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Thank goodness I've done this a little bit before. It may not look like it or sound like it. You have a lot to share. I'm so glad you're sharing it, because it would be a shame to have you go through

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life and no one have known. It needs to be told. Baid County has a channel, kind of a PBS type thing. I'm Deanie Parrish with Wings Across America.

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Today we're interviewing Ruth Flasher. She was a WASP class 44W4. We are in her home at Homestead, Florida. Today is the 6th of May, 2003.

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The videographer is Nancy Parrish. Ruth, if you will give us your full name and when and where you were born. Ruth Schaefer Fleischer My name is Ruth Schaefer Fleischer, and I was born March 21, 1922, in Rochester, New

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York. Ruth, tell me about your mother. What was she like? Ruth Schaefer Fleischer

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Well, I am prejudiced, but I think she was a wonderful, beautiful lady. She came from Dayton, Ohio, where the Wright brothers came from. She ended up being a schoolteacher. She was very interested in theatrical things and poetry societies.

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She was a very gentle lady. Can you describe your father? Lowry: Well, he was, I thought, a rather tall, handsome man. He was born in Rochester, New York, and went to school there.

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Before he got into college, he managed to make some associations with friends of Glenn Curtis. Glenn Curtis, as you know, was a manufacturer of aircraft in Hammonsport, New York. He went over there and worked with Glenn Curtis for quite a while as a kind of a general go-around

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person and mechanic. He took some courses in mechanical engineering and aircraft engineering and marine engines and so forth, because they were just really starting the flying boats there at Hammondsport. He was with Glenn Curtis for quite a while.

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Then the war came along, and he was taken into the U.S. Air Service and was a lead mechanic and operations officer for air service, they called it then. He was at Langley Field, McCook Field in Dayton, Ohio, and also kind of an operations officer and general overseer at Buffalo, New York, where Curtis had a contract.

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Was he a pilot by that time? Yes, he was. He was a pilot and he was a member of the Early Birds, and that's an association of pilots that flew and soloed before 1916.

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There were one or two women that were in that, but of course mostly men. When you said, "And the war came along," which war? This is World War I. Yeah.

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Let's go ahead and discuss him. What were some of his experiences that you remember or that he told you about? His association with Wiley Post, for example. Well Wiley Post had just finished his round-the-world tour in the Winnie Mae, which was his airplane.

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He stopped in Rochester, New York, and my father was manager of the airport there in Rochester, New York in those years. We have some pictures, autographed pictures and so forth. While he posed, I'm sure he gave some lectures in the city of Rochester then.

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He was kind of going around the world doing lecture types. So my father got to meet him, and we have some autographed pictures from him. Also I must have skipped school one day, because I have a picture of me in the background there with Wiley Post, and that was 1933 when that happened.

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There were quite a few famous people that came through Rochester. Amelia Earhart came through, Roscoe Turner. Quite a few, I can't name all of them now. My father started an autograph book for me of all these famous pilots that went through,

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and I still have that and am rather proud of it. Did you meet Amelia Earhart? I didn't meet her personally. My folks took me to a lecture.

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She came through Rochester and gave a lecture at one time. I was close to her, and I saw her walk down the aisle very close to me after her lecture. But they had so many people around that you couldn't really get to talk to her. What kind of impression did she leave with you?

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I just thought that the sun rose and set on a female woman pilot at that time. I think that I was just enthralled with the whole thing. As I recall, her voice didn't project very well, which is kind of the problem I'm having today.

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I'm having a little voice problem. I thought I was just enthralled with the whole thing. Is that where you first had the desire to learn to fly? I think I had that before.

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I think probably when I was eight or ten years old, I knew what I wanted to do. There was no changing my mind, and I set my sights towards that. Instead of doing homework and studying algebra and geometry like I should have been, I was studying what they call civil air regulations in those days.

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I knew all the regulations. I was old enough finally to take a test and get ground instructor ratings. I was the youngest ground instructor in New York State there for quite a while. Let me take you back and talk about your dad.

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Did he meet the Lindberghs, for example? Oh, yes. The Lindberghs, Charles and Ann, came through Rochester at one time. I have some pictures of them.

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They also were on a lecture tour, and I can very vividly remember that. A couple that you may not remember is Martin and Osa Johnson. They did round-the-world type trips. I think the ones I remember mostly were in Africa.

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They were quite well-known aviation family. What was your dad doing when he met your mother? I believe he met her in Dayton, Ohio, when he was at McCook Field there. He was in the Air Service then.

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Was the Air Service a part of the military? It was part of the military. I think it was probably basically under the Army Signal Corps or something, if I remember correctly.

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But it was a very small group of people, of course, at that time. I think there was a military connection, yes. Kelly: When you were born, describe your home where you grew up. Were you in town or were you in the country?

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I was in town. It was a modest home in a fairly new section of Rochester, New York, on the east side, as I remember. Do you have siblings?

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No, I do not. Tell me about your grandparents. I never knew my grandfather on either side. I knew my father's mother.

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She was an interesting lady. She died when I was fairly young. My mother's mother lived to be quite elderly, and she was a go-getting kind of gal in her days.

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She had three or four children, and she was someone that was very interested in seeing that the children got an education, and they all did. Do you recall visiting her? No, I don't, because she had no home at that time.

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She was eighty-some years old when I first knew her. She would live for three or four months with my mother's sister, and then my mother's half-brother, and then with us. She spent several months with each family during the year.

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Kelly: What did your grandmother teach you? Lowdermilk Honstein: I hate to hesitate, but I'm trying to think, really. Kelly: What did you learn from her? Lowdermilk Honstein: I really don't know that I have an answer for that.

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When you were growing up, what was a Christmas like in your home? I think it was what I would call a normal Christmas. We got a Christmas tree and presents and so on. We visited with some of my mother and dad's friends.

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Some of them had children, and I got to know them a little bit. It was just a normal Christmas. There was no large family involved. Do you recall attending any Christmas celebrations, for example, pageants or church?

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Yes, well, my mother was interested in the church, and she had an affiliation with them. So they did have pageants and things like that at Christmas time. She was interested in dramatics and always was involved with the pageants. Kelly: As a young child, did you attend Sunday school?

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Do you recall? Diveney: Yes, I did a little bit. Yes, I did. Kelly: Where did you go to elementary school?

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Diveney: In Rochester, New York. Kelly: How did you get there? Diveney: I walked. It was fairly close to where I lived.

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Kelly: During your early years in school, do you recall any teacher that might have had an influence on you? Lowry: Not really, because the teachers seemed to be trying to get the proper knowledge into us at the proper time.

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in those days why aviation was not what you'd call a big item on their list. How involved were your parents with you as far as school? Well, I think they tried to, particularly my mother, who was a schoolteacher, tried to see that I got my homework done and would help me with whatever I needed help with.

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Did she teach school after you started school? No, no, no. She stopped teaching school, I think, when she was married. What was she involved in?

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Did she belong to organizations or did she do volunteer work? How did she spend her time when you were in school? She was involved with some church work and some poetry societies and theatrical groups, plus just taking care of my father and me.

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Kelly: Once you finished elementary school, was that eight years or six years? Quintana Newton: I think it was eight. Kelly: And you went then to high school? Quintana Newton: Yes, I did.

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Kelly: Did you have to change schools? Quintana Newton: Oh, yes. Yes, I had to go to a different school. How did you get to that school?

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Lowry: That was a chore. It was the other end of town, because we were planning to move out near the airport. My father was the airport manager there. The airport was located at the west end of town, and we lived in the east end of town.

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He would take me and drop me off at the school on his way to work in the morning. If that was not convenient, I would have to take two trolley cars to get there. It was quite an adventure just to get there. Kelly: In high school, what did you enjoy studying?

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I suppose geography was about the only thing that I remember. I did not very well in algebra and geometry. I still have trouble adding two and two sometimes. I remember somebody at the school saying, "How come you can seem to do numbers when

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it comes to a compass heading or something in an airplane, and you can't do the other numbers?" I said, "Well, I really don't know what that's what it is." What kind of student were you overall?

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Oh, just mediocre, I think. When you were growing up, how did you spend your vacations? Lowry: Those were the days when things were kind of in the Depression era. I just stayed around home and I went roller skating and played baseball and just helped

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around the house and do things like that. In the wintertime, I shoveled a lot of snow. Were you an athletic type? Yes, I was.

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Did you learn to ice skate? Oh, yes. That was always something we did in the wintertime. We had a nice toboggan, and we went tobogganing, and we went skiing, and did all the usual winter sports that one does up there in the north in the wintertime.

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How old were you when you took your first airplane ride? I was about eleven or twelve years old. Was that a fun thing, or did you get sick? Oh, no.

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No, no. That was very much a fun thing. I could not wait to go again. In fact, I was looking at a logbook, the first logbook I ever had, and I put some of the

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rides down as demonstration rides because I wasn't old enough to get a student certificate or anything yet. I didn't know that I could count that time. But I got a ride every time I could.

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As I say, I got ground instructors' certificates when I was very young. That way, I was able to teach some ground school and make a little bit of money, very little bit of money, to take some flying lessons. I remember washing an airplane or two, I think.

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I was kind of an airport bum, really. What were your social activities like in high school? Reed: They weren't very much as far as I was concerned, because I had to go all the way back home, which was at least an hour ride.

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I don't really remember socializing that much with the people in high school. In high school, did you have extracurricular activities with the school, sports or drama? Lowry: As I remember, I was the editor—not the editor of this little school paper, but I wrote the sports page.

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So how I remember that, I do not know. Do you want to stop? Do you have any copies of the sports part of the newspaper that you wrote? No, I'm sure I don't. I don't know how I had the nerve to do it. I remember going to some basketball games and thinking I didn't really know much about this subject, but I guess I wrote whatever the teams were doing.

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In high school, did you have any teachers that were important to you? Not that I remember. Who were your role models when you were growing up? I suppose people like Jacqueline Cochran and Melior Hart and Blanche Noyes and a few of

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the women pilots I had read about or heard about. As best you can remember, when you were in high school, what had you heard about Ms. Cochran? In high school, I heard nothing about her, but I did a lot of reading on my own as far

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as aviation was concerned. Of course, my father was in the aviation business, and that's about all we talked about. I heard a little bit about her then. Did you ever go and watch the air races?

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In Cleveland? Yes, I did. That's where I'd take my vacation and go to Cleveland. We'd get three or four of us in the car and go to the Cleveland Air Races.

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Well, that was a big thing in my life. We enjoyed that. Did your father ever enter any races? No, no.

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Okay, back to high school. Did you have a high school prom? I guess we did, but I don't remember too much. I think I went, but that was about all.

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That seems like a million years ago. Kelly: And your graduation, was that a highlight for you? Lowry: It was a highlight that I graduated and I got a diploma. I think that was the highlight of it.

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Kelly: When you were in high school, what were your ambitions? Lowry: Oh, just to be in aviation, fly. That was it. I was very narrow-minded.

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By the time you finished high school, did you know what you were going to do? Was college in the realm of things? What did you plan to do once you graduated? I planned to continue on and get ratings to fly.

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I was just getting ready to enroll in the University of Rochester. My father changed jobs and left the Rochester area and went to be the director of the airports in Philadelphia. I moved then with them.

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At that point, Pearl Harbor came along, and I joined the Civil Air Patrol, which was a local thing in Philadelphia there. I mean, it was nationwide, but I joined the unit in Philadelphia. Then the next thing I knew, they had an opening at the Coastal Air Patrol Base at West Hampton

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Beach, Long Island. So I applied for that and I got that. I worked as an operations officer assistant and radio communications person, because they They had all these basically single-engine little land-type airplanes flying out over

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Long Island Sound to see if they can locate the German submarines that were coming up. We did a pretty good job of that. We did locate some. We lost some of our pilots.

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It was a volunteer effort. These were civilian people that took off from their jobs to help the war effort. They were people that had a little bit of money because they did have an airplane, and they had some flying time.

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I think all they got really was expense money for gas and oil and maintenance. We lost one or two when the engine would quit. They went out in flights of two, so we always had radio contact with one of them anyway. They had little bombs of a sort they could drop.

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But the main thing was to get back to me in the operations office, and I would notify Mitchell Field on Allen, where they had P-47s, I think, based in Mitchell Field. They would take off right away and try to go out and locate the submarines. We got a few.

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Were you ever able to go out yourself on patrol? No, I was not, because the CO of the base did not believe in women pilots flying anyway. So no. Kelly: Let me back up and ask you, what is the first airplane that you flew?

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Quintana Newton: Piper Cub. Kelly: Who was your instructor, do you recall? I think I had one or two, but I think the instructor that I had when I sold it, his name was Frank Briggs.

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I looked that up the other day because I could not remember. Actually it was kind of funny because he was a young fellow and I would go out maybe once a week or once every two weeks whenever I got some money to fly. So it wasn't a consistent, everyday occurrence that I would fly.

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Well, anyway, Frank got married, and I happened to go out and get instruction from him, I think a day or two after he was married. And we were flying around and so forth, and he said, "Okay, let's go in and land." So we went in and landed.

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He turned around with a rather sheepish grin on his face and said, "You just soloed, girl." I said, "What?" He said, "I don't have any stick-up here."

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He was in the front seat of the Piper Cub. So it was a little advanced solo that we didn't plan on. What did your mom think about you flying? Oh, she thought it was great.

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Of course, she came from Dayton, Ohio, and I think went to school with the sister of some of the Wright brothers. So she was very good about that, very enthused and thought it was great. Kelly: As you kept flying, was there anything unusual that happened during the time you

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were learning to fly and after you soloed that you recall? I remember having a couple of forced landings out in the field because it was wintertime. I was probably practicing stalls or something, I do not know. I look at it now and say, "I probably did not pull the carburetor heat out soon enough

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or something and the thing quit." I went into a farmer's place and said, "I need to use your phone." I was fortunate and got the thing down all right. Were you able to fly it out?

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Would you fly it out? I think they sent somebody from the field to check it out to see what was wrong with it and flew it out. Did you ever fly an airplane with skis?

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Yes, I did. How is that different? In a way, as I recall it, you have enough snow under you there, and the skis have enough flexibility that you can really make sometimes a better landing than you could with wheels

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if you bounced. But yes, I did some. Did you ever fly with your dad? No.

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Kelly: In Civil Air Patrol—no, let me go on and ask you something else. When did you first hear about a training program for women to learn to fly military aircraft? McMillan: That was probably when I was down on Coastal Air Patrol on Long Island. That was before the days of TV, as I recall.

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It was newspapers and radio, and I heard about it. Kelly: What did your family say when you told them that you wanted to join that particular group? Lowry: They were very supportive of that idea.

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I thought that was fine. Did you know, were there any other girls flying when you were flying at Rochester? At Rochester, no. In Philadelphia, yes.

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In fact, there was one girl named Jean Dambly who was flying and trying to build up time. She heard about the WASP and she got in. She was in several classes ahead of me. I have forgotten what class she was in, but yes, she was flying then.

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And then there was another young lady named Dot Lafitte, and she was flying. And she is the one that applied to get into the WASPs also, and we got called to go into the same class. So she had a car that she owned, and she was a little bit older than I.

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So we decided, "Okay, we'll take your car and drive out there to Sweetwater and go." So we did that. Kelly: What was your understanding of what that program was about?

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Lowry: I don't think any of us really understood what it was about until we got there. But I knew it was flight training and so forth, and that we'd probably be ferrying aircraft, is what my understanding basically was. I can remember driving up there on the road to Sweetwater, and driving down the road and

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overhead these AT-6s were taking off and flying right over our heads. I thought, "Oh, my lordy me, am I ever going to fly anything like that?" It was just almost beyond our dreams at that point. How did World War II affect your dad's job?

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It did not affect it all that much. He was director of the airports in Philadelphia, then North Philadelphia and Philly International. We had a fighter squadron there, I think it was P-40s, and there was a Colonel Pete Quesada, who was commander of that squadron.

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He later turned out to be quite a famous pilot. Kelly: When you got to Avenger, what was your first impression? Had you ever been to West Texas? Davidson: No, no, I hadn't.

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Kelly: What was your impression when you arrived at Avenger? Davidson: I think it was complete awe. Is this Texas? Then we were sorted out and moved into the barracks and the bays.

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I thought, "Gads, am I going to live with all these other women here in this little space?" Because I was used to having my own room and my own bath and so forth, and I thought, "This is very cozy."

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One thing I remember, when we first got some cold weather, I thought, "Oh, my goodness, I didn't think it snowed in Texas. I was very wrong, of course. We had a couple in the bay that consisted of about six of us, I think, in the bay.

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We all had our little cots and our little lockers and so forth. We shared a bathroom with six other gals on the other side there, which made the bathing and toilet facilities rather crowded at times. However, we survived.

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A couple of the girls that were with me in the bay there were real Western, outside-type They said, "Oh, we have to have a little air here at night." I thought we had plenty of air, because I thought the barracks leaked anyway. But anyway, we woke up one morning and there was about a half inch of snow at the door.

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There was always a discussion as to who was going to get up and turn the heat on. I think we had gas heaters, as I recall. I'm not sure. But I think that's what it was.

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I thought, "Oh, dear, this is Texas." Kelly: What was the biggest adjustment you had to make? Quintana Newton: I think just being on such a definite schedule and living with a bunch of gals that I was not used to living with.

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We all came from different parts of the world with different backgrounds, and it was rather interesting. Describe your baymates. How do you remember them?

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One baymate was Roby Anderson, and she came from Kansas, ranching oil country. A gal named Betty Scott was a bay mate, and Cissy Sieber, who came from Oklahoma City. We called her "Grandma." She was a few months older than the rest of us, so we called her "Grandma."

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Right offhand, I can't think of some of the rest of them. A couple of them got washed out, and therefore, the grace of God, go I, because I came very close to getting washed out with a flight instructor that didn't particularly like me.

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But I was not the only one. He had a couple others he didn't like either, and I finally decided that he just did not like women flying. I think he was upset because he couldn't go in the regular Air Force and fly and so

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forth. Instead, he was assigned to teaching a bunch of silly women pilots how to fly, and I think he resented it. What was ground school like?

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It took up half our day. As you probably remember, we did flying half a day and did ground school half a day, and did the physical training part of the rest of the time. As far as your meals, what do you remember?

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They were all hurried. They were all hurried, and some were better than others. I had never been a very fast eater, and I found out that if I was going to get anything to eat, I better get up there and eat it and get going.

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Ruth, what was a typical day like when you were in flight training? Well we had it all scheduled, of course, and we'd get up and had flight formation. We had our leader from that flight, and she made sure that everybody got in line and in the proper dress for the flying or the ground school, and then go to the mess hall and eat.

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Then come back and go to your—if it was flying in the morning, go to your instructor and get your assignment for flying and do your flying and spend the morning on the flight line. Then I imagine we had lunch and then went to ground school where we got the meteorology

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and navigation and all those courses that we needed. Do you recall how you woke up in the morning? Oh, yeah, I do, because Roby, my bay mate, was a bugler, and I sometimes had to wake her up to get her out there, blow that darn bugle.

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Was there any particular course in Brown School that gave you problems? I don't know, I think the most uninteresting one was the Morse code business, because I studied some meteorology, of course, before I got there, and navigation, and engines. Engines was a little bit new to me.

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But I think they were all useful, but I think the one that we didn't like probably the was the Morse code business. What was it used for? Well, that was used because we had to know the Morse code for the beams.

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When we did our navigation, we had the radio station and four beams that went out, and usually 90-degree opposite directions. And you'd have to figure out which quadrant you were in by either an A or an N signal. And if you were on the beam, as they say, you'd get a steady signal to come in.

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But it was used for that, basically. What was the first airplane you flew in training? I believe it was the Fairchild PT. Our class seemed to be a little different.

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We went from—that's in the W-3 part I was in at that time, and I washed back to the W-4 class because I ruptured an airdrum and couldn't fly there for the last month. The first airplane we flew was the Fairchild PT. Then we went to Stearman's and flew them for a while.

00:39:36.880 - 00:40:10.880

Then we went to AT-6s and did our advanced flying and cross-countries. Then we went back to the BT-13s and flew them for the instrument work. It's about what we did on that. We had our long cross country to California.

00:40:11.430 - 00:40:34.780

Kelly: You said you put on proper clothing. What was proper clothing? Well, for flying, proper clothing depended on the time of year. If it was wintertime, you put on some long john underwear, heavy, as much as you could

00:40:34.880 - 00:40:52.920

stand. Then you put on your flight suit, and then came the heavy jackets and the pants and the heavy fur line type jackets. Kelly: Okay, got to change the tape.

00:40:53.920 - 00:41:08.760

You're getting really dry, I'm sorry. Diven: Well, it's my voice. I have some just from living here in the farmland around and so on. I was going to ask you, what are they farming up there?

00:41:10.420 - 00:41:19.660

On the road coming in? Probably in the early years where they sent me a carton of cigarettes a week or a month or something. Who sent you a carton of cigarettes?

00:41:20.220 - 00:41:38.780

I did some advertising for Camel Cigarettes right after the West. That's what that thing is out in the hallway. Then I worked in the control tower and they asked me to do some advertising for Camel Cigarettes.

00:41:38.980 - 00:41:57.380

I said, "Okay." I went to New York and they did ten tons of makeup, which I can understand. Then I had to learn this little spiel they gave me about Camel Cigarettes being so good and tasty and all that stuff.

00:41:57.820 - 00:42:12.560

They paid me some money, and they sent me a carton of cigarettes at least once a month. Maybe it was once a week. I used to smoke, but I never could ever smoke that much. I gave them away to all my friends.

00:42:16.880 - 00:42:36.440

I don't think I gave up smoking, probably twenty or thirty years ago now. I got sick and got pneumonia and I was in the base hospital and they didn't think I was going to live. When you can't breathe, you realize you don't really need to smoke.

00:42:37.680 - 00:42:55.640

But I have that ad out there, different things on camel cigarettes, I always blame it on the camel cigarettes. Do you recall your solo in the Fairchild? No, not really.

00:42:56.380 - 00:43:09.380

Did any of your baymates wash out? Yes, a couple of did. Do you know why? I don't recall now, because they evidently failed check rides.

00:43:10.360 - 00:43:24.700

How did that make you feel? Nervous. Because that was the most important thing in my life, was to get those silver wings and graduate and so on.

00:43:25.340 - 00:43:42.580

I would have been so embarrassed to go home if I had not graduated. I think I would probably run off to Mexico or something. But it was a very important thing. How often did you communicate with your family?

00:43:46.560 - 00:43:55.780

Was it by letter? Yes, mostly. Once in a while, I guess I would call, but mostly by letter. Did they ever come down and visit?

00:43:56.280 - 00:44:15.140

No, they didn't. What would happen when girls would solo? Oh, you mean the wishing well business? Well, when they soloed, that was a big occasion, of course, in whatever craft they soloed in.

00:44:15.140 - 00:44:44.420

Then we would take them to the wishing well, which we had there in our compound, and throw you right into the wishing well and get you all wet. During your primary training, do you recall anything unusual that happened? I'm trying to think.

00:44:46.720 - 00:45:06.760

Not particularly. There were some maneuvers in the open cockpit stearman and Churchill that I didn't think I was too crazy about. I think somebody demonstrated outside spins to me.

00:45:08.460 - 00:45:25.280

I don't know whether that was part of the curriculum or not, but I remember that. I got along fairly well in primary. Kelly: While you were in training, would you have time off? What would you do with that?

00:45:26.860 - 00:45:48.480

They had open post on the weekends, I guess probably from Saturday afternoon on. We used to have barracks inspections on Saturday morning, as I remember. People would come in with their white gloves and see if they could find dust. Of course, that was easy to do because the wind was always blowing dust in Texas.

00:45:49.420 - 00:46:11.200

We had Saturday morning inspections. And then Saturday night, if we didn't have demerits for some reason, why, we would pile into somebody's car and go into town and just meet your other friends and look around. Do you recall ever meeting any of the local citizens?

00:46:12.210 - 00:46:21.960

No, I don't. Well, there was a jewelry store there. What was his name? I have forgotten the jewelry store man's name, but he was very friendly.

00:46:22.660 - 00:46:42.820

As far as really getting to know any of the local folks there, no. Kelly: When you finished primary, then what phase, what airplane did you fly next? Lowry: Then we went into the AT-6. It was a little bit unusual, because normally you would go from the Fairchild or the Stearman

00:46:42.820 - 00:47:13.740

into the BT-13 and then into the AT-6. For some reason with our class, they put us from the primary open cockpit to the AT-6, which was completely different. It had the retractable gear and the changeable prop settings, and just a more sophisticated

00:47:13.900 - 00:47:25.320

airplane. I thought it was kind of a jump there all of a sudden from one to the other. Kelly: When you were going through training, what were your expectations if you finished the course?

00:47:25.940 - 00:47:51.600

What did you think would happen? I think I basically knew that we would graduate and get assigned to a base. I think probably by the time we graduated, they were finding out they had enough people in the Ferry Command area so that they did not need too many more there.

00:47:52.020 - 00:48:09.500

So they started putting us in training command, and that's where I went to Gunner Field, Montgomery, Alabama. That was a training command base. Kelly: Tell me about your long cross-country in an AT-6.

00:48:10.660 - 00:48:38.080

Lowry: I remember it must have been in the summertime, because we had to plot our course, course and figure out all the things navigation-wise that you had to do. I do not remember where we stopped on the way out, whether it was maybe Phoenix or Tucson. Then we went to Blyth, California, I believe.

00:48:40.860 - 00:48:56.560

Possibly farther than that, I do not remember. All I remember, it was so hot when we got out there that the boys had problems putting gas in because the airplanes were so hot. It was just almost bubbling out.

00:48:58.200 - 00:49:18.480

I never had I seen or felt such great heat as I had on that flight. Eventually, it was all right, of course. I had no problems. Did you ever not get lost, but maybe position uncertain on a trip?

00:49:20.220 - 00:49:47.840

Well, I think the geography moved around a little bit once in a while. I think anybody that's flown any length of time that says they never got lost is a prevaricator, I guess you would call it. I can remember one time almost flying off the map down south of the course of where

00:49:47.860 - 00:50:03.000

I was supposed to be. I knew I was getting low on gas, and I couldn't find the place that felt right for me to land at. I saw this Army Air Force base there and a bunch of airplanes, and I thought, "Best

00:50:02.900 - 00:50:21.800

I go in and tell them I'm lost and that I need some gas before I can go anyplace else. They said, "Yeah, you were getting kind of low on gas." I don't even remember where it was, but I remember it was a base and I remember it was south of where I was.

00:50:21.800 - 00:50:41.640

I wasn't that far off course, but it was just enough to make you quite nervous. While you were in training, did any of the trainees, were they killed? Yes, there were a couple that were killed. There was one in, I guess it was a four, I think, the class I was in, I think.

00:50:43.620 - 00:51:03.820

Her name was Mary Housen, as I recall. I heard about that when I got back from flying, and I was very concerned. I called my parents right away, because I thought, "Well, the news will get out." As I recall, she had a midair collision in the traffic pattern.

00:51:05.160 - 00:51:23.140

I thought, "Well, here's something that the news would really pick up and blow up and say, 'Well, we killed one or two gals in the flying training program.'" Well, Mary's family came from right outside of Philadelphia. I didn't really know her.

00:51:24.060 - 00:51:41.320

I think she was in the other flight that I was in. I knew of her, of course, and so on. It was a very tragic thing that happened. We were all very upset, but I called my folks right away because I thought if they want

00:51:41.340 - 00:51:55.240

to get part of the story and say, "Well, the girl was from Philadelphia," that my folks would have a heart attack or something. So I just wanted to call and tell them that they had an accident there and the girl was killed and so on.

00:51:55.880 - 00:52:22.700

And after that, I think my family contacted her parents and either visited them or talked to them or something. Was there ever a time when you were flying that you were afraid? I can remember the first night cross I was on, and that was kind of interesting because

00:52:24.160 - 00:52:42.700

we were flying AT-6s. Out there in that part of the world, you have these big flames of gas coming up at night. It was a cloudy night. I took off and started on my course.

00:52:43.960 - 00:52:58.860

I got used to seeing the flames coming out of the exhaust, and I thought, "Okay, that's normal." I was going along, and all of a sudden everything got bright. The clouds gave way, and the moon came out, and it was brilliant.

00:52:59.460 - 00:53:17.160

I thought, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to be on fire or blow up here or something." All of a sudden, all this light, and I thought, "Something's wrong." It took me a minute to realize that the moon had come out from under the cloud later. That was one thing.

00:53:17.300 - 00:53:37.700

Then when I was in '86, it was towards the end of the program, we were doing spins, the instructor and I. I remember we went ten or twelve thousand feet to do that. So we started to spin, and I could not get it out.

00:53:39.120 - 00:54:04.760

I was flying with loafers, and the bottom part of the loafer became stuck in the rudder. I could not get it out, and we were twirling on down. He is doing all he can to push to get it out. I have this seat belt and the parachute and everything on, and I couldn't even reach

00:54:04.880 - 00:54:25.780

my feet to get down there to do this. Finally, between the two of us—and he mainly kicked it hard enough that it dislodged the bottom part of the loafer from the bottom part of the rudder there. We came out of that about, I don't know, maybe 1,500 feet or something.

00:54:26.600 - 00:54:51.340

I think we were both giving a great sigh of relief and saying, "Thank God that we got out of that," because that was probably the most scary thing that happened. I recall not too long after that, they came out with a regulation. You will not fly with loafers, and you will not fly with cowboy boots, because some of

00:54:51.080 - 00:55:04.340

the gals had cowboy boots and the heel would get caught in there. It was pretty interesting. Did that instructor know what was wrong? Or did he later know that it was the shoe?

00:55:04.360 - 00:55:18.440

I do not know. I think we were both kind of shattered there for a few minutes and just glad to get straight and level and go back to the field and land. I do not know whether he knew when we were in it what the problem was, but I guess he

00:55:18.540 - 00:55:36.860

did. I don't even remember his name, but I'm glad he had enough pressure there to do that. Things like that, you know, and my big idea in the West. I found out she had a sense of humor.

00:55:38.720 - 00:55:52.480

So we've been buddies ever since. We call each other every Saturday, and if anything exciting comes up in between. So on a Saturday morning between 10.30 and 11, we talked. She calls one week, I call the next week.

00:55:54.100 - 00:56:19.600

She's kind of the only family I had for quite a while. I go visit, and she's been down here. Larry and Betty came down one year with her. So I know her whole family, because she had more family than I did.

00:56:20.280 - 00:56:39.320

Her family used to come down to Sweetwater and go to Bluebonnet, take us out to dinner, all kinds of fun things. She had a car, which was very nice, because on Saturday nights we could go down and pick up our liquor.

00:56:40.820 - 00:56:59.100

Where did you go to do that? South of town. I do not know whether it was as far as San Angelo or not, but it was south of town. We would hide it and try to get it through the gate when you are coming back.

00:57:01.660 - 00:57:29.260

Tucker, who was also—she wasn't our bay mate to start with, I don't think. The three of us have always been very close because we all washed back into that class. I'd forgotten what Tuck did. She did something and I ruptured my eardrum, and Roby did something to her fingers or hands

00:57:29.260 - 00:57:39.580

or something. Three of us washed back together, so we have always been very close. So Tuck and Roby and I talked to each other each week. How did you rupture your eardrum?

00:57:41.940 - 00:57:55.060

Flying the AT-6 when I should not have been, because I had a cold. We were getting right near the end of the program. I could not stop flying because I had a cold. I did not think I could.

00:57:55.760 - 00:58:02.560

Finally, it got so painful. They said, "You are off the plane." I said, "I am not going to fly." I said, "Yes, you can.

00:58:03.300 - 00:58:19.800

Drop that back to the next class, and then we'll go from there." Kelly: Let me ask you, Ruth, on the liquor. That was a real no-no. What gave you the courage to do something that you knew if you got caught, you were

00:58:19.820 - 00:58:30.700

going to get washed out? Ruecke: I don't know. Everybody around in the barracks that I was in did that. We would all go out on Saturday nights.

00:58:31.700 - 00:58:47.160

There was this one place, I said, "I remember it's south of town out there." We would take Roeby's car and go down there and buy some of this kind of bathtub gin type stuff. Probably nearly killed us, but anyway, we did it.

00:58:47.300 - 00:59:13.760

We would smuggle it in under the—we had tuck line on the floor and put a blanket over her one night when we came in and had the liquor under there. We had a place in the back of the barracks, between our barracks and the other barracks, and the ground was fairly soft.

00:59:14.120 - 00:59:30.240

We would dig a little hole, and we had a bottle of Four Roses or something, I can remember We'd plant it back there and figure, "Well, it wasn't in the barracks. Nobody would find it," because they were pretty clever on finding where you'd put things in the barracks.

00:59:31.340 - 01:00:00.320

So we'd every once in a while, "How are our four roses doing?" But a lot of people did that. That was not your style there, I guess. At some point, you changed uniforms. Tell me about the new uniforms that you received,

01:00:02.420 - 01:00:21.360

the Santiago Blue. Lowry: Oh, I think Cochran designed them, basically. I hated the cap. I didn't like But the rest of the uniform, I thought, was very nice. The blue uniform, yes.

01:00:22.980 - 01:00:44.180

What's the most memorable thing, fondest memory of Avenger Field? Graduation day and the Silver Wings. And knowing that I got out of there and that I passed and so on. Did you have a choice of assignments after you graduated?

01:00:44.540 - 01:01:00.160

No, did not, because they separated Tuck and Roby and me. They figured that was probably a bad combination. So they sent her to California, they sent Tuck to California, they sent Roby to Oklahoma, they sent me to Alabama.

01:01:02.310 - 01:01:24.280

Is there anything about the training that I have overlooked? Any incident that happened that you recall? Not particularly, I thought they had basically a pretty good course. And of course, we had the Army check pilots.

01:01:25.840 - 01:01:43.780

And thank goodness for that, because this instructor, as I say, did not like women in general and did not like me in particular. And he tried to wash me out. He put me up for an E-ride, and that was a very tenuous circumstance there.

01:01:43.820 - 01:01:57.340

I didn't dare send my laundry out. I didn't know whether I was going to be going home the next day or not. So he put me up for the Z-ride, and the Army pilot flew with me and said, "Well, that's okay.

01:01:57.800 - 01:02:16.960

If they wash you out, they can wash the rest of the class out, too." He pretty much saved me. He said, "I think you just need a change of instructors." I got a change of instructors, and it was like day and night.

01:02:17.840 - 01:02:33.240

The other instructor was very casual. He did not cuss at me all the time, which the first one did. So I was delighted. There were some other girls that had problems with this one instructor also.

01:02:35.160 - 01:02:51.200

I think they gave him the word one night in town. They caught up with him and gave him what for and so on. But he was just a disgruntled pilot that was not happy there and shouldn't have been an instructor.

01:02:51.950 - 01:02:55.880

He made everybody— What phase was it? What phase? That was AT-6s.

01:02:55.980 - 01:03:22.720

That was our second phase that we went to, the first time we were in the 6s. He would do things to make you stall out, like dropping flaps or gears or something like that, to put you in a precarious position and say, "Well, you can't handle it." I had a couple check rides, and they all turned out fine.

01:03:24.180 - 01:03:39.060

But it was a very nervous, strenuous time for me. I was just going crazy. I thought, "What am I going to do if I wash out? I can't wash out." When you had the air problem, did you have to stay in the dispensary?

01:03:40.000 - 01:04:04.200

No. They gave me, I guess, air drops and maybe some medication. I don't know. I couldn't fly. I could do the rest, but I didn't have much to do because we'd done the ground work. We finished, and so I didn't have to go to ground school. I think we did some PT and I don't know, maybe hang around the flight line or something.

01:04:04.360 - 01:04:23.100

I don't remember what we did particularly, but it was after the completion of our ground school so that gave us some free time. But none of us could fly at that point. But we were able to get back in time to go with your class, but that was only a month

01:04:23.180 - 01:04:39.340

we were with you. And since you were ahead of us when you got the air problem, but by the time it cleared up, you were about where somebody's class was. Recall the graduation.

01:04:41.710 - 01:05:14.640

I don't recall all that much about it, except that we were in our white shirts and our tan khakis and our little hats, and we marched in formation. We had a band there, I guess the Big Spring Band or somebody came over. What did you say?

01:05:15.860 - 01:05:34.960

Do you want to know about the graduation of your other class? Oh well I am sure we went to it but I do not remember much about it, we were probably so disappointed that we were not there with them. How did you celebrate your graduation?

01:05:37.120 - 01:05:48.160

Did Roby's parents come? Did you celebrate? I think they did. I think they did come, because they would come down every once in a while and take us

01:05:48.220 - 01:06:06.720

out to dinner at the Blue Bonnet Hotel. That was kind of family for Tuck and me, because we were all together. I do not know that we did anything special. I was just so glad the check rides were over.

01:06:06.800 - 01:06:31.000

I was so glad I was going to get these silver wings and graduate. The only disappointing thing was when they handed out the assignments. Tuck was in California, Robey in Oklahoma, and I was in Alabama. Kelly: After you graduated, with your time off, what did you do?

01:06:32.620 - 01:06:44.980

You mean when I was at Gunter Field? No, between Avenger and Gunter, you had some time off. What did you do with that time off? Oh, I went home to visit my parents in Philadelphia.

01:06:45.420 - 01:06:51.280

How proud did that make your dad feel? I think he was proud. I think he was proud. I think Mother was, too.

01:06:51.560 - 01:07:05.200

I think they both were. Do you remember going out to one of the airports where he was in your uniform? No, I didn't. How did you get from Philadelphia down to Alabama?

01:07:11.680 - 01:07:23.820

Let me think about that. I do not know how I got there. Probably by train or something. Those were in the days of gas rationing.

01:07:23.820 - 01:07:39.260

I did not have a car. wouldn't have had gas to run it if I had. I guess I went on the train. Kelly: When you got to Gunter, were there already some WASPs stationed there?

01:07:41.480 - 01:07:52.380

Lowry: Yes, there were one or two. I don't remember their names, but yes, they were older girls and had been there for a little while. Kelly: What was your assignment at Gunter?

01:07:52.980 - 01:08:10.980

Engineering test hops, basically. Kelly: To whom did you report? Beall: Well, to whoever was in charge of the maintenance there, as I recall. Kelly: But some Air Force officer?

01:08:12.600 - 01:08:20.020

Beall: I assume so. Kelly: Okay. Where did you live at Gunnar? Beall: Well, that's a good story.

01:08:22.260 - 01:08:52.680

We lived in the barracks on the base, I guess you would call them the BOQs, until one day the CO said, "You are going to have to get off the base and go find housing in town." At the other end of town was Maxwell Field, which was a tremendous cadet place. activity, many thousands of cadets and officers and their girlfriends and their wives.

01:08:53.340 - 01:09:21.520

They all lived around someplace in Montgomery, which made the town very crowded. I was off either on a little cross country or late coming back from work this day. There was a note there that said, "We're off the base. We're finding a place in town to live."

01:09:23.500 - 01:09:42.200

This is rather vague here, but somehow or rather they told me where we were, where they located us. The gals went into town, and down at the end of the main drag that goes into town in Montgomery, There is this great big white old beautiful southern mansion.

01:09:44.800 - 01:10:07.000

There was another gal and I, they said we could stay in this room. I think there were one or two other girls that lived in that place, too. They rented rooms out. Well it was rather interesting because the room I had was—this gal and I shared.

01:10:07.820 - 01:10:25.240

She was in a different class, and I did not really know her until I got in there. It was a rather large room, and there was one little tiny light bulb up here. You needed a candle to see if it was on, that type of thing. It was a huge room.

01:10:25.540 - 01:10:46.240

Off the room was a little wooden deck business. It was something else. After a few weeks of living there and having to hitchhike to work, because there was no transportation, and we had to hitchhike to work, which was interesting because you'd

01:10:46.260 - 01:11:00.780

have to sit on somebody's lap as you drove out to the base, somebody you'd never seen before. But anyway, we all needed a ride. After a while, we decided there was some rather peculiar goings-on there at this house we

01:11:00.660 - 01:11:22.100

we were in, because if you happened to have a date for dinner or something, and they came, if you did not get downstairs and get ready to go out as they came, why, the boys would disappear. These girls were running what you might call a nice house of ill repute, I might add.

01:11:23.180 - 01:11:42.200

One of them had a little baby that was crawling around. It was crawling around. And I would look out from the window on the second floor, and here was this little child running around.

01:11:42.210 - 01:11:59.480

It was rolling around on the deck, and they gave it a beer bottle to play with. And I thought that was interesting. Well, it was a scene like you cannot believe. We stayed there because we had absolutely no other place to stay.

01:12:00.380 - 01:12:15.960

The CO of the field didn't like wasps there anyway, particularly. He said that, "You're going to have to move out because I have some nurses coming in. I have to provide housing for them.

01:12:16.940 - 01:12:53.160

I'm not required to provide housing for you, so lots of luck." I also did not like him, because when I was testing, the group I was flying with was a lot of French officers and French cadet students. The CO let me know somehow or other that it might be just as well if I did not eat lunch

01:12:53.160 - 01:13:07.760

clubs with this French officer group. I thought, "Well, okay, but who would I eat with? I did not know anybody else." I knew the people I was working with, and they were all French.

01:13:07.860 - 01:13:29.360

In the tower, they had landing instructions in English and French both. They had these French cadets. Before I really got testing a lot, they put me through a regular instructor's course and an instrument course on the base.

01:13:30.050 - 01:13:48.200

So I had extra training there. As you can imagine, I was not a real happy camper there. Clara Jo Marsh, who was kind of head of our area there. She was stationed over at Maxwell.

01:13:50.680 - 01:14:04.380

I said, "Clara Jo, if you can get me to this advanced instrument course back in Sweetwater, I'd like to go." And she managed to do that. So that got me away from there for a while, and I went back there.

01:14:07.680 - 01:14:22.900

So I had about three instrument courses. And that was good, because I liked instrument flying. I was fairly competent and efficient at it, and I enjoyed that. So then I came back and did the testing again.

01:14:23.000 - 01:14:42.200

But the CO was not the most thrilled at having WASPs there. I think this is unusual from what I've heard, because most of the girls that I talked to who said, "Oh, the CO was great, and they really got along well," and so forth and so on.

01:14:42.320 - 01:15:01.320

But this was somebody that was just not quite as happy as having us there. Kelly: Was Gunner primarily a basic school for cadets? Lowry: Yes, it was. As I say, they trained the French.

01:15:02.200 - 01:15:12.140

They evidently had a contract to change the French cadets there, too. Did they also have American boys? Oh, yes. Yes, they did.

01:15:13.260 - 01:15:36.100

Describe what an engineering test pilot does. Well, basically, somebody normally writes up the airplane as not being in proper condition to fly. So they write up what they think is wrong with it, how the engine reacts or how the

01:15:36.100 - 01:15:53.340

aircraft reacts or something. I can remember, I think some of these French cadets didn't want to fly as much as they were supposed to fly. One of them wrote up the airplane and said it was right-wing heavy and left-wing heavy

01:15:53.460 - 01:16:08.000

too. I had trouble figuring that out, and I haven't to this day. One of them left an airplane over at one of the auxiliary fields where they used to fly from, and I had to get over there.

01:16:10.000 - 01:16:27.440

He said it wasn't running right, and then see if the thing would crank up and then fly it back to the base. But engineering test ops were just to see that the instruments were working properly, the aircraft was in trim and it flew properly.

01:16:30.660 - 01:16:52.380

There was nothing basically wrong with the aircraft except itself and that the instruments were working properly. Did you ever have any problem with any of the airplanes there? Well I had a couple of emergency landings for some reason and managed to put it into

01:16:52.380 - 01:17:12.640

an auxiliary field that we had, so there was no problem there. I was able to get it down all right, and then some mechanics or somebody over it and so forth. But I flew some instrument—the link trainer instructors, you know, that they had in those

01:17:12.740 - 01:17:39.360

days. I used to fly them around in the airplane to show them the difference between the reaction of the aircraft versus the stable, solid-wing trainer that they were teaching in, and give them the aspect of the speed and the momentum and so forth that you got.

01:17:40.100 - 01:18:03.000

Things were not always instantaneous. Kelly: When you went back to Sweetwater for instruments, how long did you stay? I think it was a month or two maybe. I was able to go to what they call the OCS for us, the School of Applied Tactics in Orlando,

01:18:03.180 - 01:18:08.860

Florida. That was a month or so, I think, down there. I went to that. It was kind of an OCS school.

01:18:10.780 - 01:18:33.860

law and just a lot of military background that we didn't have. It was interesting. What do you think the purpose of that school was? Well, I feel sure that we were sent there to get officers training that the cadets would

01:18:33.940 - 01:18:59.620

have in OCS. cadets, our candidate school, and training to make us what we were supposed to be. We thought to give us officer status and give us a background in the legal things, for instance, that we didn't have, and military law and so forth.

01:19:01.560 - 01:19:14.260

How long did that training last? I think it was a month or two. I remember it was summertime. It was in Orlando, which is in the middle of the state.

01:19:14.480 - 01:19:33.140

It's very hot and humid. We would wear our shirts to the first one or two lectures of the course. At noontime, we would go back to the barracks and then put on another dry shirt, because there was no air conditioning.

01:19:33.940 - 01:19:46.780

In Florida in the summertime, in Orlando, it can be a bit warm and dampish when you do not have air conditioning. But I think it lasted a couple of months maybe, and there were people there from different classes.

01:19:48.720 - 01:19:59.840

Was it just for WASPs, or did you have male officers? I was just for WASPs. Who were the instructors? Were they civilians or Air Force personnel?

01:20:01.940 - 01:20:20.860

I believe they were Air Force personnel. I think one was a legal officer, then there was one that was a medical doctor. I think that they were career-type Air Force people that did this. What was the social life like there?

01:20:22.500 - 01:20:41.660

Well, some of the instructors would like to date some of the students, I know that. But we pretty much stayed to ourselves, I think, basically. And then when you finished, you went back to Gunter? Yes, I did.

01:20:43.380 - 01:20:58.860

Were you ever able to do other jobs at Gunter? For example, ferrying, maybe? Once or twice. I was asked to take parts, boxes of things, to another field.

01:21:00.080 - 01:21:19.900

That's an interesting story, I must tell you about that. They sent me to Tuskegee to take a box. I think I was in a BT-13 or something. So I got down there to Tuskegee, and I got out and went into operations to drop this

01:21:19.900 - 01:21:31.340

box off and so forth. I noticed that all the ramp folks were black. I thought, "Okay." There were some P-40s there.

01:21:32.760 - 01:21:56.520

I went into operations and I checked the weather again and did what I had to do, get somebody signed for the box, go back. As I say, everybody I saw there was black, the weather department and everything. Of course, I found out that that was the home of the Tuskegee Airmen, which were so famous

01:21:57.060 - 01:22:12.660

in the war and were training there and flying the P-40s and so on. Incidentally, at Sun and Fun a couple weeks ago, I met Colonel Charlie—what was his name? McGregor, McGuire or something.

01:22:13.520 - 01:22:29.320

He is a Tuskegee Airman, and we got the biggest kick out of it. I got the biggest kick out of telling him that story. He is a very big friend of the WASPs and has helped us. Sometimes we share the tent with the Tuskegee Airmen.

01:22:29.940 - 01:22:44.540

I was just surprised. Nobody said that you are going to see black folks over there. It was just kind of a shock to me. I got back and I said, "Boy, a few things you did not tell me about that trip."

01:22:44.540 - 01:22:52.600

It was fine and it worked out great, but I got to see the Tuskegee Airmen. It was great. Kelly: Okay, we're going to change tapes. Ruecke: Already.

01:22:52.740 - 01:22:58.340

Kelly: Running out of tapes. Okay, great, awesome. Tape number three. Tape number three.

01:22:58.420 - 01:23:25.580

Ruecke: We got our veterans benefits at Lindy Boggs, who was a congressman. She was the only one that I can think of, female, that helped us, that had any power whatsoever. I got thinking the other day, I've been reading Cokie Roberts' books.

01:23:25.700 - 01:23:44.240

I like her and I miss her since she isn't on Sunday morning TV anymore. But I've been reading her books and I thought, "I wonder if we ever did anything for Lindy Boggs." I knew that a few years ago she was ambassador to the Vatican.

01:23:45.360 - 01:23:53.400

I didn't know whether she was still living or what. I called up Zillner. Do you know Zillner in Washington? Lorraine Rogers?

01:23:54.100 - 01:24:05.720

We called her Zilch. But anyway, I called her up and I said, "Look, you know all that's going on in Washington. We ever do anything for Lindy Box to say thank you?" She said, "Not that I know of."

01:24:05.720 - 01:24:27.740

I said, "My gosh, is she still alive?" She talked to somebody and said, "Yes, she still is alive and lives in Washington." I said, "Well, I'm going to call Miss Bea Thurston, who is our mother superior here now, and see if it's maybe time that we thought about doing something.

01:24:28.040 - 01:24:45.880

if it's a plaque or a piece of paper or something. Zillner is always good about presenting things. If she can't, somebody else could. I just thought that was a good idea.

01:24:46.140 - 01:24:58.720

Once in a while I have an idea I think is good. I'm kind of working on that. I talked to Zilch. She gave me the address of Cokie Roberts, and that's her daughter.

01:25:01.380 - 01:25:27.980

So I thought, well, that might be an idea that would fly, because we've handed out a lot of certificates and awards to people that were very nice, but I thought we're kind of forgetting her, I think. When you got back to Gunter from Orlando, were you still living in that house?

01:25:30.900 - 01:25:51.600

I guess so. I do not know where else I would have lived. It was not easy to find. When you were at Gunter, did Clare Jo Marsh pretty much give the orders?

01:25:52.890 - 01:26:05.500

Reed: About getting us assigned or talking to us, kind of being a mother hen? Yes, she was and she did. I liked her very much. She was a very good person, I thought.

01:26:06.640 - 01:26:27.120

We would go over to see her and meet her and have dinner or something once in a while. One time, I remember Cochran came down, and we all went over there to meet Cochran at Clara Jo's room or office or whatever she had there. What was your impression of her at that time?

01:26:27.480 - 01:26:34.540

Cochran? She snores loudly. Oh. Did.

01:26:39.480 - 01:26:57.880

I thought that she was probably the greatest thing since popcorn, because really, if it hadn't been for Cochran, none of us would have been there. We all had a great deal of respect for her. She was a very dynamic person.

01:26:59.500 - 01:27:22.500

I had seen her before at the airport, probably in Rochester or something. Unless she had come to graduations, we'd kind of see her in the distance. We got a chance to sit down and talk to her, and she was very concerned about our situations. I thought she was great.

01:27:22.830 - 01:27:39.720

Kelly: So you were able to sit and just chat with her? She was exhausted and I got later in the evening, and the next thing I knew she was drifting off. But she was a very dynamic person, and without her we wouldn't have had WASPs.

01:27:40.990 - 01:28:02.760

Kelly: While you were at Gunnard, did they send in other WASPs? Were they stationed there also? There may have been one or two came afterwards, but I think the CO probably would have been just as happy if he hadn't seen any more of us.

01:28:03.060 - 01:28:24.260

I remember another thing about Gunner was, every once in a while, they'd have these emergency drills where you had to put on a gas mask. They'd come around with these trucks and they'd spray this, whatever. You'd have to appear in your gas mask.

01:28:24.900 - 01:28:44.560

The only thing was, none of the WASPs had gas masks. We either had to hide in the building or something. I think that was a Saturday morning occurrence that happened occasionally. What was the social life like at Gunter?

01:28:47.860 - 01:29:01.280

I don't remember there was any social life when I couldn't socialize at lunch with the people I was working with all the time. I think probably some of the gals, we went out to dinner. By that time, you were tired.

01:29:01.340 - 01:29:27.860

You went to bed and you had to get up early to hitchhike a ride to work and so forth. As far as I was concerned, there wasn't any social life there. Kelly: Did that particular CO ever call anybody in and reprimand them for anything? He didn't call me in, but I got the word through him that he'd been just as pleased

01:29:28.000 - 01:29:50.020

if I didn't eat lunch with the French officers. Kelly: But how did the other officers treat the loss? Well, they had a deal at most of the bases that you were allowed to have a personal cross-country and reserve the aircraft and take the aircraft.

01:29:51.260 - 01:30:13.720

With the operations approval and so forth and so on, you could take the aircraft for a weekend and go someplace. My friend Roby and Stuart Stue were stationed out there at Enid, Oklahoma. They came down to see me one time in Montgomery.

01:30:17.720 - 01:30:27.740

After a while, they said, "Why don't you get a personal cross-country and come up and see us?" I said, "Okay, fine. I'll try that."

01:30:27.740 - 01:30:46.140

So I went down to operations to see if I could get an airplane to go on a certain weekend to go up there. And the operations officer was a major and he was a very nice-looking young man. And he said, "Well, I don't know that we could arrange that."

01:30:46.140 - 01:31:01.820

He said, "Possibly if you went to New Orleans for a weekend with me, that later on we could arrange that." I said, "Well, let's think about that maybe later." I walked out.

01:31:03.220 - 01:31:17.980

Of course, I never got my cross-contract. But that was interesting. How did you hear that the losses were going to be disbanded, and how did that make you feel?

01:31:20.500 - 01:31:44.560

I was just heartbroken like most of the people were. I do not know, the word just got around. I do not know, probably Claire Jo or somebody told us that it was official that we were going to be disbanded.

01:31:46.100 - 01:32:05.640

Did Claire Jo ever try to do anything about your situation as far as your not being able to live on the base? I'm sure that she did what she could. Now, what she was able to do legally, I don't know, because probably the CO was right.

01:32:06.220 - 01:32:27.280

He did have to provide nurses' quarters, and he didn't feel or didn't see where he was obligated to provide WASP headquarters, and they had precedents, and that was it. It almost made us hate nurses, but not really. I'm sure she did what she could.

01:32:28.340 - 01:32:42.640

Kelly: When you were disbanded, I probably don't have to even ask you this, did the base do anything special to honor the WASPs? Quintana Newton: No, I think they probably had a party and said, "Well, goodbye." No, they didn't.

01:32:45.300 - 01:32:59.560

Where did you go? I went to Philadelphia where my family was. And then, did you get a job? Right after I got home, I said hello to the folks.

01:33:00.700 - 01:33:20.260

Roby and her family had a place over here on Miami Beach. She said, "Well, come on down and visit." I thought, "Okay." And so I took off and flew down, and I of course knew her family because they'd visited

01:33:20.440 - 01:33:37.300

in Sweetwater. And they had a beautiful home over on Miami Beach, an old Spanish-style place, gorgeous. So I stayed there for a while. I think my folks thought I was never coming home, but I was having a good time.

01:33:38.080 - 01:34:05.440

And at that particular time, Bailey and Wynwood and Cady Landry and Swain and some of them had what they called the Wasp Nest over in the Coconut Grove area. And they had this house. I do not know whether they rented it or what, but anyway, they called it the Wasp Nest.

01:34:06.280 - 01:34:35.420

So there was quite a few of us that were down in this area, and we used to party either at Roby's folks' house or over at the Wasp Nest in the Grove. I remember Janet Reno's mother came to visit there one time, and she was doing some writing. Janet Reno, you know who she is.

01:34:36.340 - 01:34:56.160

She was the Attorney General under Clinton. Her home was here in Miami. Her mother was a newspaper writer. Actually I ran into her mother one other time, other than at the Wasp Nest.

01:34:56.170 - 01:35:22.540

I ran into her another time. And they dedicated the Amelia Earhart Field here in—actually, it's North Miami area. And they had a dedication there, and they had some newspaper people and so on. And that was because Amelia Earhart took off from there on one of her long flights, and

01:35:22.540 - 01:35:34.240

they called it Amelia Earhart Field. There's a school there in that area now. But I remember meeting her mother, and her mother was quite a character, as she would say.

01:35:36.520 - 01:35:52.560

How long did you stay here in Miami? Oh, goodness. I was here maybe a couple months, and then I decided that I better go home and find a job and do something worthwhile instead of just kind of bumming.

01:35:53.640 - 01:36:20.580

Of course, it was fun because I had all the WASPs to play with down here. But I went home and I got my instructor's rating. I found out that I could not make a living in Philadelphia in the wintertime, so I better do something else.

01:36:22.620 - 01:37:05.100

I knew somehow that there was an opening at the control tower in North Philadelphia. My father was manager of the airports there in North Philly and Philly International. I spent a considerable amount of time in the tower, and I got my books out and studied. I was working at the table here, and I had gone back to my bedroom to pick up some more

01:37:05.220 - 01:37:14.000

papers. I was sitting on the side of my bed back there, shuffling through some papers, coming back here. down in the other room.

01:37:16.560 - 01:37:34.060

She started to bark. She was with me and she started to bark. She's barking at me. I stuck my head around the corner in the hallway, and I saw a pair of Levi's and big white

01:37:34.280 - 01:37:47.040

sneakers. I thought, "This is nobody I know." I had the doors locked, and she was barking. I said, "Who is it?

01:37:47.120 - 01:38:07.000

What's going on?" I had a.38 right there, and I grabbed that. I took off, and I thought, "There shouldn't be anybody here." At that point, by the time I got to the back door here, I saw feet and Levi's getting

01:38:07.260 - 01:38:22.760

into this car. and there was somebody else in the car, and they took off. I got a description of the car, and I called the police right away. I had a new door put on the back there, and the fellow that installed it didn't make

01:38:22.880 - 01:38:37.040

the deadbolt go in far enough. It was locked. But this guy had a roofing tool, and he jimmied the lock. He was stupid.

01:38:37.360 - 01:38:59.060

Of course, he was stupid to start with, but he broke in. I got a description and called the police. One of my '99 friends had a husband that was head of the local department of the police, and I told her about it.

01:38:59.100 - 01:39:16.000

She said, "Well, let me tell him about it." They came out and they dusted everything for fingerprints. The guy had dirty hands because we had palm prints. He went through this part of the house, looked in the closet door, and went back there.

01:39:16.340 - 01:39:27.400

But I did not hear him because the house is fairly soundproof. I thought, "There cannot be anybody here." And sure enough, there was. But they eventually caught him.

01:39:27.400 - 01:39:50.820

He was a young black guy that had done drugs and car hijacking and all kinds of bad things. I just got a notice a few weeks ago that they let him out. He spent about six years in prison. He was in no good name, but he was stupid because he just left so many parts around.

01:39:51.360 - 01:40:11.140

He didn't think somebody was here, but with a light on, the TV on, you would think he would have figured this out, but evidently not. All I can say is, thank God she barked, and thank God I wasn't in the shower by myself. She's a good little watchdog.

01:40:11.760 - 01:40:28.500

She's very friendly, but we don't tell everybody that. Kelly: Okay. You started working in the tower. I spent some time in the tower there, and they had a lot of private aircraft there.

01:40:29.320 - 01:40:46.940

Slick Airlines, which was in business at that time, was a cargo-carrying company, and they had schedules in there. Some other cargo schedule aircraft came in, and they also had an Air Force Reserve squadron there, and they had a bunch of AT-6s.

01:40:48.200 - 01:41:15.200

They had a commanding officer there, a colonel, and he was head of the group that was there. I spent some time there. They advertised for a position for an air traffic controller, an assistant type person. I went and I did that, passed that, and took the exam and got hired.

01:41:16.920 - 01:41:35.140

As I worked there, I did more studying and got to be a senior controller. I could carry a shift by myself and so forth. That's where I met Bud, my husband. He was flying with the Reserve Unit there.

01:41:35.740 - 01:41:56.400

He had come back from Europe. I met him there, and then he went to Korea after that, so I didn't see him for years there. I continued working, and then I worked in the tower in North Philadelphia for a while,

01:41:56.500 - 01:42:16.920

then I'd go down and I worked in Philly International Tower. So that's where I got started in the air traffic control business. I finally decided that it beat the heck out of instructing, because I could eat every week because I'd have some kind of an income.

01:42:17.580 - 01:42:26.320

I liked it. I thought at first I would hate it, because I didn't want to see everybody else flying around and me in this little glass cage. It was fascinating.

01:42:26.400 - 01:42:41.620

It was different every day, of course. It was very interesting work. About that time, that must have been '49, was when they offered the WASP's reserve commissions.

01:42:42.280 - 01:43:06.680

I think your rank depended on how long you'd been in the WASP. They offered me a second lieutenant's commission. I took that, and I started doing work with the correspondence courses. I did the squadron officers and so forth.

01:43:06.760 - 01:43:31.560

I went to some meetings, but basically I was an independent type operator, not assigned to a unit. Later on, I got assigned to units in various places in the communications branch. I ended up working in England Air Force Base, in the control tower, in the GCA, and Biggs

01:43:31.560 - 01:43:59.620

Air Force Base, and then Bud was sent to England for three years, RAF Station, Weathersfield. I worked in operations over there in England for three years. Were these positions under civil service? It was under city civil service with the Philadelphia arrangement.

01:44:00.500 - 01:44:16.980

After that, it was Air Force connection, no civil service. It was just regular Air Force Reserve type work I did. When you took the Reserve Commission, did you have to go on active duty for a couple of weeks a year?

01:44:17.640 - 01:44:30.480

Yes. Where was that duty? At the base where I was stationed, mostly in Louisiana. Bud got a lot of PCSs.

01:44:30.540 - 01:44:49.540

You know what PCSs are. That means you pack up and move. And he got a lot of transfers. So we lived in South Carolina, Louisiana, Utah, Texas, England, and Shaw Air Force Base.

01:44:50.580 - 01:45:04.240

Pretty much moved around all the time, so I didn't have time to establish myself with a unit. I tried to do some work with the Reserves when I could. How did you meet him?

01:45:04.620 - 01:45:19.100

At the Air Force Reserve. He was flying with the Air Force Reserve at the airport in Philly there. Tell me about your wedding. It was rather simple when you look at it.

01:45:20.200 - 01:45:49.780

I got married where my family lived, and that was Scranton, Pennsylvania at that time. Just a few of her friends, I mean, Mother and Daddy's friends that they knew there. Some of Bud's family came, and it was a very small wedding in a church chapel type thing. And then we had a little reception and that was it.

01:45:51.270 - 01:46:06.140

Your dad happy because you were getting another pilot? Well he was probably just happy to get rid of me, I don't know. They got along pretty well. What was your first move?

01:46:06.280 - 01:46:16.840

Where did you move? Shaw Air Force Base. What was his job there? Commander, Transportation Squadron Commander.

01:46:17.420 - 01:46:46.580

What was he flying mostly? C-123s, I think they were at that time. When he was overseas flying, he was flying B-26s in Europe. And then he was flying medium-type twin-engine aircraft, 119s and 123s and so forth.

01:46:46.920 - 01:46:52.980

Kelly: When he was flying B-26s, was that during the war? Was he flying combat missions? Gryder: Yes. Oh, yes.

01:46:53.120 - 01:46:57.560

He sure did. Kelly: Out of Spain or France? Gryder: Out of England. Kelly: Out of England.

01:46:57.580 - 01:47:10.620

I think he had quite a few missions, and he lived in a tent on a beet farm. Did you know him at that time? No. Okay.

01:47:12.360 - 01:47:24.840

Then when he would be at work when you were living at Shaw, did you live on base? Yes. How did you spend your time? Playing golf.

01:47:26.600 - 01:47:39.380

How good were you? Oh, I was fairly decent, I guess. Never really outstanding. I played in some of the local tournaments.

01:47:41.220 - 01:48:04.480

And when we got to Louisiana, we joined the country club there, and I spent almost all my time either at the airport there where I was working for a fixed-base operator or In Utah, I couldn't get a job flying because the fellow that owned the fixed-base operation didn't have enough work for himself.

01:48:05.440 - 01:48:24.900

That part of the world was very, very mountainous and completely different from what I had been used to. Did you get involved with the Officer's Wives Club? Gackenbach: Oh, yes, I did my share of that.

01:48:26.220 - 01:48:33.380

Thank you very much. That was required, wasn't it? Kelly: Play bridge? Gackenbach: No, play golf.

01:48:33.450 - 01:48:43.640

Kelly: Play golf. Okay. Then at what point did he decide to retire? Did he stay in?

01:48:44.380 - 01:49:05.540

What happened? Gackenbach: Well, let's see. We went from Shaw to Hill Air Force Base, I think it was, Utah. Then he got a remote tour for a year.

01:49:05.880 - 01:49:21.360

I think that was Greenland. Then we went to Louisiana for three years. I played a lot of golf there. I was instructing for the Arrow Club there.

01:49:21.370 - 01:49:42.700

I did some charter work there. I'll have to tell you about one charter trip I had, if I have time for that. I was working for this fixed-base operator there and doing the instructing and a little bit of charter work and he had this young fellow come in and said he wanted to go to

01:49:42.760 - 01:50:00.360

this little town south of wherever we were in Alexandria, Louisiana. And he said, "You got time? Go fly this fellow down here. He just wants to make a trip down, deliver some packages and meet somebody and so forth

01:50:00.400 - 01:50:17.980

and so on and just come on back by yourself." I said, "Great." So I checked where I was going, checked the weather, did the usual. This young, nice-looking-appearing fellow came in and jumped in the seat next to me.

01:50:18.060 - 01:50:34.260

It was some kind of a Cessna, I think we were in 172, 182. And he had a box that he put in the back seat. So we chatted as we were going along. I said, "Do you fly at all?"

01:50:34.260 - 01:50:43.360

"Well, he's flown a little bit, but not very much." I said, "Oh, you want to fly a little bit?" He said, "Well, just hold this heading." "You did that, fine."

01:50:43.360 - 01:51:02.680

Then we got near the point where we were supposed to land at this airport down there. He said, "Now, I'm supposed to meet somebody down here, and they're going to meet me out on the ramp area, so you don't have to go into the FBO there." I said, "Fine," because I had plenty of gas and everything to go back.

01:51:03.500 - 01:51:12.820

He said, "Oh, there he is down there." He had a spot picked out where he recognized this car. He said, "That's he right there." I said, "Fine."

01:51:12.820 - 01:51:31.660

So I taxied up and we landed, taxied up, and got out. Got the box from the back seat and said, "Fine, adios," and so on. He said, "Oh, here are the keys to that rental car that I have there." He said, "The rental people will pick it up."

01:51:31.660 - 01:51:42.740

I left the car there because I'm in a rush." I said, "Fine." I got back and landed. The FBI and the local police were looking for me.

01:51:45.080 - 01:52:00.580

I said, "What is going on?" They said, "That's what we want to know, what's going on. You just delivered a bank robber down there. This is a stolen car, or stolen from the rental people."

01:52:01.480 - 01:52:17.000

But he had just robbed a bank, and I guess he had the money in the box. So I had quite an intensive conversation there with the local police and the FBI for a little bit. So that was interesting.

01:52:17.960 - 01:52:39.800

I did some more charter work, but I eventually decided that I would do instruction where I was home every night. I knew the area and I did not get involved with too many people I did not know. But that was one of my interesting experiences with charter flight.

01:52:41.140 - 01:53:00.880

Did you ever have any resentment from any of the male passengers that you flew? No. How long then did you stay in the reserves? I stayed in the reserves until 1973, I think it was.

01:53:01.060 - 01:53:20.180

In fact, I was stationed out here at Homestead Air Force Base, and I worked in the flight facilities office in the control tower. I got my rating for each field I went to. Of course, I had my civilian rating, too, so that worked out fine.

01:53:20.280 - 01:53:36.780

But I did work in the flight facilities in the tower. I enjoyed the tower work. How did you happen to end up in Florida? Bud went to Vietnam in between all this, and came back.

01:53:38.480 - 01:54:06.440

He requested to get stationed at the base here, and that didn't work out. My mother and father were in the process of moving out of Philadelphia, because Daddy He was about to retire, and Mother had a sister and a brother that lived down here. Bud and I decided that he was a little bit fed up with the Air Force by that time, and

01:54:06.440 - 01:54:20.540

they wanted to send him back to Vietnam again. He said, "No, thank you very much. I'm going to retire." He looked around down here, came down to visit, and found my family a home.

01:54:23.440 - 01:54:40.700

Then we decided, well, this was as good a place as any. We had bought a little boat, liked to fish and so on, and play golf. We did that. The weather was usually pretty nice, and it just seemed to be the place.

01:54:42.460 - 01:55:00.780

We knew he was going back to Vietnam, and so I was living with my folks. We decided to buy some land. We bought the front two acres here. I decided that I wanted to set the house back a little bit more.

01:55:01.620 - 01:55:16.540

So it ended up, I decided I'm going to buy that acre back there, which I was able to buy. So I got three acres of it. When he actually retired, which was '67, I think he retired from Shaw.

01:55:16.740 - 01:55:37.740

He was head of the transportation for Ninth Air Force or whatever it was at that time. So he came here and decided he had to do something. He was good mechanically with things. He liked cars and so forth.

01:55:39.660 - 01:55:56.040

He was talking to some of the neighbors, and he decided that he would plant a little avocado grove out there and buy some of these avocado pickers. The kinds you see out there, they raise up. What do they call them?

01:55:56.460 - 01:56:19.140

They raise up, and on the top is a little stand. You put your bag, avocado bag, up there, and it raises up and down. He bought a couple of these avocado picker machines, and he rented some out. He could do maintenance on it, so he'd rent them out and he'd use them for himself.

01:56:20.260 - 01:56:48.780

He worked one or two other groves, and he worked this grove. He was pretty busy, actually. We had trucks and mowing machines and about five or six of these picking machines. When he died of a heart attack one morning, I was left with a lot of machinery and cars

01:56:48.840 - 01:56:58.820

and trucks and things I didn't really need. So I had to get rid of them. But he enjoyed that work. Were your folks still alive then?

01:57:00.030 - 01:57:15.480

Yes. What was he flying in Vietnam? A-26s, night reconnaissance, no guns. Everybody was shooting at him, but he couldn't shoot back.

01:57:16.170 - 01:57:25.500

He didn't like that. When did you finally retire? When did he retire? When did you finally retire?

01:57:25.500 - 01:57:45.400

I retired in about '73 from the Reserves. I like to travel, and I went on a lot of tours with the 99s, and I went to the WASP. Tell me about your involvement with the 99s. How long have you been a 99?

01:57:45.920 - 01:57:59.940

Since May of 1942, which is a long time. Do they have local chapters here? Are you involved in the organization? Yes.

01:58:00.140 - 01:58:19.720

I've been chapter chairman of wherever I went. In El Paso, I was a chapter chairman there. In Philadelphia, I was a chapter chairman there, and in the Miami area here, too. We had a pretty large chapter.

01:58:19.940 - 01:58:39.820

A lot of the gals from Fort Lauderdale and so forth were involved. It got to a point where we decided we could divide up the two chapters, still have enough people in each chapter to proceed on. So we did.

01:58:40.300 - 01:59:07.740

up and each one of the areas, of course, has grown from just being separated. We had a good active chapter. It's not quite as active as it used to be, but I think so many of the young girls now are so busy doing things, it's hard for them to get to meetings and participate the

01:59:07.740 - 01:59:23.520

way it was twenty or thirty years ago. Kelly: At this point in your life, how do you spend your time, Ruth? Ruebens: I manage to keep busy. I have a grove here to take care of.

01:59:23.620 - 01:59:46.300

I have to see that that's fertilized and sprayed and picked and taken to the packing house and so forth. I have a friendly dog that keeps me company in the house, just maintaining that, and the vehicles to see that they're taken care of.

01:59:48.580 - 02:00:12.960

Financially I had to do something, so I got involved with the stock market, and I learned a lot about that, unfortunately, the last few years. When Bud was here, I was able to travel more easily and get away without worrying about the house or the dogs.

02:00:15.260 - 02:00:31.060

So after that, I had to get a house sitter or something, and I put the dog in the kennel now. I'm not as crazy about traveling as I used to be. It's a little bit more difficult, particularly since 9/11.

02:00:31.360 - 02:00:52.060

It's more of a struggle. The suitcases seem to get heavier, and I get a little bit slower, but I try to get around. Kelly: Of all the friendships you've made over the past fifty, sixty years, what one friendship stands out in your mind?

02:00:52.060 - 02:01:05.500

There's no doubt about that. My friend, Mariam "Robie" Anderson from Dead End Ranch in Kansas, we've been friends ever since we were in training together, and that's a long time now. That's what, sixty years or something.

02:01:07.540 - 02:01:22.160

So I knew her family, and she knew my family. We've been friends. Tucker is Ann Tucker from California. Her name is Doola now, but she's another good friend.

02:01:22.440 - 02:01:36.860

We speak every week. We try to get together when we can. That's pretty much the family I have. I'm very fortunate in having a good neighbor that joins my property in the back here.

02:01:37.000 - 02:01:55.960

She's an Air Force retired colonel. She was nurse. head of all the nurses in Europe when she retired and her family's gone now. So we support each other, which is very necessary out here because I know a few of the neighbors

02:01:56.040 - 02:02:13.920

that have moved in, but I'm not a clubby person, I guess. Do you still play golf? Not anymore. I have gotten osteoarthritis and it's not too conducive to playing golf as much as I

02:02:13.920 - 02:02:21.020

would like. So no, I don't play golf. When you said you had a grove, is that avocado or citrus? Avocado grove.

02:02:21.400 - 02:02:33.060

Yeah, I have one or two citrus trees, but just for my own consumption. But the avocados I grow commercially, yes. And then you sell them commercially? Yes.

02:02:36.240 - 02:02:58.680

The gentleman that I have now doing the picking for me, he packs them and takes them over to the packinghouse. Then they go through the inspection and the sorting of the size and so forth. All the avocados I produce here go to New York, so they go to the New York market.

02:02:59.670 - 02:03:14.500

You have to have a market for these things. Okay, we're going to change tapes. Okay. Everybody all right? Anybody need a— I knew I liked you. You're an Air Force wife.

02:03:14.820 - 02:03:37.920

Oh, well, I had to entertain at the tea parties and taffy pools a little. While we have a break, let me—my baby. Okay. Is there anything that I have left out of your childhood, your training, your assignment,

02:03:40.160 - 02:03:57.820

anything at all that you would like to tell us about? Well, I think we have covered a lot of the territory. I just feel that I was very fortunate because at a young age, I was able to know what I do and I was able to do it.

02:03:59.100 - 02:04:25.860

And certainly the fact that the war came along and gave me this opportunity to get in the WASPs and serve with the Coastal Air Patrol and so forth. I think being a WASP was probably one of the highlights of my life. I was very proud of it, and I enjoyed it.

02:04:28.180 - 02:04:51.280

I was very fortunate that I was able to do that. I have enjoyed living here in Florida, except when we had the hurricanes, which really ruined things for a long time. up the base, came right over here, tore this house up.

02:04:51.340 - 02:05:13.240

For a long time, I had to live in an RV out in the backyard for six months. What did it do to your grove? Oh, it pretty well tore it up. There was a lime grove across the street, and I had a lot of the lime grove into my

02:05:13.340 - 02:05:34.280

grove here. I had a few things take off and leave here that I have never seen since. The astounding part to me is that I have a chain-link fence, and they had tornadoes within the hurricane.

02:05:36.800 - 02:05:59.360

It flattened most of the chain-link fence, which I think is a little surprising. I would have thought that it would just go right through, but it didn't. I had no water, no electricity or anything. I think it was New Year's Day, this hurricane that we talk about.

02:06:00.880 - 02:06:16.840

It was on August 24th, and I got back into the house with electric on the New Year's day, I think January 1st. Did you ride out that hurricane in your house? I sure had to.

02:06:17.350 - 02:06:35.180

I sure did. It did a lot of damage out on the porch area, tore that whole porch off, and I had part of the roof taken off. But the house, fortunately, was very well built, very solid, and I feel safer here than

02:06:35.240 - 02:06:51.360

I feel anyplace else now. Kelly: Ruth, of all the things you have done, what's the one thing you're most proud of? Ruth: Oh, I think without a doubt, graduating from the WASPs.

02:06:52.500 - 02:06:57.440

Absolutely. Kelly: Okay. Ruth: Yeah. Kelly: And then I want to know your personal opinion of Cochran.

02:07:00.490 - 02:07:25.280

Ruth: I think she was an amazing lady. I think that considering her background, where she didn't know her parents, and she had very menial jobs out in the fields picking for a while, to go from that to being a very wealthy person and determined person, marrying a very wealthy man, having her own cosmetic

02:07:25.280 - 02:07:56.620

business and being a great force for women with her connection with Hap Arnold. Just the fact that she had the nerve and the determination to start the WASP program, to do that with the pressure she had against her at many times. She did an awful lot for us.

02:07:56.960 - 02:08:16.880

I really appreciate what she did. I think she was a very smart woman in many, many ways, business ways and so forth. I think she did a great deal for us. I think Nancy Love was a person to be admired.

02:08:17.220 - 02:08:51.500

She came from a wealthy family, a completely different background, well-educated. When she started her program there with the Ferry Command in Newcastle, Delaware, she was able to recruit women that had some money, that had flying time or their own airplanes, And had more experience, of course, and Cochran is the one that did the training program.

02:08:52.920 - 02:09:12.660

So I have a great deal of admiration for her. She came from absolutely no place to being a very, very important person in our history. Kelly: During life, I'm sure you've had happy times, but you must have had some sad times.

02:09:13.140 - 02:09:32.220

What has gotten you through sad times? Well, I guess just knowing that life must go on. You have to get through these things. I had to take my mother through a period of time when she had to be in a nursing home

02:09:32.300 - 02:09:46.180

and we could not take care of her at home. Then my father got ill and he was not in our nursing home. I had an uncle that was down here that had no family. I had to take care of him.

02:09:48.820 - 02:10:10.720

He was in the hospital for a while, and I got him into a nursing home. I had several years of not too much fun and games. It was taking care of the family, taking care of my uncle, seeing that he got something to eat, taking care of my father after mother died.

02:10:11.340 - 02:10:31.460

And then Bud died with a heart attack rather suddenly. And so there were three or four years that it was just settling estates and getting myself sorted out, and just doing what you have to do. You have to go on.

02:10:32.840 - 02:10:54.920

The good Lord seemed to get you through these things. Kelly: What do you feel the legacy of the WASP will be? Reedy: I think we're being recognized now as being the first women military pilots in this country.

02:10:56.120 - 02:11:14.960

I think that it probably will give some of the young girls encouragement to say, "Well, they did it. We can do it now." Of course, all the youngsters now are thinking of space travel and trying to get into the

02:11:15.020 - 02:11:31.000

military. I think that is just super great, because that was something we had to fight for. I think that they're happy we did fight for it, and I think that we left a legacy there that we should be proud of.

02:11:32.920 - 02:12:03.840

Ruth, when children watch this in generations to come and listen to your story, what would you like to say to them that might encourage them or give them, motivate or inspire them? What is the message you would like to leave? Well, I think to try and find a field of endeavor that they're interested in and to start early

02:12:04.300 - 02:12:24.140

and prepare themselves for it. And don't give up, persevere. There are going to be obstacles, but you can get through that. I think determination and perseverance probably are the biggest things that you can have to

02:12:24.240 - 02:12:46.180

do whatever field you enter. And just keep your eyes on the stars and the sun. Nancy, do you have anything you want to add? I did ask her if I had left out anything or anything else.

02:12:48.700 - 02:12:57.620

What is your favorite airplane? Of all the airplanes. Oh my goodness. I flew a Mooney in that with Betty Jo Reed.

02:12:58.170 - 02:13:28.420

You probably know Betty Jo. the Mooney, went to the Mooney factory when she was having it built, saw that. I think probably the aircraft that I instructed in mostly, that I enjoyed, was a T-34, which was a Beechcraft Mentor, I think they called it, a retractable gear two-place.

02:13:30.460 - 02:13:44.860

I flew T-34s a lot with the AeroClubs, because they were always happy to have another instructor in the AeroClubs, and I liked that. And that was fun. I liked that airplane.

02:13:45.880 - 02:14:03.100

It was my little P-51, if you would. What year did you enter the Powderpuff Derby? I think it was '67. I believe I looked that up the other day.

02:14:03.330 - 02:14:17.480

What was that course? That was from El Cajon, California, Lindbergh Field, I believe it was, to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Did you place? Oh, we did.

02:14:17.480 - 02:14:36.420

We placed someplace, but it was not worth speaking about, I'm sure. It was—no, we weren't in the top eight or ten. But you had fun. Betty Jo was a fun person and still a friend.

02:14:36.660 - 02:15:12.480

I do not see her much except at something like the reunions. How are you involved with the WASP today? I tried to participate in the conventions and so forth, and I'm hopeful that Cady Landry is able to continue on her project of getting things set up with an organization that can

02:15:12.480 - 02:15:42.180

carry on our history and so forth. I'm not an officer in anything. I can't do that anymore. I keep up with the news, and so many of the girls, of course, I do know from the different places I've lived and so forth. I was going to ask you, if you got Roe v. Upp, who got you up?

02:15:45.000 - 02:15:56.320

I don't know. Probably because I was freezing to death most of the time, and I was hoping somebody would get up and turn the furnace on. She did that for quite a while.

02:15:57.360 - 02:16:16.960

I wanted to ask you to describe a sandstorm. A sandstorm? You have a few in Texas. When I lived in El Paso for two or three years, they used to have some homebangers there.

02:16:18.440 - 02:16:39.860

I remember one time Betty Jo Reed and her husband and I were someplace, where we were coming back from, I'm not sure. We got into a sandstorm just before we landed at El Paso. It was 3,000 feet high, I guess.

02:16:40.000 - 02:16:53.440

You have to get down eventually to land, so you get through these sandstorms. But they used to have some pretty good—I think the wind blew all the time I was in El Paso. That was two or three years.

02:16:53.500 - 02:17:16.560

We got about, averaged about six inches of rain a year there, as I recall. But I did a lot of golf and I did a lot of flying. How about sandstorms while you were in training? I do not remember sandstorms in training so much.

02:17:16.660 - 02:17:33.660

All I remember is they would never discontinue flying until they had a hundred-pound concrete block at the end of the windsock. When that stood up, why they would call off flying for the day, it would be too windy. I do not know.

02:17:34.230 - 02:17:52.280

It just seemed like the wind blew all the time. One thing that was different for me when we went out there was, they would keep telling me, "Line up on the section lines. Line up on the section lines.

02:17:53.880 - 02:18:09.940

Well, I had no more idea what a section line was than Flight of the Moon. It took a while to get that sorted out. They assumed everybody knew what a section line was when you were trying to know what a section line is, but I did not.

02:18:11.670 - 02:18:28.400

Kelly: Or line up with the railroad tracks. Ruth, she joined the CMP after Pearl Harbor, but we did not ask her to join. Do you recall where you were when you heard about Pearl Harbor? Dornstell: Yes, I sure do.

02:18:29.240 - 02:18:48.540

I was at Gettysburg, taking mother through the fields there. There is a big memorial there at Gettysburg. It was a Sunday afternoon. I was living in Philadelphia then for a period of time.

02:18:51.340 - 02:19:11.840

Mother was real interested in history. I said, "Let's go over to Gettysburg and we'll tour through Gettysburg." We went there. I guess you had to go into the park, you had to get a bus or a limousine or something to

02:19:11.740 - 02:19:32.140

to go to the different places at the park. We were on this limo or whatever and went into the building to look around. I do not remember anything in the building, of course. But we came out and the driver was just jumping up and down.

02:19:32.280 - 02:19:46.700

He had the radio on and he said, "We have been attacked. Pearl Harbor has been attacked." We think, "Now, where is Pearl Harbor this week?" Where it was, was of course the start of everything.

02:19:48.660 - 02:20:06.140

I was doing some flying then, and it was right after that, I guess, or about that time when they started the Civil Air Patrol. I thought, "Well, I'd like to do that." I got into the Civil Air Patrol, and I did my marching and my little lessons of whatever

02:20:06.140 - 02:20:32.020

we did and flew. I would fly some CAP cadets, I guess, around the field in the Fairchild 24 at that time. Then I heard about the Coastal Air Patrol, and they were looking for people to do that. Of course, I was thinking, "Well, maybe I'd get to fly," but I didn't have an

02:20:32.140 - 02:20:48.840

airplane, and so I couldn't fly. And the CO there was not too encouraging about women flying anyway. So I did not have a job I could fly. It was operations and communication where I was.

02:20:48.900 - 02:21:06.040

I was there about a year, I guess. Most of us lived in a hotel there at West Hampton Beach. So it was interesting. Kelly: Any other little jewels you can tell us about?

02:21:06.410 - 02:21:15.940

Reed: No, I don't know that there's anything else. Kelly: How many women are flying today? Reed: What do I think of women flying today? Kelly: Oh, you've got good hearing.

02:21:16.410 - 02:21:29.040

Reed: Is that what you said? Kelly: Yeah, I do. Reed: Yeah, I do have good hearing, I think. - Well, I think that it's an entirely different world now

02:21:29.200 - 02:21:41.640

that they know they have these schools to go to, flight training is mapped out very critically, and so forth. I think there are a lot of scholarships given

02:21:41.840 - 02:21:56.060

by the 99s and other organizations that encourage that, and I think the women's military aviators, As we call ourselves now, I joined that.

02:21:56.120 - 02:22:17.720

I'm very proud to be a member of that. I am just absolutely astounded at what the gals are doing now and the opportunities they have to be able to go into space. You were in Tucson, I'm sure you were there.

02:22:18.660 - 02:22:43.160

To remember the gal that spoke that night at the banquet, wasn't she interesting? I thought that. And Trish Beckman, I think she was a first-class Navy took females, and she sat at the table opposite me at dinner that night.

02:22:43.160 - 02:22:50.540

I remember that. Tucson I liked. It was very nice. Why do you think the WASP history was left out of the history books?

02:22:57.200 - 02:23:23.300

I think it was not that well-known entity in those days anyway. You talk to some people now and they say, "Oh, women flew back then?" I think there is a lack of education in the schools as far as— Kelly: But why wasn't that history put in those history books?

02:23:25.140 - 02:23:56.740

Reed: I think there were a lot of men writing books that were so enamored with the Air Force and the pilots flying overseas and so forth that it was all about the flying aces that We had that they either didn't want to acknowledge us or they didn't have the background and knowledge to write about it.

02:23:57.760 - 02:24:08.280

Kelly: And thanks to you and the other WAF that we're interviewing, that history is going to get into those classrooms. Lowry: That would be fine. I think that's great.

02:24:08.780 - 02:24:15.620

Kelly: That's our goal. Lowry: Good. Kelly: Educate the children. Thank you so much.

02:24:16.000 - 02:24:19.600

Ruth. Thank you so much. This has been a real pleasure. This has been a pleasure for me.

02:24:19.600 - 02:24:26.160

You don't need an Air Force wife. That's fresh. Is that my claim to fame now? I never thought it would be.

02:24:26.220 - 02:24:35.080

No, no. There were more Air Force wives than there were WASPs. Ruth, I can unplug it the other way. We'll hang on to the WASPs.

02:24:35.080 - 02:24:51.180

There was one day we had a bunch of guys coming back from Vietnam. Let's see what we were flying then. Probably F-4s or something then. And we had three or four squadrons, and this fellow came back.

02:24:51.260 - 02:25:16.500

And he obviously was a hot rod and wasn't happy with his assignment or something or got bored with life. And we looked up and he's on final approach, inverted, and this F-4 coming in on final. We always, if we notice the gear isn't down or something, we say, "Hey, you know,

02:25:17.080 - 02:25:32.740

recheck the gear." I think we were almost all speechless at that point. Anyway, he just got bored and he flew the traffic pattern, and then went around and then landed properly over the year.

02:25:32.860 - 02:25:47.080

And one of the COs, of course they have runaway people out there that can call if they see something not right that on landing they can call, runaway officers they call them.

02:25:47.680 - 02:26:03.080

And so anyway, that guy didn't last in the squadron very long, he was, I don't know what, I guess he wanted to go back to Vietnam. And the CO was not really delighted with that performance,

02:26:03.200 - 02:26:11.360

but it was something a little different when you see somebody coming in inverted on final with-- - Taste of a pilot. - Yeah.

02:26:13.600 - 02:26:19.720

Listen, let me-- - Inverted on final. That's a good name for a book. - I guess.

02:26:19.840 - 02:26:20.580

Bye.