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all right are you ready we're off bars we're rolling i'm deanie parish we're interviewing ruth flory in the tv studios at kocd odessa college in odessa texas ruth was a wasp class 43-4 today is the 20th of september 2000

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okay ruth if you will tell us who you are when and where you were born Okay. I was born Ruth Thomason in Brownwood, Texas to Arthur and Laura Thomason. Back in 1922, I had two brothers and one sister. Tell us about those. My older sister was quite a beauty and she sang and played the piano and we gave her trouble with

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that, but my oldest brother was injured playing football at the University of Texas and became a cripple from that. And my second brother made the All-American team at A&M in 1940 and '41. And then there was me, the kid. Ruth, what are your earliest recollections of your childhood?

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Making little playhouses in the backyard by sweeping the ground and outlining them with bricks or pebbles. My children do not understand that. But we didn't have playthings. We just made them. Had fun doing it. When you were growing up, what was your dad doing?

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My father was an accountant, CPA. Did you live in town? We lived in town, but actually it was outskirts. It's in town now. And we had a huge, nothing was paved where we lived, huge oak tree right in front of the house in the middle of the

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The city wanted to pay the street was coming out to cut that tree down, and my mother put her chair out there and wouldn't let them do it. We saved it a year or two, and finally they got it.

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As you were growing up, where did you start elementary school? I went to Coggin Ward in Brownwood for six years, and then Brownwood Junior High, and then the high school.

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Were those schools all in one central area? No, they were in a separate school. They were in an area, but they were in separate blocks. -How did you get to school when you started school?

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-Walked. We walked home for lunch. -What are your earliest recollections of school? -Of school?

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My first grade teacher was Mrs. Florey, my mother-in-law, who was deceased when I married Ben. My brother had come home from school every day and had taught me, my younger brother,

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everything he learned that day. So I memorized. And when I got to school, I knew all Jack and Jill. And they thought I couldn't read it.

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So they promoted me. And I remember I cried 'cause I didn't think the teacher liked me and she wanted to get rid of me.

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But I suffered from that, being behind. - Do you remember recess? What did you play? - We played baseball and Red Rover come through.

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Not hide and go seek 'cause we didn't have trees. just anything we could dream of. - Okay. As you were growing up, Ruth, tell me about your grandparents.

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- My mother's parents lived in Ennis, Texas. He was a carpenter and did fine cabinet work. In fact, he built the house they lived in and he was six foot six and had eight foot doors in it.

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My other grandfather, my father's mother and father, owned real estate and to my knowledge, I never saw him do anything except sit in a chair on the front porch. But he died when I was quite young.

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I don't remember him. As in early childhood, what are your remembrances of vacations? We didn't really have vacations.

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We went to see the grandma and grandpa and stayed three or four days in Ennis. They had a trolley ran through there to Dallas, and we'd go put pennies on the rail, flatten them out, and that was our entertainment.

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- How far was Ennis from where you were? - Oh, I'm at Ennis around 200 miles, something like that. It was quite a trip then. - What are your remembrances?

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What was a Christmas like in your home? - Christmases? - Mm-hmm. - We didn't have elaborate Christmases,

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but we had good Christmases. I remember during the Depression, the first year of the Depression, Mom and Daddy scraped up $20 and gave each of us $5 a piece,

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and that was our Christmas. It took me forever to spend it, I remember, but I don't remember what I bought. But that was a lot of money to me.

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- Would your grandparents spend Christmas with you? - No, they didn't travel. - Or any other relatives? Or was it just your immediate family, ordinarily?

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- That came for Christmas? No. - Okay. As you grew on into junior high school,

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is there one teacher that stands out in your mind have influenced you? I took manual training, which was unusual for them to let a girl take it, and I really enjoyed it.

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I forgot the man's name, but he was very strict, but he taught me to think. And that helped a lot. Could you tell me what is manual training? Manual training is drawing plots.

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The big thing was to draw a ratchet screwdriver and have all the parts showing, you know. Very precise. - Okay. - Very precise. - What was your favorite subject?

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- Probably recess. (laughing) I don't know. I enjoyed school, I really did.

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- Okay, were you a good student? - Pretty good, I knew better not to be. - Right. When you were in high school,

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what was your favorite subject in high school? - Well, I think it's probably history because our teacher was quite old and she was kind of crippled and she kind of ran around the room all the time.

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We were on the second floor and the boys would throw their history books out the window and get to go down and get them, but that's the only thing I remember. - Would they then be punished? - No.

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- No, okay. In high school, what was your ambition? What were you studying to do? I took an advertising course, a commercial advertising course, and I enjoyed that.

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I took a correspondence course on top of it, and I enjoyed that. But when I went to college, they didn't have anything like that, so I just had a good time. In high school, did you also have outside activities at school? For example, band?

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I played tennis. Played tennis. Did you play in tournaments in your high school? Won a few and lost a few.

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Okay. Would you go to different schools? Little local schools, Owens, Maines, little towns outside of Brownwood. Okay. Was there anything else that you did?

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Any other kind of sports? We had a pep squad, a drill squad, and I enjoyed that until my senior year. Then I was a cheerleader and I really enjoyed that.

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Tell me about your little cheerleading uniform. Well, we had two boys and two girls, and we were all friends, and we just enjoyed it thoroughly. We really did.

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Did you have little short skirts? Oh, no. Not then. We had satin skirts that came down, culottes came down to here with satin, maroon satin tops.

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I almost asked you to give us a cheer. Oh, no. That's above and beyond. When you were in high school, What was your social life like?

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- Great. - Tell us about it. - Went to Daniel Baker College in Brownwood, which was two blocks from my home.

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Most of the children, kids in my graduating class went to Daniel Baker. So it was just like moving to another school with all your friends.

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We had a good time. It was entertaining. No one had any money. Our dates, we walked to town and window shopped.

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And usually somebody would have a quarter and we could buy two hamburgers by the post office and then we would walk home. But everybody was in the same boat,

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so no one thought anything about it. No one had a car. It was just poor days, but we enjoyed it. - Can you recall your high school prom?

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- Oh yeah, we had it on the roof garden of Brentwood Hotel and I was on the decorating committee and two or three or more of my friends and we decided to decorate with yucca plants.

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So we spent two days out cutting people's yucca plants, the flowers off, that's what we had, and it looked pretty nice. - Do you remember what you wore?

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- No. - Okay. Could you tell me about your graduation from high school? - It was hot, I remember that very well.

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I think there were 125 of us that graduated. We went to Howard Payne College to their auditorium to graduate, and that's all I remember.

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- Did you have caps and gowns? Did your grandparents see you graduate? My grandparents? No.

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Just your family? They never came to Brownwood. When you graduated from high school, what were your plans then? To go on to college?

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I knew I would go to college, yes. What made you decide on that particular college? Because I owed my daddy money, and we did not have any. So the first year of college, it was what they owed him.

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In the second year, I was editor of the newspaper. And the third year, I worked on the yearbook. So it came pretty cheap. Had you taken journalism in high school?

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No. Where did you get that love of journalism, do you think? I don't know. We hung around the newspaper little office lot, and you'd pick it up.

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In college, did you have other activities as far as your tennis? I didn't play any more tennis after college. It was just going to school and having fun. Also, in the summertime, I broke in new boats for my brother-in-law.

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My brother-in-law, after I married, at Lake Brownwood, when they used to buy a new boat, you bought a new boat and you had to slow time five hours on it before you could open it up. Now, they come ready to go.

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So I would slow time it and then Sundays I would drive passengers around. That was during the Camp Boudais. Those soldiers wanted to ride in the boat. So a dollar a piece, I remember one Sunday afternoon I collected $90.

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I had money sticking out of every pocket. But I enjoyed doing that. It was fun. What kind of boat was it?

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Chris Crafts, inboards. When you finished college— Steele - I did not finish. Clendenin - You did not finish.

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Okay, let me ask you, if you remember where you were and how you felt when you heard about Pearl Harbor. Steele - Oh, yes. A bunch of us had gone to the movies Sunday afternoon to see Sergeant York, which you

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cry through. And when we came home to my house, the fellow I was going with, Pawpaw, my daddy, was listening to the radio and he told us about Pearl Harbor. Well, I just started crying again.

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And this fellow that was with me picked up the newspaper and started reading it. And my daddy was so mad at him, he said, "He doesn't even care." And I said, "Well, I don't know." The next day he volunteered for the Air Force.

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So it was that way with them. They didn't say, "I'm going to do something." They did it. Right.

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How did World War II affect your family? Quite a bit. My brother next to me was a graduate of A&M, and he was an infantry leader and captain in Camp Walters, the men of wealth.

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He decided that it wasn't for him that he was going to get in the Air Corps, so he joined the Air Corps. My brother-in-law, my sister's husband, was in the Navy, and then there was me. Of course, my brother John could not go.

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Ruth, go back and tell me when is the first time that you remember seeing an airplane? Charlie Day used to have an old homemade airplane. And out on one of the fields west of town, Sunday afternoon he would take people flying for fifty cents a ride.

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Well, it was barnstorming, that's what it was. And I thought that would be great, but we never had fifty cents. So I didn't really worry about it, and that's the first airplane I remember seeing. But Daddy would take me out there and we would watch him for hours, take off and land, take

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off and land. But it never occurred to me I might fly. Kelly: Tell me when you first thought about learning to fly. Steele: We had a civilian pilot training course in Daniel Baker, and there had already been

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two classes going through. When they developed that, they said we will train eleven men and one woman. Why they put the woman in? I think it was Eleanor Roosevelt put the woman in.

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She was very much for women doing something. I was selected in the third class to go through, and I loved it. I really did. Levy: When was it, Ruth?

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Steele: 1942. Levy: Okay. Tell me about your first solo. What kind of airplane was it?

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Steele: Oh, it was horrible. The first solo flew to Porterfield. We flew Porterfields. Of course, I was petrified, but they insisted I was ready and I did not have any problems.

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My big problem was going up for solo spins. I went up three times and kept coming back down. My instructor was called Shorty and he said, "What's the matter, Ruth?" I said, "There is a cloud up there."

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It was over Brady, which is fifty miles from Bramwood. But he finally told me I was going to do it and I did. What did your mom and dad think about your flying? Not very much.

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had no idea what it was. She knew she'd never fly and Daddy knew he would never. If I went over the house, flew over the house, I'd tell Mother I'm going to come over to the house. So the first time I went, she stood on the cellar and waved a bed sheet so I'd be sure and see her. Well, she didn't realize I could see her real good, but that was her impression

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of flying. It was a lot of fun. What made you think that you could do that? Did you know any other girls flying? I knew the two girls before me. - Okay.

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And you felt if they could do it? - I figured if you can do anything, you're big enough to do. That's what I was raised to do.

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- When you were learning to fly, and then when you began flying on your own, are there any incidents that happened that would-- - Oh yeah, well, probably fourth or fifth time I soloed,

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my brothers had a friend that wanted to take him flying. So I finally gave in and took him flying. And my era, pilot era, got over the lake and my carburetor iced up and I didn't turn my heater on.

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So the engine quit and I forced landing into Wheatfield, mowed it down. Well, I realized where I was. It was in Mr. McInnis' field and everybody was scared of Mr. McInnis. So I didn't know what to do.

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Well, this kid that was with me jumped out and ran to the road and thumbed a ride to town and just left me. So here comes Mr. McInnis in his pickup, wondering who I was and what I thought I was doing. And I told him, "Well, he and my daddy were good friends."

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So it was all right with him. So he gave me a ride back to the field, and then they came and flew the plane out. Kelly: When you were in college and learning to fly, at one point, when did you hear about the training program for women to fly?

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Well, there wasn't one. They didn't have one until '43, the latter part of '43, which I heard nothing about. I guess probably in November of '43,

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I had a letter from Miss Cochran asking me if I would be interested in it. They have all the women pilots. Every pilot is registered at the Pentagon.

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So they pulled all the women pilots and questioned them as to whether they would be willing to serve. We didn't know what for or what we were going to do. So I thought, "Well, that's great."

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I was wondering what I could get into. So I wrote back and she wrote and said, "Report us Houston, January the 1st." So I wrote back and said I wasn't old enough. And she wrote back, "Well, when I'd be old enough?"

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And I told her the 25th of January, '21. She said, "Go on anyhow." So I went on down to Houston. What did your mom and dad think about that?

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- They didn't like it. (laughs) Didn't like it at all, but they didn't say anything. - At this point-- - They were very patriotic.

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- At this point, was your brother already in service? - Yes. He was in service, but he was still in the infantry. - How did you get from home to Houston?

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- I had a little car, and drove down there. - By yourself? - Yes. I think that's what scared Mother and Daddy more than anything.

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When you got to Houston, did you have to interview? - No, I had already interviewed in Fort Worth. I went up there for an interview. And so I was actually in when I got to Houston.

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- Do you remember who interviewed you at Fort Worth? - I don't. - How long after you were interviewed did you have to take a physical?

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- Well, you took it immediately in order to qualify to get in. I took it at Carousel Air Base in Fort Worth. I had moved to Fort Worth to build up my flying time

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so I could get in. I went out to Carlsville and they didn't know what to do with me. It was a whole male situation.

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So finally they figured it out and they gave me my physical and my blood pressure was a little high, which is normal. And they said they'd give me some stuff to lower it down.

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And I told them what pharmacy out where I lived in Pollock in Fort Worth. So I picked it up on the way home and started taking it. And I went back to the drugstore for something

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days later and they met me at the door and they had given me the wrong medication. It was for low blood pressure. So we started all over again. They were so apologetic, but that's one of the things you go through. Right. When you moved to Fort Worth and continued getting your flying time in, did you also

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work? I worked for Midwest Airport, Mr. Taylor. I kept log on the engines and for that I got my flying time. At Fort Worth, what kind of airplanes were you flying?

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Steele: Oh, every kind. Little puddle jumpers, grasshoppers. Kelly: Once you got to Houston, to whom did you report? Steele: I went on out to what was then Houston Airport and checked in with them.

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Then they told me to go out on Telephone Road, that motel. I think of it. Anyhow, I did not know a soul. I went out there and they had assigned me a roommate.

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She was kind of a dinky-do. I do not know how she slipped in, but she had brought a trunk of memorabilia. Every night I had to go through that with her. So finally I complained.

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They gave me a new roommate, Jane Fleesbach from Nebraska. Then we went on through training together. Describe this motel where you had to live. - Oh, it was horrible.

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Biggest roaches I've ever seen in my life. It was seedy. - And take me through a day in training in Houston. - Okay, I don't remember what time we got up,

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but they had a stripped down trolley car that they used to run through the streets of Houston, and we got on that rain or shine, there was no awnings, and that was wintertime.

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So we were pretty seedy looking and cold. We had no uniforms. We had to wear our own clothes. And we went out to the field probably around seven.

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And then we went to breakfast, which was a half a mile from where we were based, which was the terminal at Houston Airport. Then we marched back, or we walked back,

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that's before the marches started, and sat on the ready line, and we went to ground school and pedaled around. There were four classes there.

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And we were crowded. There was not enough room for us. There were not enough airplanes. It was so new that they could not get enough planes for us.

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Ground school was good. We had good instructors. What were these instructors? Were they civilians?

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Some civilians and some Air Corps. When you first got to Houston, what kind of airplanes did you start flying? I think I got into a PT and some cubs and things like that. About the biggest I believe was a PT.

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Do you remember your first solo? No. There. Are any of your instructors?

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No. Do those stand out? Then what was the next course? Did you finish a whole primary training?

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No. We were only there a month. Okay. their flyers, and the contract was up and they didn't want to renew it.

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So Cochran and Arnall got together and leased it for us to go to. We moved up there around the first of February, I guess. And when we got there was another half of our class. Our class was doubled.

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Part of the three-four had two classes, actually. And we moved into our barracks, and we had six women to the bay, two commodes, and one shop, and across from that was six more women. So we all shared that facility.

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And it worked out. Nobody got in big fights about it. Before you moved to Sweetwater, did any of your classmates wash out? No.

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That was too early. Now, some of them were sent home for physical or mental or something. When I was speaking, I was sent home. Did your instructors from Houston also move to Sweetwater?

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Some of them did, I believe. How did you get the airplanes from Houston to Sweetwater? Some of them flew some of them up there that we were flying, but I had a car and I had to get it up there.

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Mary Hines from St. Paul, Minnesota rode up there with me. Tell me about some of the other people that were on that base when you arrived. Sweetwater? Yes.

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Deaton had moved up there, and she was our mother. We had a CO, we had a full military staff over us. There was a nurse and dispensary and things of that nature, far more refined than what we were used to.

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Kelly: Did they tell you what was the purpose of training these women to fly? Steele: To ferry. Kelly: And what would be the benefits? Well, we didn't have an Air Force at all, or Air Corps at all in the late '30s.

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It was sort of scroungy. We had probably two or three hundred pilots and maybe four hundred planes. That's no army. You can't go to war with that.

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So they turned over these plants to build military aircraft. Well, they didn't have enough pilots to fly the aircraft to the field to train these pilots. So they were trying to get some kind of reserve to do that, and they wrote and asked us if we would do that.

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I thought that would be great. I would see the United States. Kelly: When you arrived at Sweetwater, what kind of airplanes were— Steele: I went into PTs, primary trainers.

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Kelly: Okay. Do you remember your first solo flight at Avenger? Steele: No. Kelly: Tell me about the ground school at Avenger.

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Steele: It was severe, but we had excellent instructors. If we were not flying, we were in ground school. It was just alternating morning, evening, morning, evening, or night. If we were flying at night, then we had ground school in the afternoon.

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They had it staggered where there was really not too much hardship on anyone. Kelly: Take us through a typical day. Steele: Okay. We also learned to march at that time.

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We marched everywhere we went. We had roll call in the morning, TAPs in the morning, and we got up and—rover TAPs—got up and we stood in between the barracks and got in our squadrons and we marched to the mess hall.

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And the food was good, very good. After breakfast we went back and were given fifteen minutes to clean that place up for inspection and fall in again to go to class or to the flight line. We never walked anywhere, we marched.

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Okay. Could you tell me about your bay mates? Yeah, I did. We really enjoyed each other.

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Now we had one girl we liked, but she snored so bad we couldn't sleep. And it was aggravating and also nerdy because we were on edge all the time knowing we were going to get washed out tomorrow, you know that feeling. Her name was Genevieve Brown, bless her heart, she's sweet as she can be.

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But no one could sleep. And one of my bay mates just had had it one night. She was so tired she picked up a shoe and was fixing to hit her. And we said no.

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So we picked up her cot and took it out inside, and it rained that night, so we got in trouble. But after that, they moved her to the old D-room for sleeping. She didn't hold it against us. She knew she snored.

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But that's the only problem we had. Kelly: Okay. Tell me about some of your ground school courses. Steele: We had meteorology.

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We had navigation. We had aircraft and engine. That was interesting. I'm kind of mechanical-minded.

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we had to strip down a motor or engine and put it back together under directions. Bars code I never did understand, but I finally got through it. We had a link trainer. I forgot, we had probably about 40 hours of link trainer. I forgot how many hours of ground school we really did.

00:27:36.480 - 00:27:52.480

I know after we graduated, the class after us, they upped the hours on ground school because the flying time lowered as each class came in. So their experience was, they needed more time to study. - I was gonna ask you to tell us the difference

00:27:52.720 - 00:28:05.040

between a cadet, male cadet going into flying training and a woman going in. - There's a second. - But as far as the prerequisites for entering training.

00:28:05.540 - 00:28:15.340

- For entering training, you had to pass the physical. At my time you had to have 90 hours to get in. That's why I was working in Fort Worth. And the men?

00:28:16.040 - 00:28:23.080

I don't know. They came in from scratch. They did not fly. They know how to fly. They trained them from the beginning.

00:28:23.380 - 00:28:34.220

So there was a discrepancy for entering training. Yes, yes. We had to know. Right. When you were in training,

00:28:34.940 - 00:28:50.300

describe what the auxiliary field was all about. It was a bunch of brush and that was about it. We were hauled out there in the cattle truck. We had to have an auxiliary field because there were primary, basic, and advanced training

00:28:50.420 - 00:29:03.420

off of one field with two runways. There was never an accident on that field, which is unusual. We flew from the auxiliary field and then when we finished that they bussed us back or somebody brought the plane back.

00:29:07.060 - 00:29:18.240

-Were there any incidents while you were at Avenger that are outstanding to you? -Well, we lost one of our classmates in a night mission. She and her instructor spun into the ground.

00:29:18.240 - 00:29:28.800

We don't know why. -When you went on into Advanced, what did you do different in Advanced that you had not done in Primary?

00:29:28.940 - 00:29:36.560

-It was a little more powerful airplane aircraft. Tell us about the aircraft you flew at Avenger. - Advanced or? - All the way through.

00:29:36.720 - 00:29:54.140

- Okay, through the PT in primary, the BT in secondary, and in advanced we flew the AT-6 and then the AT-11. - Describe what the BT was all about. - It was noisy and it smelled, but it was a good airplane.

00:29:54.440 - 00:30:01.640

We called it the Volte Vibrator because you shook all the time, but it got you there and back. - And the AT-6?

00:30:01.720 - 00:30:07.080

- AT-6 was sweet. It was smooth. You could do aerobatics in it, and it was just a great airplane.

00:30:08.740 - 00:30:19.820

- And then in the twin-engine airplane, did you fly two trainees together or a trainee and an instructor? - Well, to start in with, it was a trainee and an instructor, and then eventually we got two trainees

00:30:19.820 - 00:30:33.640

and an instructor behind us. So we were well covered. -When that accident happened and one of your classmates was killed, how did you feel about that?

00:30:35.660 - 00:30:46.460

-Well, we were really upset about it. But instead of making a big to-do about it, which the Air Corps does not, they can't afford to, we had a little prayer meeting for breakfast,

00:30:46.590 - 00:30:54.360

and that was it. -Okay. Could you tell us what benefits her family received? -They got no benefits.

00:30:54.680 - 00:31:08.420

We had to pay for someone to take her body home and the Air Corps furnished a wooden brothel. We had to take up the collection and pay for somebody to go home and pay for the coffin to go home.

00:31:08.900 - 00:31:19.940

They could not fly a flag. They could not wear their little star buttons. They were just nothing. What was the difference when a female pilot was killed and a male pilot?

00:31:20.180 - 00:31:29.540

Well, all hell broke loose. They came up military-wise all the way around. We were nothing. We were expendable, let's put it that way.

00:31:29.790 - 00:31:40.520

Right. While you were at Avenger, did Ms. Jacqueline Cochran visit? Quite often, quite often, uh-huh. Were you ever, did you ever meet her personally?

00:31:40.540 - 00:31:46.720

Oh, yes, yes. Tell us about her. She was really a pleasant person. She was unusual.

00:31:47.980 - 00:31:57.880

She knew what she wanted and she's going to get it. And she was fighting real hard for us, which we appreciated. Now, some of the women did not really care for her personally, but they realized what she was doing.

00:31:59.180 - 00:32:12.860

So she was nice and kind to us and friendly and wanted to know our views of what was happening and how to improve it. You know, very cordial. She always brought a general with her, and that impressed us.

00:32:14.160 - 00:32:28.580

Kelly: Describe what your uniform was like when you were flying and when you would be in the— And there were no uniforms, so we had some generals go fly in to Sweetwater to view the Corps, and here we were a bunch of rag muffins.

00:32:28.990 - 00:32:50.400

We were wearing GI fatigues, which were always big, big, and bigger. So they got some store in town to order some tan slacks and white shirts, and so we went down there and bought those and spent a good deal of time altering them. Some of the women in Sweetwater did alter for those who could not sew.

00:32:51.200 - 00:32:54.800

We looked pretty neat. Pretty neat. And to fly? Mm-hmm.

00:32:55.000 - 00:32:59.360

And to fly in? What did you fly in? Fly? We flew in fatigues all the time.

00:33:00.260 - 00:33:07.480

Were they your size? No. Never. Seems like the shortest ones got the biggest ones.

00:33:08.580 - 00:33:19.160

Rubber bands were the premium, because you couldn't buy them. You either had to roll up or tie a string around your leg or something to keep them off the ground so you wouldn't stumble over them. But we had a lot of lice over it.

00:33:19.160 - 00:33:39.560

In order to wash them, we'd stand in the shower and take a shower and wash our suits at the same time. Do you remember in advance, did you take some cross-countries in the '86? I went to Abilene and Brownwood and back to Sweetwater and Wichita Falls and Abilene and

00:33:39.560 - 00:33:50.240

back to Sweetwater. Now that was our only cross-country. They really developed more of that with the other classes. - Since there was no radar in those days,

00:33:50.340 - 00:33:58.720

how did you navigate? - Well, I was used to doing it by the seat of my pants. If you know a railroad and you knew where it was going, follow it, or a highway.

00:33:59.780 - 00:34:10.480

We flew by the compass. We had to plot our courses. It was part of our navigation training. - Describe for me your graduation.

00:34:12.840 - 00:34:29.380

Well, we had a big party at the Blue Body Inn the night before graduation. And my mother came in, which surprised me, before the graduation. She rode the train out from Sisco, but she had to drive there to get to it. It was hot and it was just sort of a blur.

00:34:29.500 - 00:34:38.920

Everything went together. Did the other trainees, the undergraduates, did they march for your— Oh, yeah. Forty-three, forty, and it came.

00:34:38.960 - 00:34:51.580

Do you remember what celebrities, what generals came for your graduation? No, I'd have to look it up. Did you receive your orders before you graduated? No, after.

00:34:52.920 - 00:35:04.740

Did they give you a choice of where you were going? No. Let me ask you this, Ruth. What qualities do you think you possessed that got you through that training when so

00:35:04.840 - 00:35:13.900

many of your classmates washed out? I was being scared all the time and trying not to get in trouble. I told the line. I knew I better not wash out.

00:35:15.340 - 00:35:24.380

What was your favorite thing about training? What did you enjoy the most? I kind of liked the calisthenics, if you want to believe it. It sort of made you unwind and relax.

00:35:26.620 - 00:35:41.480

Describe what night flying was all about. Well, we didn't have any instrument training except that. I had very little of it. Most of my classmates had very little night flight.

00:35:41.900 - 00:35:57.660

What was the purpose of the twin-engine training? Do you know? I have no idea except for us to step up to a larger plane when we got to our base. When your mom and dad came for graduation, then did you have some time off?

00:35:57.720 - 00:36:10.660

Did you get to go home with them? No, not then. I went home the next day and stayed, I guess, had about a week. And then I went to Love Field and Dallas.

00:36:11.040 - 00:36:21.500

Did they furnish transportation for you to go to? Yes, they did. For those, they flew most of them to Dallas. But I had my little car, so I drove up there.

00:36:23.130 - 00:36:33.560

Do you remember how your mom and dad reacted to your graduation? Well, Mother was not dumbfounded about it. She just didn't really know what to think about it. She's from the old school.

00:36:34.700 - 00:36:43.100

Women ought to be at home. - When you got to Love Field, were there already some wasps there? - Oh yes.

00:36:45.160 - 00:36:52.920

- To whom did you report? - I don't remember. - Tell us about where you lived. - Well, we lived in a barracks.

00:36:53.000 - 00:37:02.980

I was only there two nights. They put us through all the shots and orientation and all that stuff. And then they called us out 15 of us,

00:37:03.940 - 00:37:14.020

25 of us that sent us to Washington. They flew us up there and we didn't know why. And we went to the Pentagon and we met General Arle and we met Miss Cochran again.

00:37:14.300 - 00:37:24.640

And they wouldn't tell us what they were gonna do with us. I would laugh and say, if they manned on the moon, we would have thought we was gonna go up there with it. It was really no idea what.

00:37:26.340 - 00:37:39.800

After about four days of severe tests in the pressure chamber and all these strength things, they put us on a train and handed us our orders. It was to Captain Davis, North Carolina, to tow targets for anti-aircraft, which we had no idea what that was.

00:37:40.410 - 00:37:48.880

Kelly: Do you know why you were selected for that duty? Steele: No, I have no idea. Kelly: Tell us about General Arnold. What were your impressions?

00:37:49.130 - 00:38:04.840

Steele: He was a great fellow, very cheerful and very kind to us. Kelly: And when you got to Camp Davis, were you the first WASP? Steele: No, there were some women already there in the class before us, but we had never heard of what they were doing.

00:38:05.120 - 00:38:13.040

What we did was very hush-hush. No one knew. I could not even tell Mother and Daddy what I was doing. Kelly: Do you know why the Air Force kept that so hush-hush?

00:38:13.040 - 00:38:25.660

Steele: Because the public would rise up and say, "No, women are not to be shot at." Kelly: Tell me about when you arrived at Camp Davis. Where did you live? in the barracks right off the field.

00:38:26.940 - 00:38:40.500

Were you in there with other... I had a roommate. I imagine there were about 20, 25 of us to a barracks. We had roommates. And I had known my roommate all through training, so it was great.

00:38:42.720 - 00:38:53.760

Tell me about the first mission you flew at Camp Davis. I flew for a while in the L-5s and L-4s. It was a tracking mission. You used the little puddle jumpers.

00:38:54.320 - 00:39:13.240

So these, I don't want to say cannon cockers, but I won't say that. Any aircraft men could trace us, track us with their cannons. And then we graduated, they graduated. In fact, when I left there, I was still doing tracking missions, plus everything else.

00:39:15.240 - 00:39:29.800

I got to death and they checked me out on the A-24. We took two landings and two takeoffs, and that was it. I flew a mission with a target. In the A-24, there was nothing electrical in it.

00:39:29.800 - 00:39:47.440

You had to wind the flaps up and down with your hand, and everything was manual. So I had to have a little fellow, a little GI, on his belly in the tail of the aircraft to reel this target out and in. I was flying one day with him in there, or whoever he was, and I thought I'd hit some

00:39:47.540 - 00:39:52.900

turbulent weather. - Okay, let's hold him. We'll start with that story. - Okay.

00:39:53.420 - 00:39:58.740

- We don't want you to be in the middle of the story. Boy, are you doing great. (laughing) - I've got a big mouth.

00:39:59.240 - 00:40:02.880

- Do you want some coffee? - No, no, thank you. - Can I get you some water? - I'm fine, thank you.

00:40:02.880 - 00:40:05.440

- You're fine? Okay. All right, we'll change tapes then. - Okay.

00:40:05.700 - 00:40:10.400

- What are we doing in the back? - And let's start back up. - Okay. (laughing)

00:40:11.300 - 00:40:19.500

Okay, we're rolling. - Okay. A-24 was one of the ships we used in North Carolina It was not electrical.

00:40:19.600 - 00:40:30.800

You had to manually roll the flaps up and down. You couldn't get the target out without having a little fellow on his belly in the back end of the A-24, and he reeled it out by hand. I was flying one day.

00:40:30.900 - 00:40:40.760

I thought I'd hit some rough air, and it was Joclyn, and he started screaming, "They're shooting at me. They're shooting. They're going to kill me," and it made me mad. So I thought, "You know what."

00:40:41.220 - 00:40:52.260

So I radioed down and called him a few just things. When I got back to the field, the MPs met me and they pulled me on the aircraft and took me to the CO's office. And General Arlo was there.

00:40:53.020 - 00:40:58.860

He said, "Were you on a certain, certain flight?" And I said, "Yes, sir." I still didn't know what was the matter. He said, "Did you stay so and so?"

00:40:58.860 - 00:41:03.540

And I said, "Yes, sir." He said, "Why?" And I said, "Well, come out here and I'll show you." And there were five holes in the tail.

00:41:04.160 - 00:41:11.840

He said, "I don't blame you, but we can't have that kind of language on the air." So he grounded me for a week. But I don't care. I still feel better about it.

00:41:13.700 - 00:41:41.040

It was quite an experience to jump from a 6th up to an A-24 without really a bunch of time on it. And then after I had a lot of missions in that, we took them to the B-2, the A-25, whatever they called it in the Navy, which was the same, two takeoffs and two landings, and then it was ours. We flew the target for aircraft training.

00:41:42.660 - 00:41:59.180

We also did dive missions over the troops where they would have to scatter. We were supposed to have gassed them, but we just put fog all over them. We did everything that they would expect to find in combat, and that was the fun part. You got monotonous just towing a target.

00:41:59.400 - 00:42:04.020

In the A-24, did you have a co-pilot? No. Is that a single? Single.

00:42:04.840 - 00:42:10.500

- Okay, but twin engine aircraft? - No, no. - Single engine aircraft? - Single engine. They were dive bombers.

00:42:10.820 - 00:42:23.120

- Okay, describe that mission more fully, Ruth. When you would get up to altitude, what would happen? - I'd radio down and they would tell me when they were ready and then in the 24, he'd reel the target out.

00:42:23.680 - 00:42:32.460

- What was this target like? - It was a sleeve, like you see at the airports. - Do you know how far behind the airplane? - I think it was 30 or 40 yards.

00:42:32.500 - 00:42:42.260

It wasn't too far. At that time, they were using steel cables and the radar, which was new, was picking it up to come to the plane, is the reason they shot me.

00:42:42.900 - 00:42:50.340

So after that, General Arnold said, "We'll have nylon cards." So no one got shot after that. - Okay, and as you would fly,

00:42:50.380 - 00:42:56.200

you would fly a certain pattern? - Oh yes. - What, a rectangle or what? - A circle, triangle, you name it.

00:42:56.540 - 00:43:09.680

- Okay, and as you would fly over the anti-aircraft, they would fire at the target? - Yes. live ammunition, color-coded, so they could tell if they hit it.

00:43:10.420 - 00:43:26.040

And then how long would one mission last? Oh, probably forty, forty-five minutes, something like that. At night we flew the B-34, which is the forerunner of the B-24, out over the ocean at night and come in.

00:43:26.280 - 00:43:36.500

Now they flew tracers, shot tracers at us there, and the first time I went up there night and those tracers came up. I thought, "Oh, dear God, get me out of here." It was a sight to see.

00:43:36.920 - 00:43:51.840

But after a while you get used to it and it's real pretty. Kelly: Ordinarily, how many missions would you fly in one day? Steele: Maybe two, sometimes three. Kelly: And how would they schedule you?

00:43:51.840 - 00:44:09.440

Steele: I have no idea. Kelly: Would they schedule a day mission all in one week and then night missions? Any idea about the death? At some point, did something happen to one of the WASPs there that was of real concern

00:44:09.760 - 00:44:20.360

at Camp Davis? Camp Davis. We lost three WASPs there. One of them, and Miss Cochran said it was sugar in the gas tank, it was an A-25.

00:44:21.720 - 00:44:39.700

She crash-landed after takeoff. And then one of them, she hit the trees and it flipped and that killed her. They couldn't get her out because the release thing for the hood was broken, which had been on the farm several times.

00:44:40.060 - 00:44:47.500

They had never had fixed it. We didn't know whether the other girls that came in over our barracks in Christ were shot down or not. They wouldn't tell us.

00:44:48.940 - 00:45:01.300

How did that make you feel? Leary, where we were going to do it. You can't do it. go home and do nothing. The same girl that took two of the bodies home didn't come back,

00:45:01.360 - 00:45:15.120

and I don't blame her. She had a widowed mother and she was the only child, and she realized that if something happens to me, who's going to take care of Mother? So she was a good pilot, really good. Did Miss Cochran come down when those accidents happened?

00:45:15.120 - 00:45:34.860

No, not until afterwards. Couldn't investigate. Let's go back to those missions that you flew that you put down a smoke screen. What was the purpose of that mission? They get them used to gas, being gassed, get their oxygen tanks on and all that stuff,

00:45:34.960 - 00:45:39.080

gas masks on. Okay. But those missions, they weren't shooting at you? No.

00:45:39.300 - 00:45:55.180

Okay. How long did you stay at Camp Davis? I stayed there about six months, and then they pulled fifteen of us out and sent us at Georgia, which was another anti-aircraft base.

00:45:56.360 - 00:46:10.280

They taught us how to fly the PQ-8 from the AT-17. That was a robot plane. I'd be sitting here in the co-pilot seat with a little box about this big, black, and I'd have a pilot flying the plane.

00:46:10.780 - 00:46:25.620

There's this little plane down there. Before we took off, I had to get that little plane off of this little box with toggle switches. It was sort of iffy. They had to ride that little plane until we learned how to do it, and that was wild because

00:46:26.000 - 00:46:40.360

it's just like being at the park where they're flying those little airplanes, you know. Imagine being in one of those. Well we didn't lose any aircraft, but we had a lot of crying. They were scared to death, and I don't blame them.

00:46:40.360 - 00:46:49.840

I was too when I was riding in that little plane. But they would go wild. The planes weren't perfected. The thing was not perfected, and sometimes you would lose control of it.

00:46:50.900 - 00:47:00.320

So you had to be real constant with it and watch it. Kelly: When you arrived at Camp Stewart, were there already wasps there flying? Steeler: Yes. I believe there were five.

00:47:01.440 - 00:47:11.540

Kelly: At that air base, where did you live? Steeler: On the base in the barracks. Kelly: Were there also male pilots doing these jobs? And same at Camp Davis?

00:47:11.540 - 00:47:23.640

Steeler: Yes. How did those male pilots treat the female pilots? Well, some did and some didn't, you know, just normal human beings. Most of the pilots at Captain Davis either ignored us or accepted us.

00:47:24.220 - 00:47:37.600

No one was real crude. Cap Stewart, it's about the same. The CO at Captain Stewart was real nice to us. The one at Captain Davis, he didn't believe in women pilots.

00:47:40.080 - 00:47:55.900

What did you do with your time off when you were at these bases? Lee: Nancy Lowe and I, she's from Fort Worth, got Christmas off, so we came home on the train knowing we could be bumped any time. But we were bumped in New Orleans.

00:47:56.360 - 00:48:08.720

It's a great place to get bumped in. So we went to the French Quarters and had lunch at the Twin of the Sisters or wherever they are, and then we went to this bar. And the funny thing is her cousin ran the bar.

00:48:09.440 - 00:48:20.700

So we had a big time that evening, and then we caught another train the next day and got on into Fort Worth. Were there a lot of servicemen in that bar? There were a lot of everything in that bar.

00:48:24.020 - 00:48:32.900

She was surprised because she did not know what her cousin was doing, and he did not know what she was doing. What was that Christmas like at home? Real nice and quiet.

00:48:33.780 - 00:48:46.020

By that time had you gotten a new uniform? Yes, we had uniforms then. Tell us about those uniforms. Well we got our winter uniforms at Camp Davis in the summer and they were wool and heavy

00:48:46.080 - 00:48:55.380

and hot so we wouldn't wear them. And Miss Cochran got really upset with us. But it was so muggy there that you'd wear them once and you had to send them to the cleaners and they just wilted.

00:48:56.420 - 00:49:13.200

So we used to wore our tans, khakis and shirts to fly in or fatigues, mostly fatigues. You'd have to dry clean them. I want to go back and ask you about when General Arnold talked to you. Was Miss Cochran present?

00:49:13.380 - 00:49:28.580

No, just my CO and General Arnold. Did Miss Cochran ever approach you about that at all? Never, never mentioned it. At Camp Davis, when you finished there, where did you go?

00:49:29.100 - 00:49:36.780

You mean Camp Stewart? Camp Stewart. The big field in El Paso, where we did the same thing. Do you know why you were transferred?

00:49:37.320 - 00:49:49.600

Yeah, we had graduated. We had finished the PQ training, and they wanted us out in El Paso to fly the PQ-8s for them. Now, they only tracked, I think, those PQ-8s, because I don't remember them ever shooting

00:49:49.680 - 00:49:58.380

one down. They had pretty bad shots. How did you get from Camp Stewart out to Biggs? I don't remember.

00:49:59.880 - 00:50:09.660

But there were several of you? Yes. at fifteen they pulled out. When you got to Biggs, where did you—

00:50:09.820 - 00:50:22.880

Stayed on the base in Biggs. And where did you eat? We ate in the mess hall with the officers. And at Biggs were there also male pilots flying?

00:50:22.880 - 00:50:40.100

Yes. Describe one of the missions when you got to Biggs. the same old thing. You towed targets with a B-25 or 24, and you did the tracking and you did the dive bombing, you did the same thing, or you flew the PQ-8. Same old drill.

00:50:40.980 - 00:50:58.140

What was your favorite kind of flying? Your favorite assignment? I think flying the AT-6 was my favorite. Like everybody thought that was a favorite. I did not mind flying the little PQ-8s.

00:50:58.160 - 00:51:15.860

You could sort of sleep and do that. When you are flying a larger plane, you have to be very alert at all times. At these bases, what were your social activities like? In Camp Davis, we had a Sergeant Fitz Gibbons from New York.

00:51:15.900 - 00:51:26.740

I thought he was an old man. He was probably 40. And he loved to dance. So he would organize a bunch of us pilots and women, and we would go somewhere to an

00:51:26.780 - 00:51:35.880

officer's club and dance. And we were chaperoned. He chaperoned us. We were not welcome at the officer's club at Camp Davis.

00:51:37.050 - 00:51:49.400

We had to sit upstairs because they did not want us down on the ground floor, so we would order boiled eggs and thump them over the side and get them. We were not welcomed by aircraft anywhere. It was just a thing.

00:51:50.300 - 00:52:06.180

We called them cannon cockers, and they called us flag girls. So just normal competition. Kelly: When you were stationed in any of these places, did you get temporary assignment to go to any other kind of training?

00:52:06.620 - 00:52:15.880

Steele: Where? Kelly: Did you go to Orlando, for example? Steele: No, I did not put in for that. Did you receive additional instrument training any place?

00:52:16.440 - 00:52:28.720

- We still had the lake trainer everywhere we went. - Okay. When you, what is your recollection when you first heard that the WASPs

00:52:28.800 - 00:52:39.720

were going to be disbanded? How did you feel? - We heard so many rumors that last six months, it's unreal. We heard they were, see every week or every day,

00:52:39.860 - 00:52:53.860

They told us we were going to be sworn into the Air Corps, because when we went in, we were sworn into the Air Corps, which was the Air Corps then. The other thing is, Civil Service paid us, and we had no rank, but we were treated as officers.

00:52:56.300 - 00:53:05.980

I would have liked to have gone ahead and gotten militarized instead of waiting all those years to get it. Not that I needed anything from them. I just would like to have some recognition.

00:53:09.840 - 00:53:28.580

When you were disbanded, did the air base do anything special to recognize the war? Some of the bases you just got on the best you could. Some of them, the COs would load the airplanes up and take the girls within a good distance of their home, convenient for them.

00:53:30.440 - 00:53:46.560

In looking at your uniform, explain what the insignia on your uniform. Tell me first about your wings. These wings probably, Miss Cochran gave probably the first six or seven classes, I don't remember which of these wings.

00:53:46.680 - 00:54:04.040

These were bombardier wings with the shield taken off and the shield put in. She didn't think, they didn't think about wings when they graduated, so it was really a huff and puff the first, they graduated, so she came up with bombardier wings and then she had them redone and made like this.

00:54:04.780 - 00:54:21.480

And after this, they just had the diamonds, big diamond with no clasp on it. Kelly: And your ribbons? Steele: Ribbons for good conduct in the American campaign and the victory campaign. Kelly: And the insignia on your shoulder.

00:54:21.480 - 00:54:29.220

Steele: This is a training unit. I do not know where it came from. Miss Deaton put them over here. She thought I needed something there, but I think it is a training command.

00:54:30.140 - 00:54:38.780

When were you issued this particular uniform? And how did that make you feel? - This one I'm a have on. - The sun yellow and blue. - The one like it.

00:54:39.720 - 00:54:54.300

One like it. We got these when we got to El Paso. They finally sent us the summer uniforms. - Ruth, what do you think made you excel

00:54:54.820 - 00:55:06.280

as you went through all these different training bases when so many girls were not able to do it? - I think the fear of walking out. I paid attention.

00:55:09.260 - 00:55:19.460

- When you were disbanded, where did you then go? - I went home and became a father's secretary. He was an accountant. And he laughed and said every time an airplane

00:55:19.820 - 00:55:29.120

flew over from Brownwood, I knocked all the screens out of his office, hanging out waving. But I was doing that when my husband came home from overseas

00:55:29.120 - 00:55:45.660

LCI skipper and they put him in Galveston since he'd been overseas three years and he kept coming up and coming up. I thought he was acting my girlfriend and she knew if they were plotting against me. So we finally got together and got married. Had you known him before you ran?

00:55:45.760 - 00:56:03.320

All my life. He ran around with my brothers and sister. Had you dated him in high school or college? No. Oh no, no. My brothers never let me date out of my class. Tell me, what are the qualities that you saw in him that attracted you to him?

00:56:04.160 - 00:56:17.500

Well, he was a lot of fun and he was very sincere and I knew his family. I liked him. And where did you get married? We got married in Brownwood at my home, my mother and daddy's house.

00:56:19.480 - 00:56:31.120

Tell me about your wedding. For example, my second brother was best man, and my girlfriend, Maxine Shaw, was a maid of honor. And the first Christian church minister married us.

00:56:32.300 - 00:56:41.200

Very nice. Someone, I don't know where the cake came from, but we had a cake, and one of my good friends, Janie Clements, sang always at the wedding.

00:56:41.440 - 00:56:50.560

And it was a real nice home wedding. - Was your brother back from overseas by that time? - Yes. No, no, it was for, yes, yes, he was.

00:56:50.680 - 00:56:55.500

I'm sorry. - And did he get to come to the wedding? - He was best man. - Best man, okay.

00:56:56.220 - 00:57:11.340

And then after you married, where did you go? - We went back to Galveston where Ben was stationed and we stayed there, oh, I guess until the summer. And he would go out three days to shake down ships

00:57:11.440 - 00:57:23.560

that Brown and Root were building and then come back in for three days and then go back out. Then after the war, what, Japanese surrendered, and we went through the mustering out program with him.

00:57:24.940 - 00:57:34.240

And he didn't want any disabilities, so he lied a lot. He just wanted to go home. And we went back to Brownwood and started working out at the lake with Ben's brother,

00:57:34.360 - 00:57:45.060

who had the boat dock in the dance hall. - When you were down at Galveston, and he was out on board ship for a week or so at a time, how did you spend your time?

00:57:45.860 - 00:57:54.340

Well, scared mostly. (laughs) Our apartment was in a neighborhood of different nationalities,

00:57:54.400 - 00:58:03.560

which I'd never been around. I was afraid of 'em. I spent a lot of time on the beach just walking. Rode the ferry a lot, killed time.

00:58:05.080 - 00:58:15.940

Nothing really hysterical. - Then you moved back to Brownwood and started working with the boats again. - How did you spend your time?

00:58:17.100 - 00:58:21.540

- Driving boats. - Driving boats. - Then I got pregnant and that stopped that. - Okay.

00:58:22.440 - 00:58:31.060

- We were living out at the lake and then we moved into town and he started looking for a job that he thought would be a lifetime job.

00:58:31.060 - 00:58:40.720

He was a top sailman in Texas for Procter & Gamble before he went into the Navy. And we agreed to marry if he didn't travel any more and I wouldn't fly.

00:58:41.000 - 00:58:50.540

So we both stayed with it. Besides, I couldn't afford to fly. -And what was this first baby? -A girl.

00:58:50.880 - 00:58:57.520

-A girl. And then did you have other children? -In two years, I had Francis. Those was Laura, then Francis.

00:58:58.120 - 00:59:08.140

Three years, I had Ben Jr., and five, I had Joe. -Wow. Tell me how you were involved with those children as they were growing up and their activities.

00:59:08.880 - 00:59:17.060

-Ever, forever. I didn't think I'd live that long to get away from home. We were busy, I was busy all the time. It was either taking one somewhere

00:59:18.380 - 00:59:27.740

or bringing one home and feeding those in the meantime and going again. It was a nightmare, but it was fun, real fun. - Tell me about some of the activities

00:59:28.020 - 00:59:39.940

that they were involved in that you... - Well, the girls were in the tri-Y at Permian High School, and I was co-sponsor of that. We had a lot of meetings and a lot of bake sales

00:59:39.940 - 00:59:51.980

and some excursion trips. With little Ben, he was football manager and he was in a tri-high-y thing, which didn't last long.

00:59:52.220 - 01:00:09.920

The club was disbanded. And Joe was in tennis and I traveled a lot with him. - With their school sports programs, Did you go to a lot of the ball games?

01:00:10.100 - 01:00:14.400

- Oh yes. - That they did? - The girls were in the Peppettes. And I went to that.

01:00:15.500 - 01:00:22.120

- How about PTA? - Oh yes. (laughing) And then we had Joe and it started all over again.

01:00:24.580 - 01:00:35.300

- At the present time, tell me about your children now. - My oldest girl, Laura, Maura in Midland, has a Montessori school over there and she carries it through,

01:00:35.860 - 01:00:50.140

I believe the fifth or sixth grade, I'm not sure. Francis is a teacher in Midland at Emerson Elementary. Little Ben, Ben Jr. is an attorney in Austin. And Joe is a CPA here in Odessa.

01:00:51.120 - 01:01:00.380

- And now tell me about your grandchildren. - Well, you have time. Little darling. My oldest one is 31 and the youngest one is seven weeks.

01:01:01.440 - 01:01:09.480

So they're all ages. And then we have five great-grandchildren. So I have a grandchild younger than my great-grandchildren. It goes on forever.

01:01:10.620 - 01:01:21.920

- Tell me about your activities now, Ruth. - Well, well actually I got the kids out of the house. Found some free time. I started working with American Cancer Society

01:01:22.580 - 01:01:32.080

and I taught CPR for Red Cross and first aid for Red Cross for years. I was on their board too. I've been working with Meals on Wheels

01:01:32.160 - 01:01:43.920

for about 15 years now. - And what do you do with Meals on Wheels? - We deliver hot lunches to them. And I don't know if I'm doing it or what it is.

01:01:44.600 - 01:01:54.060

- You're doing some oral histories. - Doing oral histories for the museum at the CAF, yes. It's very entertaining to do that. - Tell me the purpose of doing those.

01:01:54.560 - 01:02:05.700

- So many students are finding out about these male pilots, they wanna know more. And they're writing theses on them. So that is a library, they could go there

01:02:05.720 - 01:02:16.940

and check out these tapes and write their themes and bring 'em back. High school, Permian High School this past year, I gave an interview to four girls

01:02:17.680 - 01:02:27.620

who was writing a paper on me in history, which is most unusual. Tibbets came and spoke to Permian and that sort of stirred up the interest

01:02:27.700 - 01:02:36.340

and they asked me to come and I was introduced and they never heard of me, so that was all right. Even though I had a granddaughter there. - And tell me who Tibbets is.

01:02:36.900 - 01:02:48.120

- General Tibbets is the one that dropped the A-bomb. Very nice fellow. My two best friends are the ones that flew the B-29 for him because the men wouldn't fly it.

01:02:48.540 - 01:02:58.200

They were afraid it would catch on fire. He thought it was silly and he couldn't teach them to do their checking as they went out the runway to take off.

01:02:58.300 - 01:03:05.660

They were used to going out there and revving it up and checking everything. But it got overheated by the time they did that, and sometimes the fire would break out.

01:03:06.920 - 01:03:15.280

So the girls flew it to all the bases, showed the men and women it could fly it, and they started flying it. - I don't believe I asked you,

01:03:15.680 - 01:03:28.680

but when you were stationed at Camp Davis, did you, were any of the men killed who were doing the same jobs? Ruth, of all the things that you have done,

01:03:30.720 - 01:03:40.860

What is the one thing that you are most proud of? - I have four children that have college degrees. That wasn't easy. We're three at one time in college.

01:03:41.600 - 01:03:51.120

A lot of red beans went on the table. Well, I think that's an achievement. - What do you feel will be the legacy of the WASP? - The what?

01:03:51.500 - 01:04:01.800

- The legacy of the WASP. - Well, what you're doing is legacy. And TWU has got the library there. We have a fabulous library in Sweetwater,

01:04:02.660 - 01:04:10.360

but I don't know how this will end up. I have no idea when the last one goes, what's gonna happen. Probably at that age, she won't know either, I fear.

01:04:13.760 - 01:04:28.040

- What do you feel your legacy will be? - Oh, just be a grandma and a mother. It suits me fine. - If you could say something to your grandchildren

01:04:28.040 - 01:04:56.520

to children in future generations that might inspire them, what would you like to say to them? I'd like them to look back and see what's happened before and why and think about it and maybe they could correct it in the future and not believe everything they hear or see. Just think for themselves. Let me ask you, as you know, the WASP history was left out of the history books for the

01:04:56.360 - 01:05:25.480

most part. How do you feel about that? Well if they're going to bring the wax and the ways of them into history, why not the WASP? We were there too. And what is your opinion of what this project is trying to do? To let the public know that we were there. We volunteered to do what we did. We were not directed. We were given an option of do or don't do. And

01:05:28.460 - 01:05:48.120

just the right age at the right time with the right qualifications. Ruth, in life there are ups and downs. There are sad times and there are happy times. How did you get through the sad times? I have a lot of faith in God. My mother taught me that. She taught me prayer and that helps.

01:05:50.560 - 01:06:19.760

Is there anything that I have left out or any incident that you would like to tell us about? Well, when my brother got in, James got into the Air Corps, he was training down in Georgia somewhere. And I asked my CO, I was in Camp Davis, if I could check out A-25 and go visit him just for the day or just go in and out. So somehow Colonel Stevens was in a good humor that day and he said, "Yeah."

01:06:20.660 - 01:06:39.860

So I flew down there like I'd never gotten instructions to land. They kept telling me to go away. This was a military airfield and it was 825 trying to come in. "Please, Walden, get out of the airway." I kept saying, "Dammit, I am flying this way." Finally, they let me land. The MPs met me, more or less, and escorted me up to the flight line.

01:06:40.780 - 01:06:51.160

And they took me out of the aircraft. I had radioed in previously to have Lieutenant Thomas on the flight line. I needed to see him. So they had my brother and some of his cronies there.

01:06:51.280 - 01:07:03.920

Well, this is wintertime. I wore long red underwear and pinks, a pair of pinks. They were heavy. So I rolled up the pants to show my underwear and rolled up this to show my underwear and

01:07:03.980 - 01:07:13.340

got out. Well, James' teeth just dropped out. He wanted me to go home. I did not want anybody to know his sister was in an A-25 and he was flying PTs.

01:07:14.580 - 01:07:33.460

He cannot remember that, and I will never let him forget it, but that was fun. Reifeldt: What was the scariest thing that ever happened to you? Steele: Well, I had a blowout in an A-24 landing at Camp Davis. Our tires were paper thin because everything was left over.

01:07:36.740 - 01:07:50.900

I had a blowout on landing and I controlled it and got it off in the grass off the runway and the amulets arrived and yanked me out of there and threw me on a gurney and strapped me in and drove me 90 miles an hour back to the hospital infirmary. That scared me to death.

01:07:51.460 - 01:08:07.460

I was not hurt, but they hadn't done anything in two or three weeks and so they were having a big time. I should never ask for transfers from political prisoners. Ruth, I know some girls ask for transfers from Camp Davis.

01:08:07.740 - 01:08:17.820

Why did you not ask for a transfer? You either have the chance of doing it or go home. Now those that wanted a transfer went home. We did what we were signed to do.

01:08:19.280 - 01:08:27.360

With no regrets? With no regrets. I lived through it and that's all. Ruth, you have had an extraordinary life.

01:08:27.480 - 01:08:38.060

I have. I did not think about it until probably ten years ago, because no one ever knew it or ever mentioned it. If I told them anything about it in Brownwood, they would look at me like, "Boy, you are

01:08:38.680 - 01:08:45.660

lying." They thought I was probably a secretary in the Air Corps. They did not have any idea I was flying, even though I told them I was. Now she is telling a big one.

01:08:47.980 - 01:09:00.660

But Brownwood-Bulliton featured me, oh, two or three months ago, and they were amazed the people were. So that's the way it goes. Extraordinary. Anything else you would like to say?

01:09:00.670 - 01:09:12.300

Funny story? Do you have a funny story that happened? No, I think I told you about it. Oh, I flew up to Winston-Salem one time from Camp Davis to see this kid that lived across the street from me.

01:09:13.500 - 01:09:28.120

Mother wrote and said Joe's based up there in the Air Corps. So I got the plane, checked out, went up there to see him, and I radioed in and had trouble landing again. When I did, the MPs followed me through again and yanked me out of the aircraft. In fact, I did not go to the flight line.

01:09:28.180 - 01:09:39.480

They yanked me out on the fairway and they taxied it up. And they took me to the CO's office and he was charging me with stealing a military aircraft and impersonating an officer. Well, I just got me stuck.

01:09:39.620 - 01:09:46.060

I laughed. I cried. And I kept saying, "Call Colonel Stevenson in Camp Davis." "Oh, he won't know anything."

01:09:46.060 - 01:09:55.180

You know, it just went on and on. I knew they couldn't do anything to me and I knew they were going to look like fools. So we got through with them. So they wanted to know what I was doing there, and I told them I wanted to see my friend

01:09:55.280 - 01:10:02.780

Joe Beckham. Well, Joe heard all about it, so he disappeared. We never did find him. He did not want anybody to know he was there anyhow.

01:10:03.780 - 01:10:18.980

So I finally got Colonel Stevenson, cheered him out a little bit, and I went on back. But it was fun to do that. They had no idea who we were or why we were in those aircraft. The Ferry Girls really went through it, going to a strange base.

01:10:19.980 - 01:10:26.080

- And to this day, most of them still don't know. - That's right. - Did they ever apologize? - Did they ever apologize to you?

01:10:27.180 - 01:10:42.660

- Oh no, military does not apologize. - Ruth, wonderful life. Thank you for sharing it with future generations. - Thank you for asking me to, I enjoyed it.

01:10:45.000 - 01:10:50.900

- Awesome. - You can cut. - Cut it off. -Ruth, you were awesome. -Oh, you're great.

01:10:51.000 - 01:10:58.960

-You are. You are. -Listen, I've been doing speeches for three years. -Oh, you are just awesome. -I enjoyed it. -That was great. -Enjoyed it.

01:10:59.040 - 01:11:04.260

-That was wonderful. -Okay. -That was terrific. -Thank you so much. -Yeah. -Thank you for asking me. -We're done. -I know.

01:11:04.540 - 01:11:06.260

-We'd love for you to stick around for a little bit.