she was an extremely capable, intelligent person.

01:07:30.000 - 01:07:47.000

When you arrived at Harlingen, how were you received? Well, when we arrived, it was January the 1st, and we got off the train and took a taxi out to the field, and they didn't know we were coming.

01:07:47.000 - 01:07:59.000

My husband was one of the men who opened that field, that gunnery. It was a gunnery school. And they were not told we were coming. And, of course, the B-26 was considered a hot airplane,

01:07:59.000 - 01:08:13.000

and all of a sudden, here are eight girls that can fly it. You know, that was a little--it kind of takes the wind out of your sails. We knew how to fly the airplane. We didn't know how to tow the targets, so we had to be taught how to do that.

01:08:13.000 - 01:08:26.000

So when I was checked out on towing targets, they said, "Do you want Squadron A or Squadron B?" And just because A comes before B, I said, "I'll take A." So I said to Shirley, my friend, my cover girlfriend,

01:08:26.000 - 01:08:35.000

I said, "When you check out, ask for A, too, because four of us are going to fly in the morning one week and in the afternoon the next week, and then we can go shopping together and our hours will be together."

01:08:35.000 - 01:08:47.000

So she agreed. So we were to report to the flight line to Squadron A at 7 o'clock that morning, the next morning. And I swear to this day it was only 5 after,

01:08:47.000 - 01:09:03.000

but the commanding officer said it was at least 15 minutes after. At any rate, when we reported to the flight line, he said, "Just because you're women don't think you're reporting to my flight line late." I was furious.

01:09:03.000 - 01:09:20.000

I was so mad at him. And I turned to Shirley and I said, "Who does that captain think he is?" And eight months later we were married, and we've been married 55 years. Another incident occurred that makes me wonder how we were--

01:09:20.000 - 01:09:32.000

when we were dating, he asked me if I would go up with him as a copilot. He would be flying, I'd be the copilot, to see if we could tow targets at a higher altitude than we were towing then. So we were wearing oxygen masks.

01:09:32.000 - 01:09:46.000

In those days, oxygen masks were these big rubber things you put over your nose and mouth. Today they have little inserts that go up the nose so you can drink your Coke and talk and eat your sandwich and everything, but not in those days. Well, it didn't work.

01:09:46.000 - 01:09:55.000

The target--it was too sluggish. It just wasn't going to work. So we got back into the traffic pattern, approaching the traffic pattern, and I'd taken my oxygen mask off,

01:09:55.000 - 01:10:13.000

and I thought, "Oh, my nose is probably shiny and I want it to look nice." So I opened my compact, and there's always an updraft in the cockpit. In those days they didn't have pressed powder. I opened my compact and powder--oh, you couldn't see.

01:10:13.000 - 01:10:25.000

My husband was going, "Wim, Wim." He had to call the tower and get time to go out. He didn't tell him why, but the powder had to settle before he could see to come back.

01:10:25.000 - 01:10:42.000

And I thought to myself, "You know, if there had been an accident, the cause of the accident was the co-pilot was powdering her nose." That would have been the actual cause. It's a wonder he ever married me.

01:10:42.000 - 01:10:57.000

Tell me, what were the qualities that you saw in this young man that made you fall in love? Well, after I got over being angry with him, he turned out to be a nice person. He was an excellent pilot.

01:10:57.000 - 01:11:05.000

He was lots of fun. He had a great sense of humor. And we just hit it off. We just thoroughly enjoyed each other's company.

01:11:05.000 - 01:11:20.000

So when we decided to marry, I decided I wanted to be married in Peoria, my home, the church there at home. We called our parents to tell them that we were going to marry. And the very next day he got his overseas orders.

01:11:20.000 - 01:11:29.000

The very next day. So I said, "Well, we'll wait until you get back." Well, he didn't want to wait until he got back. He wanted to be married then.

01:11:29.000 - 01:11:40.000

And so all our friends said, "You know, he'd be much happier knowing that you're his wife, not that you're just engaged." So we flew to New York. His parents lived in New York.

01:11:40.000 - 01:11:54.000

He thought his orders, he had to leave from there and we were married at the little church around the corner. And he was gone, well, nearly 11 months. And I went back and continued to tow targets for the gunners.

01:11:54.000 - 01:12:09.000

For your wedding, were there other people there that you knew? No, my parents couldn't get there. See, it went so suddenly, and you had to have a good reason. Everybody on commercial aircraft then were military.

01:12:09.000 - 01:12:19.000

So I met the man who gave me away when I got to the church. How did you get from Harlingen to New York? We flew. Commercial or--?

01:12:19.000 - 01:12:38.000

You could fly commercially because we were both in the service. And then when the WASP was suspended, I took a course analyzing aircraft accidents under Winston-Salem, North Carolina, because General Martin Kayent, who was head of the training command at Fort Worth,

01:12:38.000 - 01:12:57.000

the air training command, wanted an ex-WASP with bomber time to help analyze accidents. So I analyzed--we analyzed only the fatal and the major accidents. So I kept on analyzing accidents until my husband returned from overseas. Okay. Let's back up to when you got married.

01:12:57.000 - 01:13:08.000

Did you stay in New York until he left? Yeah. Well, then he was sent out to Salt Lake City. And then he was sent back to New York, and then I came back to-- Okay. And then you returned to Harlingen?

01:13:08.000 - 01:13:25.000

I returned to Harlingen. Tell me what your feelings were when you first heard that the WASP were going to be disbanded. Well, of course I was disappointed. I didn't share with others the feeling that it wasn't fair.

01:13:25.000 - 01:13:47.000

Some felt this isn't right, you know, that we never get to--we have all this experience, and they've spent all this money training us to fly military aircraft, and now we just go home and fly a Piper Cub. But I just couldn't help but feel that we shouldn't be paid for doing something that we weren't needed anymore.

01:13:47.000 - 01:14:00.000

The men could do it, and they should do it. They were in the military. As I said earlier, they couldn't send them home. So the men went back to ferrying aircraft, and the WASP were dismissed.

01:14:00.000 - 01:14:14.000

While you were at Harlingen, did you go to OCS? Oh, yes, in Orlando, Florida. Would you explain what that was all about? Well, it was a survival, too.

01:14:14.000 - 01:14:36.000

You had to do all kinds of things like--you know, you get in the tank, and they lower the pressure and all of that to see how well you do at altitude and the importance of using oxygen and all that business. What do you think the purpose of that course was? Survival, in case you have to ditch an airplane in the water.

01:14:36.000 - 01:14:46.000

I thought it was an excellent course. Where was that course? At Orlando. Did it coincide with the Officers' Candidate School?

01:14:46.000 - 01:14:57.000

Was it one of the same? I don't recall. I really don't remember whether it coincided or not. But we weren't made officers until much later.

01:14:57.000 - 01:15:14.000

But at that point, what was your outlook as far as militarization? It didn't seem to make that much difference to me. There were girls who were very disappointed. Others didn't want it because the way it was, we could resign.

01:15:14.000 - 01:15:28.000

Anytime we didn't want to fly anymore, we could resign. You couldn't do that if we were part of the military. And, of course, Jacqueline Cochran wanted us to be part of the military. She wanted to be like Ovita Culp Hobby.

01:15:28.000 - 01:15:40.000

She would have been a colonel or whatever. But it didn't bother me one way or the other. It didn't seem that important to me. I was just happy doing what I was doing.

01:15:40.000 - 01:16:01.000

Can I ask you this? Braxton said you could talk about it. Could you tell me a story about Jacqueline Cochran that might be amusing? Oh, when I was at Dodge City, Kansas, they had the facility where you take showers.

01:16:01.000 - 01:16:11.000

There was a big room. It had four spigots at one end and four at the other with planks on the bottom. And, of course, the girls got used to taking showers together. That was no problem.

01:16:11.000 - 01:16:25.000

And Shirley, my dear friend who was the cover girl, she dashed in. It was a Friday afternoon. She dashed in to take her shower. And here was a lady standing in the corner way at the other end with her back toward her

01:16:25.000 - 01:16:41.000

underneath the shower that was going. And this voice said, "I'm taking a shower now." And Shirley backed out into the other room because we knew each other. She knew it wasn't one of the WASPs.

01:16:41.000 - 01:16:54.000

And she said, "Well, who is that?" And this voice said, "This is Miss Cochran." And Shirley was so embarrassed. She was just--she said, "Oh, Miss Cochran."

01:16:54.000 - 01:17:04.000

Of course, she was in the other room. She said, "Oh, Miss Cochran, I am so sorry. We didn't know you were coming. I am just terribly sorry."

01:17:04.000 - 01:17:20.000

Well, if Miss Cochran had let the matter drop then, it would have been all right. But Miss Cochran then said, "Well, I want you to know that I'm used to my privacy." And that angered my friend Shirley. It was as though we were used to taking showers together all of our lives.

01:17:20.000 - 01:17:40.000

So she said, "Well, I was used to my privacy too before I joined your outfit and came back to us." And Miss Cochran could never punish her in any way because she didn't know who she was. But she shouldn't have said that, you know.

01:17:40.000 - 01:17:56.000

I like Miss Cochran, but that wasn't right. She should have--she should have accepted her apology and said, "Well, I understand." Could we back up now, Sandy? You've mentioned your friend Shirley being a covered girl.

01:17:56.000 - 01:18:10.000

Could you tell us about that experience for Shirley? Yes. The man from Life magazine had come and taken pictures, and he had taken a picture of Shirley, which is on the inside of that issue,

01:18:10.000 - 01:18:25.000

and he had taken a picture of girl Anne McLelland, who was also-- and he had decided that he was going to use her for the cover, Anne McLelland. And Shirley and I--and Shirley had said, "Let's go out and watch the Life photographer take off." So we were sitting out there, and I believe it was a PT--

01:18:25.000 - 01:18:43.000

I guess it was a BT-13, the canopy's pulled back. My mother had sent me a gift, and I had had two ribbons that she'd tied it with. I'd stuck in my flight jacket. I'd unwrapped the gift. And Shirley had long hair. If you see the thing--well, down to her shoulders, practically.

01:18:43.000 - 01:18:59.000

If you see the picture in Life magazine, her hair was pretty long on the interior. And I said--it was hot. It was in July. I said, "Shirley, that hair looks so hot. Lean back and let me braid it." So she leaned back, and I divided it, and I braided it, and tied one ribbon here,

01:18:59.000 - 01:19:14.000

and tied the other ribbon there, you know. So it looked and felt a lot cooler. And then we saw the Life photographer coming out, and she said, "Oh, let's hop down and watch him." And he saw her with these pigtails.

01:19:14.000 - 01:19:27.000

And he'd taken--as I said, he'd already had--he said, "Would you mind hopping up on the tail of that plane and letting me get one more picture?" So she did. She sat up on the tail of the plane, and he took one more picture. And the next week, a few days later, he got a call saying,

01:19:27.000 - 01:19:42.000

"Would you mind if we put you on the cover of Life magazine?" And that's how it happened, because she was--I think because of her pigtails. It's a wonderful picture. Okay, now we'll go back to Harlan.

01:19:42.000 - 01:19:59.000

While you--when you came back after you were married, did you get letters from your husband, and have you kept those letters? Oh, yes. He was a faithful--wrote faithfully. And, of course, all of his friends--he had--they had a problem.

01:19:59.000 - 01:20:11.000

When we were at Harlan's and about where we were to live, when we first reported to Harlan's and they put us in with the WACs-- see, there were eight of us. Well, that didn't work too well.

01:20:11.000 - 01:20:23.000

The WACs were wonderful girls. I don't mean to sound derogatory, but you see, four of us flew in the morning and four-- well, the four that flew in the afternoon could sleep late in the morning, and they couldn't do that.

01:20:23.000 - 01:20:33.000

The WACs had to get out, and they had to do the PT. They had to do a lot of things that wasn't required, and a lot of them were not officers. We were allowed privileges at the officers' club.

01:20:33.000 - 01:20:47.000

It just wasn't going to work. So the commanding officer found a place down in downtown Harlan, and it was above a Sherwin-Williams paint store, a little stairway, little steps leading up, these boarded steps,

01:20:47.000 - 01:21:05.000

and it had been a dance studio, and there were seven dressing rooms, and in a bar, a metal bar, you know, where you're taught dancing, you put your heels up and all that, and a little kitchen and bathroom. And so we drew numbers because there were eight of us.

01:21:05.000 - 01:21:20.000

Two were going to have to share one of those rooms. So we drew numbers, and I got my own room, and Shirley got her own. At any rate, it worked out to be all right, except when people would come to pick us up for dates,

01:21:20.000 - 01:21:36.000

and pretty soon other people were knocking on--it just wasn't going to work out. They just thought that they could come up and get a date with a wasp, you know. They called it the wasp's nest. So the commanding officer said, "Uh-uh, you girls have got to come back to the field."

01:21:36.000 - 01:21:54.000

So they gave us some barracks out there that worked out just fine. And here we were making curtains for the windows and all that stuff. But it worked out. I liked Harlingen. It was a great field. We lost one girl. One girl was killed in Harlingen, but not in the B-26.

01:21:54.000 - 01:22:03.000

Do you know how she was killed? We don't know for sure. She was flying-- She lost consciousness?

01:22:03.000 - 01:22:15.000

Well, they think that she might have. But at any rate, somebody else was flying with her. She may have--he may have taken over. We don't know. Unless you know for sure, I hate to speculate.

01:22:15.000 - 01:22:27.000

Did one of the wasps go home with her body? Oh, yes. They're always a-coming. Then how long were you at Harlingen? Until the wasp was disbanded.

01:22:27.000 - 01:22:39.000

I reported January 1, and we were disbanded December 20. Which wasp? I'm listening to this. I just want to know which one was killed. Oh, what was the name of the wasp that was killed?

01:22:39.000 - 01:22:53.000

Bonnie Jean Wells, W-E-L-Z. We called her B.J. Wells. When you were disbanded at Harlingen, what kind of ceremony did they have, or what did they do for you?

01:22:53.000 - 01:23:13.000

Well, there was a picture in the local paper, and a nice dinner, a party, bidding us all farewell. And the girls did go home, but as I said, I didn't go back to teaching. I wanted to stay in flying,

01:23:13.000 - 01:23:28.000

so that's why I took the course on analyzing aircraft accidents. I forgot to ask you, do you remember the first time you went home with your uniform, with your wasp uniform on, and how did that feel? Oh, they just thought it was a course. They thought it was great.

01:23:28.000 - 01:23:41.000

Oh, my. And I went back to my high school, and the principal had me talk to them, and that sort of thing. But it was fun. It was enjoyable.

01:23:51.000 - 01:24:25.000

Oh, oh. They couldn't see the picture. Oh, okay. Well, one time when I was towing targets at Harlingen,

01:24:25.000 - 01:24:41.000

the B-24s would go out in fly formation, four B-24s, and the tow ship would go up off to their left at a higher altitude, and you'd drop quarter flaps and let out the target. The target was on the end of a 1,000-foot steel cable.

01:24:41.000 - 01:24:59.000

There were two kinds of targets, a panel target or a sleeve target, and we were towing panel targets. And when the target went out, instead of going out the way it should, the whole thing, not even becoming unfurled, became lodged in the tail.

01:24:59.000 - 01:25:12.000

It caught in the tail of the aircraft. I felt this bang, and then I realized I had no rudder control. I was skidding. So I called the--and, of course, the B-24s could see it.

01:25:12.000 - 01:25:27.000

So I called the tower and came back in for an emergency landing, and it really was stuck. And you could tell by looking at the way the target was lodged in the tail of that aircraft that I would have no rudder control.

01:25:27.000 - 01:25:42.000

But they decided then they were going to make some changes in the way the target was released. Whether that was ever done or not, I don't know. But it was an experience that--it was a little concern, but--

01:25:42.000 - 01:25:57.000

and I had to laugh at the tow operator and the crew chief. I said, "You know, you can bail out. There's not much wind today, and the water is nice and blue," and they said, "Yeah, underneath all that nice blue water

01:25:57.000 - 01:26:10.000

are sharks and barracuda." "Are you planning to take it back?" I said, "Oh, yes, but I wanted to give you the opportunity if you want." "No, they--and I--you know, they came back in just fine."

01:26:10.000 - 01:26:23.000

Tell me about the patterns you flew, about the ammunition that they were using from the B-24s. They were .50 caliber machine guns. Of course, you had the tail gunner, the nose gunner,

01:26:23.000 - 01:26:33.000

the right waist gunner, the left waist gunner, the Sperry ball, and the Martin upper. So you had six. And they would call when they finished--

01:26:33.000 - 01:26:44.000

and their instructor was with them. It was six weeks of gunnery training, five weeks on the ground, one week in the air. And the instructor--the B-24 pilot would call and say,

01:26:44.000 - 01:26:55.000

"We finished. All our guns have been all fired," and they'd go back, and then the next one would call. And when the last one would call, if they had fired from all of their positions, then the tow ship would come back

01:26:55.000 - 01:27:08.000

over the field and drop the target, and then go back out and tow for four more. So we towed for eight B-24s every day, including Sunday. About how long would you be in the air?

01:27:08.000 - 01:27:20.000

It would depend. Usually 2 1/2, 3 hours. And one was shot down. One of our airplanes was shot down. It burst from a right waist gunner,

01:27:20.000 - 01:27:29.000

and the airplane went straight into the Gulf. They think it probably killed the pilot and the co-pilot instantly, and they fell forward on the wheels, which would have put it into a dive.

01:27:29.000 - 01:27:41.000

And it turned out that the man who shot-- he shot at the airplane instead of the target, claiming he thought he was supposed to. But they found out he'd been washed out of pilot training.

01:27:41.000 - 01:27:53.000

And when you're washed out of pilot training, you're sometimes sent to a navigation school or a bombardier or gunnery. And he was sent to gunnery school, and he was angry.

01:27:53.000 - 01:28:08.000

But they never found the plane, just an oil slick. Then after I left the field, there was a midair collision, two B-26s. But that's the only fatalities that occurred when I was there.

01:28:08.000 - 01:28:22.000

It was very well run, very extremely well handled, I thought. Since there was no radar in that day, no document radar, could you tell me how you would know whether or not the weather was suitable to fly?

01:28:22.000 - 01:28:35.000

Well, sometimes--we were sent up when, in my opinion, weather was not suitable for flying. We'd go up through an overcast. If you're climbing 500 feet per minute

01:28:35.000 - 01:28:47.000

and it takes you three minutes to get to the top, that's a pretty thick overcast. And of course, you're supposed to have eye contact with the ground. We had eye contact with the tops of clouds.

01:28:47.000 - 01:29:00.000

But of course, they want as many hours as they can get, you know, of successful towing. I can remember at the office club one afternoon or evening, I said, "You know, when I come down through the overcast,

01:29:00.000 - 01:29:08.000

I go clear down to Mexico. I get across the Rio Grande and let down." And the other one said, "Well, that's what I do, too." Well, that's what I do, too.

01:29:08.000 - 01:29:22.000

We all thought we were being so safe, and we're all coming down. It's a miracle we didn't have a mid-air collision, really. When the WASPs were disbanded and your husband was overseas,

01:29:22.000 - 01:29:34.000

what did you do? I took a course in analyzing aircraft accidents at Winston-Salem, North Carolina. And then I analyzed aircraft accidents

01:29:34.000 - 01:29:48.000

at the T&P Building in Fort Worth. What do you mean, analyzed aircraft accidents? The major accidents and the fatal accidents would come in. First, we'd get the telegrams.

01:29:48.000 - 01:29:58.000

Would you get that? Do you want to turn it off for a minute? Down near Macon, Georgia, a B-25 with an engine fire landed in a cotton field,

01:29:58.000 - 01:30:08.000

gear up, and they all burned to death. And they found the thing worked, one and a third worked, but see, they panicked. They were used to one third.

01:30:08.000 - 01:30:20.000

I could just hear them saying, "Let me try, let me try." So we decided that first accident was probably a freak. It would never happen again. So they grounded the B-25s and put the old handle back in.

01:30:20.000 - 01:30:34.000

And as Barton Kayent said, "There's no substitute for brains." But that--so-- But see, you try your best to prevent accidents. It just haunted me that we could have caused those.

01:30:34.000 - 01:30:50.000

But you try your very best to do what you think is the best solution, and it just turned out to be wrong. That wouldn't happen again ever, probably. But we thought, "Oh, that one third is a little too easy."

01:30:50.000 - 01:31:06.000

One and one third didn't work. But in analyzing aircraft accidents, you just have to admit that it's pilot error. Now I saw on TV last night this thing about the Alaskan airline,

01:31:06.000 - 01:31:18.000

and that's terrible. You can hear the pilots trying to control. And I think that thing was material failure, pure and simple. But that is--

01:31:18.000 - 01:31:29.000

That was bad. But most of them are pilot error. And, you know, people are goofy on airlines now. They're demanding to get up there,

01:31:29.000 - 01:31:47.000

and just one woman tried to get in the cockpit recently. What are they--people are crazy. It's ridiculous. Did you hear the joke about the airline takes off--

01:31:47.000 - 01:31:58.000

I know you both have a sense of humor. This airline takes off, and the steward starts taking drink orders, and she starts at the rear of the plane. And there's an elderly man by the window and a young man by the aisle,

01:31:58.000 - 01:32:07.000

and she said to the young man, "Would you care for a drink?" And he said, "What do you have?" And she said, "Oh, bourbon, scotch, martini." "Well, I think I'll have a martini."

01:32:07.000 - 01:32:17.000

So she said to the elderly man by the window, "Would you care for a martini?" Well, he was a Baptist minister, and he pulled himself up, and he said, "I'd rather commit adultery than drink a martini."

01:32:17.000 - 01:32:30.000

And the young man said, "Oh, can I change my order?" Who was that? Joseph Beethe Kramer, who's at Los Alamitos. Oh, good.

01:32:30.000 - 01:32:42.000

Analyst is. Oh, when you analyze aircraft accidents, you get all--any eyewitnesses who saw it happen, are there any survivors?

01:32:42.000 - 01:32:55.000

Because what you're trying to do is just figure out what caused that accident. Did the pilot make a mistake, or did something happen that was wrong with the aircraft, or part of the aircraft, or was it struck by lightning?

01:32:55.000 - 01:33:11.000

Was it weather? What has caused an accident of that kind to happen? And then you try to figure out how can we prevent that from ever happening again? So that's what I was doing, trying to figure out.

01:33:11.000 - 01:33:26.000

And where did you train? At Winston-Salem, North Carolina. And I analyzed aircraft accidents with men. I think seven men and myself at this building in Fort Worth, Texas,

01:33:26.000 - 01:33:38.000

where we worked, the Air Transport Command. Okay, so you went to Winston-Salem and then came back to Fort Worth. And then to Fort Worth for our analysis. Were these accidents just in the United States, or were they all over?

01:33:38.000 - 01:33:57.000

Yes, only the United States, and only the major and fatal, not the minor. Tell us about, if you remember, one particular accident that you had. The one in Colorado. A B-25 in La Junta, Colorado.

01:33:57.000 - 01:34:08.000

They were at 8,000 feet. The instructor had a student in the left seat. The instructor was in the right seat, and the other student was back at the engineer's table.

01:34:08.000 - 01:34:22.000

The instructor had finished all the time that this boy needed in the left seat, so he said, "Okay, trade places with the other student." The student, when the left seat was tall--he was 6 feet 2 inches tall, which is the maximum.

01:34:22.000 - 01:34:35.000

You couldn't be taller than that and become a pilot in the Air Corps. So the student got up, and there are three kinds of parachutes that you can wear. One is a backpack. It fits across your back.

01:34:35.000 - 01:34:50.000

Another is a chest pack, and another you sit on, a seat pack. He was wearing what was a backpack, and as he got up--and he was tall--the webbing at the back got caught in the emergency escape hatch door.

01:34:50.000 - 01:35:05.000

There's a door up there that you can open so you can get out of the top of the airplane in case you have to come in with your gear up, where you're landing gear up, and you can't get out of the bottom. Well, he was blindly--you couldn't see it, but he was trying to undo it,

01:35:05.000 - 01:35:22.000

and it turned--the handle turned--and the door opened. It ripped the door off. It pulled the student out, pulled him across the back of the aircraft, and ripped his parachute so that he fell 8,000 feet with no help from a parachute at all.

01:35:22.000 - 01:35:42.000

The instructor knew that they were in trouble because, of course, all the sand flying up and the bang at the tail and the door was gone. So he called Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, which is the emergency call to come in immediately to land. And he said--after they landed, he said to the student,

01:35:42.000 - 01:35:54.000

"What is your serial number?" to fill out the pilot's log book. And then he said, "Okay, what's your serial number?" And the boy said, "Well, he's gone." He said, "What do you mean he's gone?"

01:35:54.000 - 01:36:10.000

And he said he was pulled out of the airplane with the door. So they recovered the body, and when that accident came in, it was decided it was simply too easy. One and one-third--it was one-third of a turn, and that door would open.

01:36:10.000 - 01:36:28.000

So we decided to make it one and one-third. The mechanic said it would be easier to do one and one-third rather than a half. So they grounded--they didn't let any of the B-25s fly until they got that new door handle in. And then they put out their technical orders.

01:36:28.000 - 01:36:44.000

Everybody had to read this. "From now on, that emergency escape hatch door handle is one and one-third turns." Well, they were back flying in less than a week when a B-25 had an engine fire down near Macon, Georgia.

01:36:44.000 - 01:36:57.000

They landed with their wheels up in a cotton field. You always come in with your gear up if you're not landing on a smooth runway or a highway because you could hit a ditch, and that would flip you over. So you belly--they call belly land.

01:36:57.000 - 01:37:17.000

And he came in with his gear up, and they would have to get out the top. And that engine was on fire, and they couldn't get the door open. So we lost four crew--we lost four men. When that accident came back to us, it was decided that that first accident was a freak, unusual.

01:37:17.000 - 01:37:33.000

That probably would never, ever happen again. And we decided to put the original handle back in. It only takes, again, one-third of a turn. But you can see you try so hard to correct problems and make things safer,

01:37:33.000 - 01:37:56.000

and sometimes it just doesn't work. But as the General Martin K. Young there said, "There is no substitute for brains." You have got to think, stay ahead of problems like that. When you were analyzing these accidents and you were working with men, were these men pilots?

01:37:56.000 - 01:38:09.000

Yes, they were all pilots. Were you ever allowed to fly in any of the airplanes that you were-- No, no, no. How long were you--how long did you do that?

01:38:09.000 - 01:38:27.000

I did that from--I believe it was about the beginning of March until October when my husband returned. How did those men receive your suggestions? They seemed to be very cooperative. I found no animosity, no feeling of dislike at all.

01:38:27.000 - 01:38:45.000

They were very nice. Were there other WASPs employed with them? Yes, they had one other who had had no bomber time but pursuit ship time. Then you stayed there until your husband--

01:38:45.000 - 01:38:57.000

Until my husband returned. When he came back, where did you meet him? When he came in Chicago, Illinois. I had gone home to Peoria, and he took a train.

01:38:57.000 - 01:39:14.000

He came back from Europe and took a train to Chicago and came to meet my parents. He had never had that opportunity. As we said earlier, you know, that my parents couldn't get to the wedding because we were married so suddenly and you had to be in the military.

01:39:14.000 - 01:39:26.000

Then we lived in New York, in Bronxville, and then we moved to Texas. We were both anxious to come back to Texas. What did he do in New York while you were-- He was in the banking business.

01:39:26.000 - 01:39:41.000

How did you spend your time while he was working? Well, I was having--you know, our son was born and then our daughter was born. I was busy being a mother. We had one bedroom, one bath, a little apartment.

01:39:41.000 - 01:39:55.000

It was hard to find apartments right after the war, so I had two children in a one bedroom, one bath apartment. Then we moved to Texas, and we had our third child. We have two sons and a daughter.

01:39:55.000 - 01:40:06.000

Why did you choose Texas? Well, because we loved Texas. We met in Texas, and we just loved Texas. We were so glad to have a chance to come back to Texas.

01:40:06.000 - 01:40:16.000

So when you came back to Texas, where did you live? We lived in Houston. And what was he doing in Texas? He was at the banking business, and then he went into realty.

01:40:16.000 - 01:40:32.000

That led into what he is now in realty. Okay. In raising your children, are any of your children interested in flying? Both our sons have their pilot's license.

01:40:32.000 - 01:40:44.000

Our daughter doesn't really like to fly. She's--by this day--on the ground. I think that's unfortunate, but I respect fear like that. I said to one of my former instructors--I was telling him about it--

01:40:44.000 - 01:40:59.000

and I said, "If she would just learn to fly, that she might get over that." And he said, "That isn't necessarily true." And he said--and I don't know whether this is true or not-- but there are a lot of airline pilots that are not that comfortable with it,

01:40:59.000 - 01:41:15.000

but they make good money and they do it. But I don't know whether that's true or not. I'd hate to think that commercial pilots didn't like what they were doing or were afraid of what they were doing, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

01:41:15.000 - 01:41:27.000

I loved it. Would you like to tell us about your children? Well, we have our oldest son. He lives in Everett, Washington, and he's in the computer business.

01:41:27.000 - 01:41:41.000

Our daughter is married--all three are married-- and our daughter lives in Albuquerque. And her husband is--do laboratory-- Medical electronics.

01:41:41.000 - 01:41:53.000

Medical electronics in hospitals. And our youngest son is a defense attorney, and he lives in Irving, which is a suburb of Dallas. And we have four grandchildren.

01:41:53.000 - 01:42:06.000

Are you able to have family get-togethers? Oh, yes, as often as possible. So you're all a close family. Yes.

01:42:06.000 - 01:42:26.000

I wanted to go back and ask you, in being a teacher in school, have you kept in touch with any of the children that you were their teacher, or do you know if any of them ever achieved-- No, that's a very interesting question.

01:42:26.000 - 01:42:50.000

But I'll have to say I really do not know. I can remember some of them so distinctly and with such fond memories. But, see, I didn't continue to live in Peoria, so I've just lost touch with them. At this point, if someone asked you to pick out three WASPs

01:42:50.000 - 01:43:12.000

whom you think could represent what the WASP was all about best, who would you choose? Well, of course, my friend Shirley, who was on the cover of Life magazine. Unfortunately, she died April 26th, just a few months ago.

01:43:12.000 - 01:43:30.000

My friend in Fort Worth, who I call Scarlet, was certainly-- she has written a book about the WASP. She's a delightful, very intelligent, charming person. And I think--

01:43:30.000 - 01:43:44.000

Cookbooks. Yes, she has written cookbooks also. Another would be Edna Davis. Edna was one of the--when I said earlier that three of us were sent from Love Field to Dodge City,

01:43:44.000 - 01:44:09.000

it was Shirley, Slade, Edna--her maiden name was Modisette--and myself were the three. And Edna is very active with the B-26 archives and things of that kind. So those would be the three. As you look back at the WASP, what do you feel is the legacy of the WASP?

01:44:09.000 - 01:44:37.000

Well, I think they did away with this feeling that was widely held at that time that women simply could not fly, particularly bombers, heavy aircraft. We definitely proved that that is not a question of strength. I mean, women can fly heavy aircraft.

01:44:37.000 - 01:44:55.000

Senator Barry Goldwater had one time said, "Of those of us who towed targets," he said, "that's the closest women have ever come to combat, and they'll never come any closer." Of course, that was years ago, and that is no longer true. Women are now flying off of aircraft carriers.

01:44:55.000 - 01:45:11.000

We have women who are astronauts, as you know. So the field is open. I see no reason why women can't excel in any of those fields. And I think the WASP opened the door, or at least showed the way,

01:45:11.000 - 01:45:32.000

for future pilots and astronauts and so forth. I'd like to think so. Of all the things you have done, what do you think is your biggest accomplishment? I don't know, but I would like to say this.

01:45:32.000 - 01:45:55.000

I can honestly say that if I had my life to live over again, I wouldn't change one thing. And not many people, I don't believe, can honestly say that. I loved teaching. I loved flying. I loved being a mother. I was so blessed to have three lovely, healthy children.

01:45:55.000 - 01:46:22.000

We have four lovely, healthy grandchildren. I took tours of Ms. Iva Hogg's beautiful home at Biobank for 32 years, conducted people through with her gorgeous furniture and silver for 32 years. I was in charge of the docent program at the Art Museum, the Junior League docent program there.

01:46:22.000 - 01:46:34.000

I trained the girls who took the tours of children. I did that for 12 years. So I just feel that I--and I love doing all of those things. And I truly--I mean it sincerely.

01:46:34.000 - 01:46:50.000

I wouldn't change anything, not a thing. What do you keep busy doing these days? Well, these days I'm not able physically to get around and do the things that I used to do. After all, I'm 85 years old.

01:46:50.000 - 01:47:14.000

But I do give quite a few talks to people, ROTC groups about my flying. I do a lot of knitting. I enjoy doing things here at home. But I just obviously am not as active as I used to be. But I do enjoy talking to young people about flying,

01:47:14.000 - 01:47:29.000

because it was something that I will always treasure. It's probably the most exciting thing I ever did. What do you feel that your legacy will be? It would be hard to say.

01:47:29.000 - 01:47:46.000

I guess being--well, I can honestly say the first woman to go up in a B-26 without an instructor. And as I said before, not because I was any smarter. It's just because I was given more time. But that was a thrill to me.

01:47:46.000 - 01:48:06.000

And I think--and I know it worked as a morale booster. The boys just--they began to give good rides for their instructors. I think it was a wise thing to do, to have the girls fly it at a time when they lost confidence in it, because it was a wonderful airplane.

01:48:06.000 - 01:48:21.000

We flew along to a group of B-26 pilot marauder men, they called. And we meet once a month here in Houston. And it's just great. These are all men who flew in World War II, all B-26 pilots.

01:48:21.000 - 01:48:42.000

And it's such fun to meet and hear the stories that they tell about their experiences and how much they love the airplane. Unfortunately, there is only one B-26 still in flying condition in the entire United States. A thing that people, I guess, don't realize is that when the war was over,

01:48:42.000 - 01:48:55.000

they didn't fly all these planes back home. The B-24s and the B-17s, it cost millions of dollars in fuel. And what would we do with them here? We had no use for them.

01:48:55.000 - 01:49:11.000

So they were torn down overseas, or the ones that were in this country were left to rust or whatever. So it's wonderful that organizations like the Confederate Air Force are doing everything they can to preserve World War II aircraft.

01:49:11.000 - 01:49:42.000

They have B-17s, they have B-24s, they have P-38s, and one B-26, which is in Florida. If you could have had your choice when you were sent to B-26 school, rather than flying bombers, would you have chosen fighters? That's--if I had, I always thought the P-38 and the P-51 were the best fighter aircraft.

01:49:42.000 - 01:49:57.000

I just loved those aircraft. But I never--it's hard to say if I had a choice. I don't know, I loved the B-26. I really did. And looking back, I really don't believe I can honestly say.

01:49:57.000 - 01:50:15.000

But I'm glad I went to B-26 school. Let me ask you this, Sandy. When children view this film 25, 50 years from now, children from all parts of this nation who may think that have more or less

01:50:15.000 - 01:50:30.000

given up on what they can do, what would you like to say to them to give them some encouragement? Or what would you like to say to them? Oh, I--set your goals high.

01:50:30.000 - 01:50:46.000

And you can do whatever, whatever you set your goals, if you really try. If you really give it your very best. And that's all we can do, is to do our very best. But the future holds so much for you.

01:50:46.000 - 01:51:09.000

And I just think that if you can have a goal, a dream, that you want to fulfill, just do your best, and you'll be able to do it. Is there anything that we have left out that you would like to say? Any subject that we have overlooked?

01:51:09.000 - 01:51:24.000

That little plane you flew down to South America? Oh, oh-- After the war? Well, when my husband returned from overseas, we both wanted to continue to fly.

01:51:24.000 - 01:51:40.000

So he bought a Bonanza aircraft, and we flew that Bonanza for a long time. It was a small Bonanza. And then he got a bigger Bonanza that seated six people. And that was a great airplane.

01:51:40.000 - 01:51:51.000

But we flew the smaller one to South America. It's written up in Aero Magazine. We were gone six weeks. We flew down the east coast of South America.

01:51:51.000 - 01:52:10.000

We crossed the Andes at 18,500 feet, wearing oxygen masks. We came up the west coast. We went to Lima, where we went up to see the Inca Matsupitsu. We went to Ecuador, and of course, Ecuador means equator.

01:52:10.000 - 01:52:27.000

And just outside of Salinas, Ecuador, you can go out where they've got a long line, and you can put your foot on one side of the line and your other foot on the other side, and one foot's in the southern hemisphere and the other foot's in the northern hemisphere because you're standing right at the equator.

01:52:27.000 - 01:52:48.000

I got a 95-pound sailfish when we were boating, you know, deep-sea fishing. It was a wonderful trip. But we no longer fly because that airplane, we sold it, sold our Bonanza about two years ago because my husband--it's much cheaper now that we're up in years.

01:52:48.000 - 01:53:03.000

You've got a course reduction. It's much quicker. If he's going to Los Angeles or Cal--if you fly your own aircraft, it will take you longer, of course. You have to rent a car, stay at a motel, and get back out and so forth.

01:53:03.000 - 01:53:19.000

And so it's better financially and time-wise, but it's not nearly as much fun. Did your children ever fly with you or your husband? Oh, yes. But our daughter just holds the seat up all the way.

01:53:19.000 - 01:53:30.000

She's just red-knuckled. And my husband says we can't crash with her in the airplane because she's holding it up. There's no way we could crash. I wish she could get over her fear.

01:53:30.000 - 01:53:48.000

Maybe she will. Nancy wants to know how you stay married for this many years. Well-- What's your secret?

01:53:48.000 - 01:54:05.000

Well, of course we love each other. We love each other, and we adore our children and our grandchildren. We both have a sense of humor, and I think that's very important, that you can laugh at each other and yourselves.

01:54:05.000 - 01:54:29.000

And we're just very happily married. Braxton, is there anything that you can think of about her that you think she should talk about? Any stories that you've heard her tell that she hasn't revealed to us today? The secret Sandy stories.

01:54:29.000 - 01:54:42.000

Yeah, or anything. I don't know if there's anything she wants to make public that she already has. I can't think of anything, really. Sandy, this has been a joy.

01:54:42.000 - 01:54:50.000

Well, you ask such good questions. Secret word? You can ask it. Well, do you have a favorite word?

01:54:50.000 - 01:55:03.000

A favorite word? I can't think of any favorite word. If you could have had a profession other than when you were a pilot or a teacher, what would it have been? Or a teacher.

01:55:03.000 - 01:55:14.000

I love teacher. I just love teaching. That would be, I guess, my favorite word would be teaching. What did you enjoy about teaching?

01:55:14.000 - 01:55:38.000

Well, I love children. I just thought my fifth and sixth graders were just--I just really enjoyed every minute of teaching. And then I love teaching biology because I majored in that, and I think biology is such a fascinating subject. And I love teaching the aeronautics also.

01:55:38.000 - 01:55:58.000

And you know what I used to do with my little fifth and sixth graders was if they really were good in school, I'd take them up in my plane. And I could put two of them in the seat next to me with the seat belt across them, and they just had the best time. We all did. And I had to laugh at one little boy.

01:55:58.000 - 01:56:15.000

He said--my maiden name was Sanford--Miss Sanford, he said. I'd taken him up in the plane. You know what we did? We--my daddy put on top of the garage a big arrow that points from our school, Lee School, and it points right out to the airport.

01:56:15.000 - 01:56:44.000

So if ever you get lost, he said, you just fly over Lee School, and then two blocks from there, there's an arrow, and it'll show you where the airport is. And I thought, if I could find Lee, his house, I certainly could find the airport. But I thanked him very much because they meant it. His father had literally gone up there and put an arrow that points to the airport.

01:56:44.000 - 01:57:10.000

But I do enjoy being with children. - Sandy, I want to ask you another thing. What are the qualities that you have that you see in other girls who also were lost that made you think you could do what no other women had ever done before? - Well, I guess a love of flying.

01:57:10.000 - 01:57:34.000

Now, I had a friend who--from Peoria who also had taken the CPT, Civilian Pilot Training Program, and she came to Sweetwater two months after I was there. And I was so glad to see her. But there was a fatal accident about three weeks after she came, and she went home. Now, that's probably best.

01:57:34.000 - 01:57:59.000

If she--you know, you have to realize that there are going to be accidents. And I--she would not, I guess, made a good Army Air Corps pilot if she were that frightened. But I was so disappointed because the thing I felt that my ties with the girls who were there was our love of flying. We realized there's danger.

01:57:59.000 - 01:58:14.000

There's danger in anything that you attempt. But there was that camaraderie about the love of flying that drew us together. You'd march over to the mess hall in the morning for breakfast and out on the flight line. It was just getting light.

01:58:14.000 - 01:58:35.000

You'd hear the planes, engines being warmed up, and the whole thing was just a challenge and the most exciting years of my life, truly. - I do remember that I forgot to ask you about your advanced training, about the airplanes you flew. - Well, AT-6. That's marvelous.

01:58:35.000 - 01:59:00.000

That's--even to this day--my husband last Saturday had a chance to fly an AT-6 out at Westside Airport. And that was the first plane I flew that had retractable landing gear, that you could pick up the gear. And I just thought that was the--but one day coming back from a cross-country trip in an AT-6, the engine began to quit. And I hit the wobble pump.

01:59:00.000 - 01:59:08.000

And as long as I hit the wobble pump, it would go. But the minute I quit wobbling, it would quit. It would start to quit. I was looking for a place to force land.

01:59:08.000 - 01:59:22.000

I literally wobbled--wobbled pumped my way back to Avenger Field. And I thought when I pulled the throttle back on the final approach, the engine would quit. It didn't. But they found that it was sand--you had a lot of sandstorms.

01:59:22.000 - 01:59:36.000

And that it was a problem. But you just don't put an airplane down unless you absolutely have to. And I was glad to get that one on the ground. But that was a great airplane.

01:59:36.000 - 01:59:46.000

Did you also fly twin engines? The AT-17. Or UC-78, as they called it. And what was the difference in that and the AT-6?

01:59:46.000 - 01:59:59.000

Well, AT-6 is a single engine. And that's the only twin engine that we flew. Do you remember what kind of flying time you had to have before you checked out in that-- No, I really don't.

01:59:59.000 - 02:00:09.000

But that was all part of advanced training. You've been great. Well, thank you. It's been my pleasure.

02:00:09.000 - 02:00:20.000

It's always--brings back such wonderful, happy memories. I enjoyed it. You have great stories. Well, thank you so much.

02:00:20.000 - 02:00:26.000

Not stories, they're truths. Well, and the loss. Okay. Okay.

02:00:26.000 - 02:00:33.000

Well, first let me ask you who you are. I'm Braxton Thompson. Okay. And you married?

02:00:33.000 - 02:00:38.000

Yes, ma'am. A what? I married a WASP. Okay.

02:00:38.000 - 02:01:02.000

Braxton, let me ask you, when you met your wife, before you were married, what were you doing? What was your job? I was running one of the two flights of B-26s out of Harlingen, Texas, which was a flexible gunnery school. I had been one of the original pilots assigned to that base in February of '42

02:01:02.000 - 02:01:20.000

and had grown up through T-6s, AT-11s, AT-18s, and B-26s. And we had one 17 they brought before they decided how they were going to train these gunners. We had a 17 come in. I had a little time in a 17.

02:01:20.000 - 02:01:37.000

It was a fine airplane. I also had a little time in a 24, and it was my opinion the B-24 would never replace the airplane. But they hauled a lot of students around, and they hauled a heavy load of bombs, and they climbed higher than the 17s.

02:01:37.000 - 02:02:01.000

But I was glad I didn't have to fly my combat B-24s. But once I was assigned to the 9th Air Force in the U.K., I was glad to be in 26s. I flew over there very, very little when we were based in the U.K. We moved over to the continent when targets started getting further away,

02:02:01.000 - 02:02:28.000

and eventually we were hitting targets clear down in Czechoslovakia, which was quite a stretch for a B-26 because we only had about four and a half hours of fuel. When you were at Harlingen, tell me about somebody special that you met. Well, there were a number of real super guys among the original 13 pilots.

02:02:28.000 - 02:02:46.000

They all wound up in different places. Some of them were killed overseas. One of my particular friends, a guy by the name of Mac Millan, flew into Franklin Mountain west of El Paso in some weather.

02:02:46.000 - 02:03:08.000

Another good old boy, but I had Jimmy Mayo, who was descended from the Mayo Hotel people in Oklahoma City, wound up in Laredo because Laredo was staffed--once it opened after Harlingen, it was staffed mostly out of Harlingen. He wound up in the map business in Del Rio.

02:03:08.000 - 02:03:27.000

I, in later years, was in the farm and ranch real estate business. I remember I did some business with Jimmy on a bunch of maps of southwest Texas. He lived there until he died, and he was a member of the Laredo Rotary Club. I used to make up there at their club.

02:03:27.000 - 02:03:47.000

I had a lot of fun in that business because I got around the countryside, and I met a lot of great people and that sort of thing. Plus, I was able to use my airplane in the farm and ranch real estate business because I'd get a prospective buyer out of maybe Dallas or Oklahoma City

02:03:47.000 - 02:04:02.000

and carry them down to south Texas where I mostly worked, and we'd work on a listing that was obtained by a county seat broker in south Texas. We'd land at the county seat airport, and he'd furnish the ground transportation. We'd look at two or three ranches on the ground.

02:04:02.000 - 02:04:21.000

I'd show the prospect the same ranches from the air and get him back in his own bed at night, which my competitors in that business couldn't do. But it was a lot of fun, and I used to get about 400 hours a year of business use of my airplane, and an airplane is pretty economical if you can use it that much.

02:04:21.000 - 02:04:39.000

Once I got doing tax-free real estate exchanges and buying mortgage notes, I had relatively little opportunity to use my airplane, and I decided I could rent an airplane a whole lot cheaper than I could own one because the hangar rent goes on, you have to have an annual inspection every year

02:04:39.000 - 02:04:55.000

whether you've flown a lot or not, the insurance goes on and that sort of thing. So I regret not having an airplane I can use, but it's just not economical when you're only going to fly it less than 100 hours a year. Now I'm intrigued.

02:04:55.000 - 02:05:30.000

Could we back up and let me ask you where your love of flying came from? Well, I had a student pilot's ticket in New York, and I was on my way to getting my private ticket, and I had anticipated going into either the Army Air Corps or the Navy. And an opportunity came up to get into the Army Air Corps in fairly short order,

02:05:30.000 - 02:05:43.000

and I was originally supposed to go to Gunter Field in Montgomery, Alabama, and they delayed me and I wound up going to Parks in St. Louis, and my family had all come from St. Louis.