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because we're going to have to have a better computer than we had. It has spell check and all that now. [laughs] Oh, this is wonderful.

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And when he brought me that, he said, "I got an A+ on it." I'll bet he did. But it's very obvious that his parents helped a lot. You know, they talk about parents who are not involved.

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Well, they were very, very much involved. Yeah, but that's important. - I'm Jeannie Parish. We are interviewing Sylvia Clayton

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in her home in Tucson, Arizona. She was a WASP class 43-5. Today is the 3rd of November, 2001. The videographer is Nancy Parish.

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Okay, Sylvia, if you'll just tell us your name and when and where you were born and then we'll go from there. - I'm Sylvia Clayton.

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I was born in Minnesota, very close to Clements, Minnesota. Went to school. Do you need that? Yeah. No, I'm going to ask you first. You ask me.

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Okay. Who were your parents, Sylvia? My father was Robert Oliver Dames. My mother was Frida Otto Dames, after she married. Tell me about your siblings. I have one brother and one sister.

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My brother was in the infantry during World War II and was injured in service and was in Battle Creek, Michigan, in the hospital, Percy Jones Hospital, for 18 months. My sister was two years younger than I am. She finished college, got her degree.

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My brother went back to school because he had been planning to be a music major, music teacher, and with his arm with a brace on it, he could not do that. So he went to Tulane University and got his law degree there and has lived in New Orleans all the time.

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Tell me about your mom and dad. My father was, I think he was exceptional because he was born in 1886 and he went to college and was a graduate engineer. We have a picture of the engineering class that he was in.

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He also had a certificate for teaching and he taught school in Fargo, North Dakota for a while. Then he came back and during World War I, bought a farm. I think his mother did not approve of the men going to war, and she saw to it that all

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four of her sons had farms. In 1917, he met my mother and they married. She did not have a college education, but she was one child from a large family, a German father and mother who came from Germany.

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His opinion was, "If anybody in this family is going to speak English, I'll do it. Everybody else is going to speak German." She was very, very sharp, I thought, because her grammar was excellent. My father died when I was in high school in 1937, and she managed to put the three of

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us through college because she knew my father wanted college education for us. When you were growing up, where did you live? Did you live on a farm? Yes, I lived on a farm.

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Describe that farm. It was a 160-acre farm, and it was in the area where they grew corn, wheat, oats, rye, barley. And one of the most fun times I can remember is when the threshers were there and the kids

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got to play in the grain as it came out of the threshing machine in the bins. How far out from town was the farm? It was about seven miles out of town. When I got into high school, we had to drive back and forth.

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Living out on the farm, did you have chores as a child? Yes. There were some, like picking up eggs or feeding the chicken or chickens, or helping with picking weeds out of the garden, because we had a garden and raised a lot of our own vegetables.

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We had a big orchard with apples. When you were growing up as a child, Sylvia, tell me, what was a Christmas like in your home? We had Christmas trees and they had little real candles on them.

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When I think of it now, I think it was really quite dangerous because the presents were down under that tree and there weren't very many. Because sometimes we'd get new socks or new mittens. I remember wanting a doll, a special doll.

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I got her. My sister got one like her, except in different colors of clothes. The chairs, we wanted chairs for those dolls, and the chairs were too small. They fit the other dolls.

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But yes, the one thing I remember was when we were listening for Santa Claus to come, At that point, we were still believing that he would come in a sleigh because it was Minnesota and there was snow. We heard jingle bells.

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I never could figure that out. Later, my mother said my dad had used chisels and banged them together. That was the sound of the bells. The church we went to always had a great big Christmas tree that went to the ceiling, and

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the children were all given bags of nuts and bags of candy. Or bags of fruit. A lot of times it was apples and oranges. Before Christmas, did you hang up a stocking?

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No, didn't have a mantle. We had a small house, really, just a two-bedroom house that was probably only about 24 by 24, and then it had a big porch all the way across the one end that was screened in. During the summer, our beds were out on that porch, and we slept out there.

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Then we had - my dad made some screens so that if it started to rain, we could put the screens up and didn't have to move the beds inside. What was Christmas dinner like? Family got together.

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It was a big potluck for all of the members of my father's family. He had three brothers, and they all married and had children. He had two sisters, although the one was a missionary who went to Brazil and married the doctor

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who was in charge of this. He built a hospital there, and she was there for, I don't know how many years, but he was there 50 years. But the families that were in Minnesota,

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and all of them were close around, and we got together and had a spread of food you could hardly believe. Pies, cakes, cookies, salads, turkey. It was a good time. Tell me about your grandparents.

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My grandfather died before my father and mother were married. His father died of bee stings And then his mother had cancer. She died relatively young. It was, I think, 53.

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And I remember visiting her. And I was only three years old when she died, but I remember sitting on the bed beside her. And she promised me a ride in her buggy

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with her two white horses. I don't remember whether I ever got it, but I remember that promise. And I actually remember the casket.

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Yeah. Then my mother's parents came from Germany, and I really didn't have very much association with them. Partly because I couldn't speak German. I took German in high school, but I couldn't speak German,

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and they -- my grandmother never did speak English. During the summer, when you were a child, what were your vacations? Did you have vacations? Oh, yes.

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We had three months of vacation, and it was going barefooted and wearing coveralls. I never had a bicycle. Of course, there wasn't a place to ride bicycles, really, because it was gravel roads. I remember playing school with my sister.

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Kelly: Even before you started school? Dyson: No, I was in school and I had some books. My dad bought us books, and I would make her do math and reading. I was a teacher always.

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Kelly: Tell me what you remember about starting school. How did you get back and forth to school? How far was that? was two and a half miles to school, and it was a little country school that had one room

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and all eight grades in it, and one teacher. We did walk quite a bit when the weather was good, but in the winter when it was really cold or there was a lot of snow, my father would take us with, he called it a little cutter, a little sled with two runners, and he built probably the first camper shell that went over that and put little benches on either

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side and so we'd sit on those benches. He put a window in so he could, as you'd say, the horses and through the snow and sometimes it was so deep it was... Would one horse pull it? Two horses.

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Two horses. Two horses. My mother would heat bricks in the oven of the stove and wrap them in rugs and we put our feet on those to keep us from freezing our toes.

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Because it got down to below zero many times. Describe a typical day at school with eight classes in one room. Describe what that was like. Well, my parents started me at the same time they started my brother, who was 18 months

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older. He was actually seven in July, and I was just five. My stomach got so upset every time they said, "Well, it's time to go to school." The teacher would hold me on her lap.

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I remember that. She tried to teach the other kids, holding me on her lap. And finally, the decision was that I was just too immature and I shouldn't come until next year.

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And so that was it. But there might be only two children in your class, because I don't think there ever were more than twenty students in the whole school. Maybe there were, but it was...

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- Did you have desks? - Oh yes, we had desks. And we had penmanship to learn to write, and we had times when we had exercise,

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we'd get up and do exercises. I guess that was to keep us awake. And-- - Did you have recess?

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- We had recess. We'd play out on the school grounds. And it was not a building with running water or bathrooms. We had outhouses.

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- And what did you do for lunch? - We packed our lunch, we took our sandwiches and thermos jugs with maybe milk or sometimes we had warm soup in 'em.

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But everything had to be taken. My mother would pack the bags with some fruit in a dessert, like a cookie or a piece of cake, but a sandwich. We did not have potato chips then.

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Kelly: For the sandwiches, did your mother bake the bread? Lowdermilk Honstein Oh, yes. She baked the bread. The beef was slaughter and we had freezers that we rented in town and they'd freeze, they'd cut up the beef and put it in packages. She'd take it home and roast the beef, made dried beef

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and smoked hams. So we had plenty of food, meat, but the bread was, and the butter was home churned, at least for many years. Now, later on, we bought bread and bought butter. What would you do when the teacher was teaching a student in another class level? Then what would the rest of the students do?

00:15:03.300 - 00:15:21.200

She gave us homework to do. I mean, it was called homework, but we had work to do there. We had math work to do, we had penmanship to practice, and poems to learn. What was your favorite subject? Math.

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Yeah, I liked math. And when I got into high school, that still was my favorite. And did you go to this one-room schoolhouse for all eight years? I went there for six years and then we changed to another school which was on the way.

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So when my brother drove into high school, he could leave us off at this other school. But it was the same type of school, one teacher and all eight grades. So the seventh and eighth grade, I went to that school and then on to high school from there.

00:16:01.740 - 00:16:14.900

In that seventh and eighth grades, did you have other activities associated with school other than academics? Did you have music? No, there was no music.

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These days in schools, kids are given so many different things, but when you think of one teacher trying to teach eight grades, no. It was the same type of thing, where we had penmanship, we had to practice that, exercises we had to get up to make sure we were still awake.

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Sometimes we listened to the other classes, because what the kids were doing sounded like something very interesting. Were you required to do a lot of reading? And did you have a library?

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Where did you get your books? Marge: There was a library in the schools. Both of them had libraries. We did read books from that library.

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I can remember when my sister was in, I think it was first grade, she did not want to read very much. My father, having been a schoolteacher, she was going to read. I remember she crawled under the table one night and she said, "I am just going to

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stay here until I die. I am not going to learn to read." She did. Kelly: Then you moved on into high school.

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What was your high school like? It was, well, the first year it was an old building which burned down during the summer, and then they crowded us all into the new elementary school and combined classes and things. But we thought we had probably the best high school building of anyone in the whole area.

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They had slanted blackboards so there was not a reflection on them. The lighting was on an electric eye, so if it got cloudy and dark, the lights would come on. It was very modern and very nice when it was built.

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Kelly: Do you recall any special teacher that might have influenced you in high school? There were several teachers I really enjoyed. The math teacher, Mr. McCurdy, I thought was excellent, because I think he could explain math to anybody, so they could do it.

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Then we had Ms. Sturdivant for English, and she was very good. You learned your grammar, you learned how to make a sentence, how to make a paragraph. She taught you all that. Kelly: How large were your classes in high school?

00:19:08.660 - 00:19:28.460

Steele: I think my class had about sixty-eight when we graduated. I was a Valedictorian. Kelly: What were your dreams as you were growing up? Steele: All three of us knew we were going to go to college.

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It was just a matter of what were we going to major in. I changed my mind several times. At first, I wanted to be a dietitian. I went to St. Olaf College one year, which is still known all over the world for their

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musical groups that travel. I thought it was probably the most beautiful campus there was. Then my father died and my mother could not afford St. Olaf for me. We went to this smaller college in Lamars, Iowa, which was called Western Union at that

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time. My brother was in college and I was there at the same time, because I transferred my credits. That was where I took my civilian pilot training program in my junior year.

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While I was there, I changed my mind. I didn't really want to be a dietician anymore. I wanted to be a medical technician. So I transferred my credits and went to the Northwest Institute of Medical Technology.

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Actually they transferred those credits back to Western Union, so I graduated from Western Union in 1942. Let me take you back to high school and ask you, did you have a high school prom? Oh, yes.

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Tell me about that. I thought I was not going to have a date even. And then I was so pleased that there were twin boys in my class, and one of those twins invited me.

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And my mother took me to a store and I had one of the most beautiful prom dresses in aqua with some lace trim. And I was on top of the world. It was just beautiful.

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Some of the parents apparently worked in the kitchen and fixed up food for the meal for us because we didn't go out to a restaurant. There was not a big restaurant that would take all the kids and their dates. So they served it in the high school, in the cafeteria.

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I do not remember who spoke. I remember I spoke because of being in the valedictorian. Did you have a dance? Yes, but I did not really know how to dance.

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I tried. I tried. Okay, from that, let's go to your graduation. Describe your graduation.

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Well, you mean from college or from high school? No, from high school. Did you have gowns, cap and gowns? Yes.

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We rented them. Yeah, we rented them. And did you give a speech at graduation? Yeah, I did.

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What did you speak about? I don't remember what. And I was so scared. I have no idea, and I think I have nothing in writing or in my records that would tell

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me what I talked about. What was your social life like in high school, other than the prom? Well, when you live seven miles out of town and you got out of classes about four o'clock in the afternoon, you went home, you did your homework, and there was not a lot.

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We did not have things planned for entertainment. I do not remember that there was just much of anything in the way of entertainment for the high school kids. When you lost your dad, what was the biggest adjustment that you kids and your mom had

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to make? Steele: Well, he was the farmer at that time, and my brother was in college. The one year he came home then to help with farming. My mother hired a man to run the farm because she felt it was so much more important for

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my brother to finish college and for me to get there and to make all the necessary arrangements. That was in 1942, when I graduated from college, and that was not a very prosperous time for farmers. I know what she had to do was borrow money against the farm for the tuition for us.

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Now, the college, this Western Union, had more interesting things going on, musical groups and they planned parties and things. My mother eventually, after I left there, she went to work there at the college in charge of the student help in the kitchen and the dining room.

00:25:05.960 - 00:25:20.640

They had a dietician who planned the meals, but she did a lot of the work and lived actually in the dormitory with the girls. Kelly: When you started there, did you live at home when you went to Western? Or did you—

00:25:20.640 - 00:25:38.960

Steele: Western Union? No, no, I lived in a dormitory, because that was about 150 miles from my home. The thing was that it was a church college, the Methodist Church, the Evangelical Church, and I do not know, there were three of them.

00:25:39.220 - 00:26:09.140

That was why it was called the Western Union, because it was the different Protestant groups. They were very strict about being in on time, and no smoking, no drinking. If you did, you just were out, you had to leave. When my mother was there in charge of the student help, they had a contract with the

00:26:09.260 - 00:26:35.900

Navy and had Navy cadets come in. When I took flight training there in the civilian pilot training program, they bought their own airport. They claimed they were the only college in the United States to have an airport. They had a contract with a company and had three different instructors. We had to ride

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out to this airport and back. Different fellows had cars. The only reason I took flying there was because during the summer my brother had a letter from the college saying they were going to offer this program, pilot training program, at government expense and was he interested. He'd always wanted to be a pilot and so he wrote back and said yes. Well, when we got to school in

00:27:07.780 - 00:27:24.020

September, they called a meeting of all those who had been interested and he came out of that and and he said, "They're going to let one girl be in it, and you're going to be it." Well, we went to Sioux City to take our physical exams,

00:27:24.820 - 00:27:37.840

and they let me take mine first, and I passed. And after he took his, he didn't. He was colorblind, and he couldn't pass the test. And so, we always thought he was just kind of color dumb,

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because he didn't know his colors. But he was in the National Guard at that time, and so he ended up in the infantry. What made you want to fly? I think just to do something different than all the other girls in college.

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And I got to wear slacks and a jacket, and at that time girls wore dresses all the time, skirts and dresses. And I think it was, I just thought I could do it and I was going to prove that I could do it.

00:28:12.930 - 00:28:33.880

Kelly: That is good. I wanted to ask you how you felt about your education in growing up in a one-room schoolhouse. How do you think your education compared with children who grew up in large schools? I think we had excellent education, really.

00:28:34.740 - 00:29:14.620

And I think in some ways, the penmanship, the grammar, the math, basic math, I think it was just as good as anything the kids get today. They've got a lot of advantages now with the computer and all that, but I think the basics were excellent. And I think in high school, the teachers we had were as good as any teachers these days. They had to know their subjects, and you know, to teach, maybe they'd only have seven different

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grades because there'd be some kids who were not in one grade. But to know the subjects for all of those different grades, I think, was very good. I don't remember ever feeling that any of my teachers were poor teachers. Kelly: Once you started taking flying lessons, what did your mom think about that?

00:29:45.640 - 00:30:13.940

I had to get her signature because at that time I was underage. I wasn't 21 yet. And there was only a period of like a week or something to get her signature, to get it back to her in the mail, and then get it signed and back to the school. And what I did was I sent the mail carrier a letter at the same time I sent hers,

00:30:14.140 - 00:30:25.140

and I asked him to please wait and have her sign the papers and just send it back. And I sent an envelope with a sample on it, and it worked and I got it back in time.

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But then she said afterwards, she thought, "Why did I do that? "Here I'm spending money on her to go to college. "She might kill herself."

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But I think as time went on, she was real pleased that I was being a pilot. My brother was very supportive of it because he wanted to be a pilot. I think all the time my sister was supportive too. Of course, you see my father died when I was a junior in high school, so it was my mother only who

00:31:05.880 - 00:31:17.660

had to make the decision. And she did not say no. Do you recall in your hometown seeing airplanes? Did you have an airport?

00:31:20.100 - 00:31:38.920

Or was it after you got to college? I do not think we had one at that time. We used to see airplanes fly over our farm on their way from the Twin Cities to Kansas City or Sioux City, something like that.

00:31:40.800 - 00:32:00.580

But no, I do not think there was an airport there. Recall, if you can, where you were and what you heard about Pearl Harbor and how that affected you. I remember very well where I was the day of December 7th.

00:32:01.740 - 00:32:22.700

I was still going to the Northwest Institute of Medical Technology and living with another girl who was going to school there and living with this couple. We heard about it. It was just like, you can't believe that this happened.

00:32:25.260 - 00:32:42.020

Where were the police? Where were the people who should have prevented that? I did finish school in June. They transferred the credits back to the college and I got my degree there.

00:32:42.800 - 00:32:56.440

They accepted the science courses. I remember that day very well. I was not in school at the time. I think it was on a Sunday.

00:32:59.180 - 00:33:16.800

It was... Kelly: Then how long before your brother left to go into service? Klein: They were mobilized in, I think it was March, because he was National Guard. Maybe it was February.

00:33:17.300 - 00:33:41.180

He had all of his courses that he needed to graduate, but it was before the graduation when they were mobilized. I think he reported to a base down in Louisiana. Kelly: When did you first hear about the WASP training program and how?

00:33:41.660 - 00:34:14.280

I was working as a medical technician at Harper Hospital in Detroit, Michigan. In order to get out to the airport and maybe get some flying, I joined the Civil Air Patrol. We would meet and we would march and we would march and we would march and we would talk flying and we had simulated missions, search and rescue missions, and one of the ladies

00:34:14.380 - 00:34:37.480

said, "You know, there was an article in the paper about Jacqueline Cochran starting a flying school for women." So I checked on that right away because I thought, if somebody would pay me to fly instead of my using all my money to fly, I'd do it.

00:34:39.520 - 00:34:53.700

And I don't remember how I contacted Jacqueline Cochran, and I'm not sure who the one was that interviewed me. At some time, I'm going to have to look that up and see if I have a record of it.

00:34:54.360 - 00:35:22.500

But I had to take a physical, and the interview was Detroit, and then I received the letter in, I think it was in February, saying that I had been accepted into the program and report on, I think it was March 23rd, at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas, at your own expense, and you would be paid, I think it was a hundred

00:35:22.580 - 00:35:42.720

than some $125 or something. But you would live in the barracks and then you had to take all these courses, the ground school courses. Of course, in the civilian pilot training program, there had been these courses on aviation,

00:35:44.240 - 00:36:00.480

navigation, weather, and engines and things. So then, reporting to Sweetwater, we went through a lot of the same type of courses. Let me go back and ask you about your solo flight. Do you recall your solo flight?

00:36:01.300 - 00:36:28.480

Yes, and I was scared. But it was a little field that actually had cattle running on it. I remember the instructor said to me, "If you can't miss the cattle, you have no business being a pilot. It was take off, go around, come back and land. I think we had to do that

00:36:28.560 - 00:36:43.280

like three times. Kelly: What kind of airplane? Steele: Porterfield. A little Porterfield, which was like a little cub. Kelly: During the time that you were flying, before you entered training, was there ever

00:36:43.360 - 00:37:06.120

a time when you were really afraid? No, it was the time that I was most afraid was the night I took a BT-13 out. Some of our class members had just crashed a day or two before, and that didn't make any difference.

00:37:06.230 - 00:37:20.560

You flew the next day anyhow. I know I sat at the end of the runway thinking, "I'm going to crash tonight. I know I don't know enough about night flying. I was scared.

00:37:21.030 - 00:37:38.880

I did a lot of praying that night before I took off. What did your mom think when you told her you were going into flight training? I think she thought it was great. She did not object at any time.

00:37:40.480 - 00:37:57.520

The fact that I was going to be paid, I mean, I was going to have a job where I was earning money, I think she thought that was fine. How did you know about Jacqueline Cochran, and what did you know about her when you heard about the program?

00:37:57.520 - 00:38:20.760

We talked about that at this CAP, Civil Air Patrol meeting. I really did not know much about it, except that there was an article in the paper that told about the program, just a short article as I remember. I wish I could remember.

00:38:21.220 - 00:38:45.460

Hartung, a woman whose husband had the airport, I mean it was named after him, and she was in the Civil Air Patrol class. I think she was the one that said, "Did you see the article in the paper?" Kelly: How did you get from Minnesota to Texas?

00:38:46.410 - 00:38:58.040

Dyson: Train. Yeah, it was on a train. Kelly: Did you know any other girls who were going to be accepted? "No." I thought I was being so brave all by myself.

00:39:02.080 - 00:39:24.920

What were your expectations if you completed that training course? What did they tell you what you would be doing? The whole idea when my class started, I think, was that we were going to be ferrying airplanes from manufacturers to the east coast where they were going to be packaged for overseas,

00:39:25.600 - 00:39:59.460

or delivering them to places where there were training classes, taking them to be modified or bringing them back after they've been modified. Being at Romulus, Michigan, a lot of our planes were made in Canada, and I have no idea what the arrangement was. But they were at either Fort Erie, Ontario, where the PT-26s were made, or they were Montreal,

00:39:59.720 - 00:40:17.440

where the AT-16s were manufactured. And then we flew them to Fort Dix, New Jersey. Kelly: Why do you think the WASPs were needed? because we were told that there were not enough pilots and these planes needed to

00:40:17.540 - 00:40:34.160

be moved and that I felt as if I'm going to be doing something that helps the war effort because they don't have enough pilots. And we had signed a little... I think she's at, aren't you at the film? - Yeah, we're about to roll out of it.

00:40:34.520 - 00:40:43.020

- Okay, she's gotta change the film. Oh, you're doing great. You're doing great, I love this. We have a lot in common.

00:40:43.700 - 00:40:59.600

I was also devout about the public. When you got to Sweetwater on the train and met all the other girls, then tell me what happened. - Well, there were a whole group

00:40:59.600 - 00:41:25.660

at the Blue Bonnet Hotel. I was told that we were to wait there and they would bring a cattle truck that we got on and rode out to Avenger Field. Had you been to Texas before? No, that was new to me.

00:41:26.480 - 00:41:45.180

All the wind and the sand was new to me. And this was March, so we went through the hot, hot summer. But you know, I think I felt as if put up with anything just to fly, because I loved it.

00:41:47.280 - 00:42:03.000

It was so exciting to me. You got up there in that airplane, there were no problems. You were above all the problems down on the run. Kelly: Describe your living quarters and who were your classmates or your baymates.

00:42:04.820 - 00:42:20.260

Steele: There were six of us. At the time we got there, there were still some cadets living in one of the barracks' buildings. We were in another one and there were six girls assigned to each one of the rooms with

00:42:20.400 - 00:42:32.460

a connecting bathroom. So there were twelve of us sharing a bathroom. And I don't remember whether there were two showers, two toilets, or what it was. I think there were.

00:42:33.240 - 00:42:47.280

But there was Margaret Ray, Frances Green, Jeanne Garvin, Wilma Moorhead, who was the other one? There were six of us. I was there.

00:42:50.460 - 00:43:01.400

Anyway, all... You were shy. No, she wasn't in that class. I'd have to look at the picture in Tom Brokaw's book now, I guess, to see.

00:43:01.880 - 00:43:15.960

Anyway, we all graduated, we all got our wings, even though there were days when we thought we were going to wash out. Not one of us did. Kelly: Go through a typical day in training.

00:43:17.310 - 00:43:30.960

Lowry: Up early. Put on your suit, your great big jumpsuit. You can see in that picture what it looked like. I had a size 42 that they issued to me.

00:43:31.000 - 00:43:46.440

they didn't have anything smaller. And at that time I only weighed about 110 pounds, so it was a little big. And we pulled it up, tied the belt, and rolled up the cuffs

00:43:46.620 - 00:44:02.540

at the bottom, rolled up the sleeves. And the first thing we did then was stand at attention for the bugle call. We went to breakfast and then started classes.

00:44:03.180 - 00:44:20.240

And half of our class went to the flight line mornings, and the other class had ground school. Then the next, I mean, this shifted, you know. I don't know the next week or what it was,

00:44:20.470 - 00:44:43.420

but then we'd fly mornings, go to classes. It was half the class in the morning, half in the afternoon, flying half in classes. Kelly: Who were your instructors? I do not remember the first one, no.

00:44:45.740 - 00:45:05.340

Mr. Lavender, we called him Mr. Purple. You know, I would have to look in the book. But I remember my pursuit instructor, Mr. Hunsaker. Kelly: Were they civilians or Army personnel?

00:45:05.640 - 00:45:22.200

Who were the personnel? They were all civilians, and then we had our check rides with military pilots. Kelly: What was the biggest adjustment that you had to make? Mildred: To which?

00:45:22.500 - 00:45:40.380

Living in a room with five other girls? That was one of the biggest ones. As a medical technician, I lived in the hospital. The hospital had rooms for the nurses and technicians, so that we lived right in the

00:45:40.480 - 00:46:03.900

hospital and ate in the cafeteria, but there were only two of us in a room. Going down to Sweetwater, it was a matter of six in a room, the cot, and the locker. That was it. Kelly: What did you do with your free time?

00:46:05.800 - 00:46:28.440

Did you have weekends off? Steele: At first we were what they called quarantined. I think the people in town were kind of afraid they had a bunch of wild women on their hands. When we did get time off, we'd go into town to shop or to eat steaks at the Blue Bonnet.

00:46:28.540 - 00:46:43.520

Then there was another restaurant there that had good steaks. Back out to the barracks. Kelly: What was the first airplane that you flew in training? Mildred: In training?

00:46:43.520 - 00:46:59.920

The PT-19, the low-wing, open cockpit. How was that different from what you had been flying? Well, it had more horsepower and of course was open cockpit. What I'd been flying was like a little cub.

00:47:03.700 - 00:47:16.600

It was tandem. Do you recall your solo in the PT-19? No, I don't think that was... I think I was pretty confident at that point.

00:47:17.680 - 00:47:42.640

How was your training different from that of the male cadets who were learning to fly? We were told that we were getting the same training that the male cadets were getting, except that we got more cross-country. I think we got less acrobatics than they did, because going into combat they had to have

00:47:42.760 - 00:47:59.020

that. We were told it was the same thing that the cadets over in this other barracks were getting. Kelly: Did you get marching, learning how to march? Reifeldt: Oh, we had a lot of marching.

00:47:59.480 - 00:48:08.920

We marched in everything. We marched to go to the dining room. We marched to class. And what was his name?

00:48:09.120 - 00:48:29.260

There was a young officer there who decided that we needed PT. We got out there and he had us doing push-ups and all sorts of exercises, because he thought that we were not in good shape. Kelly: Is the name LaRue?

00:48:29.360 - 00:48:58.500

Le Roux, that was at Le Roux. And Major Garin was the commanding officer, I think, at that time. I remember meeting him on the sidewalk one day, and he looked at me and he said, "Go to supply, they got in some smaller size suits." And I did, and I got one.

00:48:59.380 - 00:49:07.800

>> Describe the auxiliary flying fields. What would you do there? >> Land and take off. That was just about it.

00:49:09.360 - 00:49:24.900

It was used just -- you know, when you think about it, there were three classes at the same time, flying -- three primary, basic, and advanced, all flying from the same field.

00:49:25.360 - 00:49:41.780

And primary, we used the red-green lights only. We didn't have radio contact. And how we managed when there were, what was it, 134 in my class to begin with?

00:49:41.840 - 00:49:52.800

And you divide that and there were 60-some out at the flight line at the same time. The other classes the same way. And of course, they didn't have that many flying

00:49:52.800 - 00:50:17.380

at the same time, but how did they manage to keep us from killing each other when they had primary, basic, single-engine, and twin-engine advance all flying from the same field? It was marvelous, really, when you think about it. Kelly: As girls would wash out, how would that make you feel?

00:50:17.840 - 00:50:46.880

scared that I'd do the same thing. I know on one of my flights with a young military officer, I couldn't hear on the intercom, I couldn't hear what he was saying and what he was telling me to do. He finally grabbed the plane because there was a girl who was flying alone and didn't

00:50:46.880 - 00:51:15.720

pay attention and I was trying to figure out what he was saying and I didn't pay attention. And if he hadn't grabbed the controls, we probably would have hit right there in mid-air. And I thought then I would be out. And I wasn't. She was the one that was out because she didn't have the distraction of an instructor telling her what to do. And I guess he gave me credit

00:51:15.720 - 00:51:51.400

for that. But it was, every time we had a checkride, you wondered whether you were doing a good enough job and just prayed you were. When you finished primary training, what was the next step? the Basic. I do not remember that—I do not think we had any time in between classes.

00:51:51.940 - 00:52:20.840

I think we just went from one and made the transition into the Basic, and the same way the transition into the Advanced and into the Twin Engine UC-78. Kelly: What was the purpose of Basic? What did you do? The basic was the BT-13 or 15, which is a lot different than the PT-19, in power and

00:52:20.940 - 00:52:43.500

the controls. We got more acrobatics. There was a definite plan that you had to be able to do. You had to do these lazy eights, you had to learn spot landing.

00:52:45.320 - 00:52:56.040

Watching for other aircraft was one of the, I think, big things. Kelly: Did you get some instrument training? Reid: Yes, I did. Kelly: How did they do instrument training?

00:52:57.700 - 00:53:11.960

Describe that. Reid: That must have been in advance that we took the instrument training. There was a hood that went over us so that we could not see out, and all we could see were the instruments.

00:53:12.920 - 00:53:37.320

We had an instructor with us and learned the "dick dot dot" Morse code, and for trying to figure out which area you were in for an approaching of an airport, which, I do not know what they called it, segment you were in? Kelly: Quadrant.

00:53:37.460 - 00:54:05.300

Wearth: Quadrant, that was it, which quadrant you were in. Kelly: How many months were each of these sections, do you recall? No, but I got there March 23rd and reported to Romulus. Well, we had two weeks, I believe, between graduation and reporting to Romulus, Michigan.

00:54:06.480 - 00:54:15.800

But I did not report. We graduated in September. So it was April, May, June, July, August, September. It was a little over six months, I think.

00:54:16.120 - 00:54:43.580

Describe for me one of your cross-countries. I will tell you about... Most of them were pretty good. I could read my map and see my checkpoints and do fine. But there was one PT-19 that I was delivering, I think, someplace down in Georgia.

00:54:44.120 - 00:55:05.360

And I felt the minute I took off, there were a bunch of us that took off at the same time, one right after another, and I was one of the last ones. And for some reason, I felt as if I was not headed in the right direction by the compass. The compass just seemed to me not to be right.

00:55:05.940 - 00:55:33.180

And the other planes all got so far ahead of me, I did not seem to have the right power or anything. And I just plain was lost because I did not, I could not depend on that compass, I was sure. And then I saw another plane and I flew over to that and it happened to be Wilma Moorhead, who was one of my bay mates. And I threw up

00:55:33.280 - 00:55:50.460

my hands and she looked at me and she threw up her hands. We were both lost and and we spotted a town down below. And you remember in Texas, every town had a water tower with the name written on it.

00:55:51.200 - 00:56:03.400

And what we did was we went down and we circled that water tower so low that we could read what it said. And cars on the highway stopped to see what we were doing.

00:56:04.380 - 00:56:20.960

We figured out where we were and where we had to go. and we landed before dark, where we were supposed to go. But that was really the only time that I ever felt on a cross country that I was confused, really confused.

00:56:21.200 - 00:56:43.680

Kelly: When you were in training, did you take some cross countries from Avenger? Davidson: Oh, yeah. We went to—gee, I need to look at the map, because there were a lot of little towns around there, that we'd fly to that place, make a triangle out of it, or fly there and back.

00:56:45.620 - 00:56:58.220

I think we had a good bit of cross-country. While you were in training, classes would graduate occasionally. What would happen when a class would graduate? Did you have a ceremony?

00:56:58.980 - 00:57:17.240

Oh, yes. And Jacqueline Cochran was usually there to pin the wings on. And then there was, of course, Major Garan, and then they had some generals come and speak. They had a real ceremony.

00:57:18.750 - 00:57:38.440

Kelly: Before you graduated, what were your uniforms like, beside that zoot suit you wore? Reifel: The zoot suit was the first uniform. Then we were told we needed khaki pants and white shirts. That was—of course, during the summer, you did not need any jackets or anything, so it

00:57:38.460 - 00:58:06.340

was the khaki pants and the white shirt. Before Christmas, the first year, we started getting our uniforms. We went to Saks Fifth Avenue, I believe it was, and had our skirts measured and any alterations made so that we looked really good.

00:58:08.140 - 00:58:27.520

Jacqueline Cochran wanted us to be perfectly dressed in our uniforms. We thought we had the most beautiful uniforms of anybody. Kelly: While you were in training, were any of your peers killed at Avenger? Kuehn: Yes, yes.

00:58:28.560 - 00:58:52.400

There were several from my class who were killed. I cannot think of the names right now. I would have to look at the list. But yes, there were, and that one accident happened just before I took the cross-country

00:58:52.580 - 00:59:04.680

flight solo in the BT at night. Stevenson. Stevenson and Mary, was it Mary Hart? Time out?

00:59:05.510 - 00:59:43.600

I think she was in a pursuit down somewhere in the valley, wasn't she? Kelly: Alice Lovejoy was in my class. You hadn't dealt with something like that before in your life. And it was really sad.

00:59:44.040 - 01:00:00.480

And then for them to say, "Back to the flight line tomorrow morning." You know, you could hardly believe that. That sounded kind of hard-hearted, but I guess it was the best way to do it. And if you—ladies!

01:00:00.480 - 01:00:25.340

You actually were looking up names. Oh, the ones from my class who had died. I only saw those four from my class, but I knew some of the others. When you were at Avenger and the two girls were killed, what happened with their bodies?

01:00:27.760 - 01:00:46.000

I'm not sure who-- somebody went with the bodies to the home. And I don't know the girls who did, but there was somebody that accompanied them. And then did you have some time off, or what happened? No time off.

01:00:46.410 - 01:01:03.800

You just went right back to classes and to flying. It was not—I know we all felt as if you should have had a little recovery time, but you really didn't. They didn't give you recovery time at all.

01:01:03.850 - 01:01:31.660

Kelly: Are you aware of what the government did for the families of those who were killed? Steele: Nothing. In fact, I have heard stories of the collections that they took up for the bodies to be shipped home from the wasps. I do not know whether Jacqueline Cochran helped pay the way, because

01:01:32.040 - 01:01:55.460

there was no provision for us to have any insurance or anything like that. We knew that We were on our own. I suppose it seems a little callous now when you think back. They didn't say, "And if you get killed, you get your body taken home," or something

01:01:55.620 - 01:02:05.100

like that, but they didn't. Kelly: When you were in advanced training, what was the airplane that you flew first in advanced? The AT-6.

01:02:06.580 - 01:02:25.880

And then after that, the UC-78, which was a twin-engine plane. And the AT-6 was more powerful. That was a plane that we used in pursuit training, too, the AT-6. Of course, you had an instructor with you there, and then you got into the pursuit and

01:02:25.940 - 01:02:36.640

you were on your own. When you went into the twin engine, would your instructor always fly with you, or how was that instruction done? Lowry: No.

01:02:37.340 - 01:03:07.160

At first, the instructor was with us, and then later on, it was another one of the WASPs who flew as the co-pilot for you. There were times, I know I took one of UC-78 out to West Texas, and I had it alone and got into a dust storm that was terrible.

01:03:08.060 - 01:03:24.900

You could hardly see the ground, even though you stayed relatively close to the ground so that you could pick out some checkpoints. But I remember when I landed, they said, "Well, you only had about a cupful of gas left," because the headwind was so strong.

01:03:26.160 - 01:03:48.680

So sometimes we flew them by ourselves. Kelly: While you were in training, do you remember any of the fun things that you did? Oh, the girls would put on little acts, plays, and we got together, we sang songs, just like they do now.

01:03:51.020 - 01:04:03.900

Lewis, what's her first name? Dot. Dot would play, and Allie Cat was one of them we sang. Of course, we sang every place we marched.

01:04:05.580 - 01:04:25.580

It was zoot suits and parachutes and things like that. But we did a lot of singing. Most of the fun things were just little acts that were put on. Or we would get to go into town to see a movie, something like that.

01:04:25.680 - 01:04:55.900

But there really was not an awful lot of entertainment. Can you tell me about the discipline or the rules? Well, being one of the first classes, I think the rules were enforced pretty tightly. You know, no dating of the instructors, and getting back on base at a certain time, things

01:04:55.980 - 01:05:10.500

like that. None of us wanted to take a chance on breaking a rule and getting out, washing out because of that. Kelly: Describe your graduation.

01:05:11.460 - 01:05:34.500

Did you have friends or your family that came? Steele: It was very difficult at that time to do any amount of traveling. My family was in—my brother was in the hospital in Battle Creek, Michigan, my sister was in Iowa, and my mother was in Iowa working.

01:05:35.350 - 01:06:00.140

And no, none of the family came for that. For me—now, there were others that probably did have family come. Kelly: Did you get your orders before you graduated, your assignment? I think I did. I think they posted our next bases, but I cannot be positive of that.

01:06:00.620 - 01:06:28.540

Did you have a choice? We had a choice, and I picked Romulus because it's right near Detroit, and I had made some friends there while I was working at the hospital and the Civil Air Patrol. That was the one that I knew something about, so I chose it and got it. Kelly: For your graduation, you said Ms. Cochran came and some generals.

01:06:28.940 - 01:06:49.740

How did you get from Sweetwater to Romulus, or did you have some time off? Steele: We had time off. I went home to Iowa to visit my mother and my sister. They at one point, when I was at Romulus, went to Battle Creek to visit my brother in

01:06:49.780 - 01:07:04.340

the hospital. I went there too, so I saw them at that point. That travel was, I think, by train. I am sure they went by train.

01:07:07.940 - 01:07:30.680

Most of our trips back to Romulus were in government planes, because they had orders waiting for us for the next trip. A lot of the times, we would have a set of orders, and then we might get more orders to go to another place.

01:07:30.700 - 01:07:56.620

I know I took a C-47 from Dayton, Ohio, to Montreal. And then from Montreal, I took an AT-16 to Newark, New Jersey, to ship overseas. And then I went to Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, to pick up a Cub and fly it back to Dayton. Kelly: You had quite a variety.

01:07:57.500 - 01:08:14.480

Kelly: Let me ask you, when you arrived at Romulus for your assignment, were there already WASP stationed there? Steele: No. I think we were the first class that was sent there, and there were quite a number of us

01:08:14.520 - 01:08:20.260

that were sent there. Kelly: To whom did you report? Steele: I don't know. Kelly: Okay.

01:08:21.970 - 01:08:47.300

Where did you live? I, you know, I have a vision of living in a two-story barracks building at some point, but I'm not sure that was when we first got there. But I know Hazel Lee cooked us Thanksgiving dinner in that apartment.

01:08:51.140 - 01:09:08.700

She had all of us doing certain things, chopping the celery and peeling the potatoes. She did the cooking. We gave her credit for it all, and we did all the work. She did that.

01:09:09.760 - 01:09:27.540

It had to be like a little apartment. I don't know whether it was barracks type, but there were two stories to that one. What did you start out flying when you went to Romulus? Did you have to go through some more training?

01:09:28.320 - 01:09:52.240

Steele: No. I was assigned to go to Buffalo, New York, stay in the Peter Stuyvesant Hotel, go over to Fort Erie, Ontario, pick up a PT-26. I think my first flight, I am not sure whether that was the first flight, but I flew it out

01:09:52.240 - 01:10:06.480

to Calgary, Canada. We were stuck there because of snowstorms. It was two weeks before we got out. We stayed in the hotel and they just kept sending in more pilots because there were

01:10:06.580 - 01:10:37.620

more planes to go different places, and they sent in more pilots. There were a lot of men pilots that had been sent in there too, beside the WASPs. Usually our orders told us what city we were to go to or we were being taken to in a plane, and then where we were to RON and where we were to deliver.

01:10:38.200 - 01:10:57.420

Kelly: When you would take an airplane and deliver it, then how would you get back to Romulus? Steele: Usually they had military planes that we got, or we took the airlines. We had the privilege of practically bumping anybody else off an airline flight so that

01:10:57.480 - 01:11:06.340

we could get back to Romulus. Kelly: What would your equipment be that you would take with you? Would you take a bag? B-4 bag and our parachute.

01:11:07.920 - 01:11:29.880

And then you would have to bring that parachute back with you? Yes. It was usually a C-47 that they flew us back to Romulus in, and they had benches on the sides and we sat on those benches or on our parachutes.

01:11:30.600 - 01:12:00.580

I know when we went out to Fort Erie, to the airport there to pick up our plane, we had to go out there every morning, even if it was snowing. We would still ride a bus out there and sit out there until we had two weather reports that showed it was clear for us to leave there and get to the next place before dark or before

01:12:00.580 - 01:12:42.080

weather closed in again. That was one of the problems getting the weather reports. In Canada, the weather stations were farther apart and we did not always get the best weather report, most accurate. I know that on one flight, there must have been five of us, and I believe there was one gal who had been in the 434 or 433. Anyway, she was in charge of that

01:12:42.380 - 01:13:15.180

group. We got into a snowstorm and we closed in, so we could hardly see the plane ahead us, and she took over and led us by a railroad track to a training field that our British cadets sat, and Medicine Hat, it was where we had to stay. We sat in the commanding officer's office after we landed.

01:13:15.980 - 01:13:33.820

We sat there in that office. They could not decide what to do with us. After the cadets had eaten their evening meal, then they let us go in and they fed us. But the cadets could not speak to women at that time, the British cadets.

01:13:36.460 - 01:13:55.880

They finally put us in the emergency ward at the hospital to sleep that night, because They did not have any quarters for women. Kelly: What was your social life like while you were at Romulus? Ruebens: We did not have an awful lot.

01:13:56.910 - 01:14:21.740

We went to the officers club, dates with pilots. It usually was somebody we met on another trip or somebody that we knew, but usually there would be a couple of us go over at the same time to the officers club and eat over there.

01:14:23.240 - 01:14:41.160

Then we would sit around in the lounge area. It was not bad. We knew that probably the next morning we would have orders, or we might have them yet that afternoon or evening.

01:14:42.100 - 01:14:58.060

We knew we were taking off the next morning to go pick up a plane someplace. Kelly: For the most part, on your ferrying missions, were they mostly from aircraft factory to base? Or what was the predominant thing that you did?

01:14:58.140 - 01:15:12.740

A lot of mine were from Montreal down to Fort Dix. Then we would ride the train back at night and we would pick up another plane the next day and fly it down to Fort Dix. Kelly: Now Fort Dix was an Army base?

01:15:12.740 - 01:15:39.400

Reifeldt: New Jersey was where they were packaging them for overseas. Most of the fairing of little planes was in the States, taking the planes from, is it Lock Haven, Pennsylvania? To some base where they were using it for training, and then go back and maybe get another

01:15:39.440 - 01:16:00.960

one and take it to some base where it was being used for training. Most of the ones in the States were from the factory. I do not know where Stinson was, because we flew L-5s and we delivered them to Romulus, I think.

01:16:01.780 - 01:16:22.980

We picked them up and it was a very short flight. Kelly: Do you remember any other outstanding incidents that happened beside the BT during some of those ferrying missions? Beside the BT, that—shut it off.

01:16:23.320 - 01:16:39.720

I can't— It's pretty routine, except that you had to be sure you checked the weather and that you knew that your destination, you could reach it before—thirty minutes before sunset or something like that.

01:16:42.120 - 01:16:58.260

You did most of your planning on where you would stop overnight, and of course you had to RON every night. Reifeldt: When you were at Romulus, were you under Jacqueline Cochran or were you under Nancy Love?

01:16:59.340 - 01:17:21.220

Steele: Neither one. We were under the commanding general, who was at the base. We had been under Jacqueline Cochran from the time I went in. She had started the classes down in Houston, and then the 43-4, I believe, brought their

01:17:21.580 - 01:17:44.200

planes up from Houston to Avenger Field and finished up at Avenger Field. So they were actually the first ones graduating from there. But 43-5, I think, was the first class that went to Sweetwater and started primary and basic and single and twin-engine advanced, all at the same field.

01:17:44.600 - 01:18:09.920

Kelly: While you were at Romulus, did you get orders then to go somewhere else to train? Steele: No. I stayed at Romulus the whole time. Kelly: But did you get additional training to fly pursuits, for example? Oh, yes, I did. And any time we were there at Romulus for more than a day, we had to report

01:18:10.360 - 01:18:40.420

out to the flight line and they would check us out on other airplanes that they had there that were available. And then I did get the orders to go to pursuit. And I went there in the month of September and finished the end of September in Brownsville, Texas. I did not have too many pursuit flights because the time from the first of October until we

01:18:40.480 - 01:18:56.200

disbanded, there just was not that many. I did fly P-51s to Fort Dix, New Jersey. I think I took a couple of them. Kelly: Of all the airplanes you flew, what was your favorite?

01:18:56.670 - 01:19:05.860

Steele: The P-51. It was the fastest. It was the only one that made you feel as if you left your stomach behind when you took off.

01:19:08.100 - 01:19:26.420

It was great. Now I flew one to Fort Dix and I landed in Pittsburgh. They told me I had a leak, not a fuel leak. Kelly: Oil?

01:19:28.200 - 01:19:38.340

Miedel: No, what was it? A coolant leak. They had to repair it. They did not have another P-51 there.

01:19:40.380 - 01:20:07.520

The officer who was in charge of the flight line, took up an AT-6 and followed me up and watched to see if there were any more leaking. It was streaking along the sides of the plane. Then he signaled that it was all clear, and I went on to Harrisburg, I think, that day,

01:20:08.220 - 01:20:34.840

and then on into Fort Dix. We were, in some cases, testing the planes, just like in that case. After it had been repaired, they did not have anybody else to test it, so I did it myself. Some of the first planes that were—we were told that some of the first planes out of

01:20:35.020 - 01:20:53.740

Fort Erie, Ontario, had not been flown when we picked them up. You know, rumors, I do not know whether they were true or not, because they were all supposed to have been tested, in the same way at Montreal for the AT-16s. They were supposed to have been tested.

01:20:54.920 - 01:21:13.440

Tell me about the training that you did at Brownsville. What did you train in? Steele: AT-6s were the training plane. I had a Mr. Hunsaker, who all the while I was training.

01:21:13.980 - 01:21:39.500

We did go over to auxiliary fields and practice landings and takeoffs in the AT-6 from those fields. And then, of course, you got into my first landing in a pursuit. Where you are alone was almost a disaster, because it was in a P-40, where the nose was

01:21:39.560 - 01:22:06.940

way up there and out in front, and it was a lot different than the AT-6. I know I came in and did what I thought was getting close enough to the ground, and I had to do my flare over a couple times, because judging the ground from that plane was completely different than in the AT-6.

01:22:07.880 - 01:22:32.380

And then I went on to fly the 39, which was the tricycle gear, and the 63, and the 47. And that was an experience, because the 47 was a big— Kelly: Oh, she's got to put in another tape. Steele: Oh, well, it was a big, heavy plane.

01:22:32.880 - 01:22:39.820

I just don't want to get in the middle of that and just stop. >> Oh. >> I want to [inaudible] >> Is it okay?

01:22:39.850 - 01:22:49.460

>> Let's roll. >> We were told that on the P-47 we had to be very careful because it would ground loop. We had to really be in control.

01:22:51.180 - 01:23:10.380

And I thought I was, but I came awfully close to ground looping that plane. I managed to straighten it out and keep it on the runway, But it was big, it was heavy, and completely different than the P-39 or the P-51.

01:23:11.020 - 01:23:31.960

Did they have all those pursuits at Brownsville? Yes. I flew all five of those. The one pursuit I didn't fly was the P-38, the twin-engine. And they didn't have that in Brownsville. And then when you went back to Romulus, you did some ferrying and pursuits as well as

01:23:32.280 - 01:23:50.460

the other. Yes, that's right, we did. Whatever plane needed to be moved from here to there, we were put on that plane. And you can see from my list of planes I flew that I had transition flying there at the

01:23:50.560 - 01:24:08.180

base of Romulus. As soon as I did not have a flight the next day or orders to go out the next day, I reported to the flight line to get transition time and some other plane. Kelly: While you were at Romulus, how did you hear that the WASPs were going to be disbanded?

01:24:09.220 - 01:24:26.980

How did that make you feel? I was devastated because I was enjoying it so much. I don't remember how we were told—what was her name? Who was the commanding officer for the girls?

01:24:30.740 - 01:24:53.700

I can't think of it. Anyway, she announced it to us. had received official word that the 20, I think it was the 20th of December, would be our final day. And they had a big party for us at the officers club. The general who is

01:24:53.740 - 01:25:36.360

in charge, Ponce de Leon or something like that, we had arranged for a dinner party and a gift for each one of the wasps. It was a compact with engraved on the inside "Wasp" in our name and the years. We had letters of commendation. That commanding officer seemed to be real happy to have WASPs. He was not one that—and I know I've heard this from

01:25:36.440 - 01:25:58.740

some of the women—that their commanding officer just wanted to get rid of them. No way did he want WASPs. But it was different at Romulus, and there were a lot of us there. Do you remember your last flight as a military pilot? Lowry: No, excuse me.

01:25:59.340 - 01:26:14.240

I'd have to look in my logbook. Kelly: When you were at Romulus, at some point you got a different uniform. Lowry: No, we started getting them, yes, we started getting them at Romulus, that's right.

01:26:14.240 - 01:26:36.420

Kelly: Describe that uniform. We got the jacket, the blazer jacket, and skirt, and we had white shirts and blue oxford cloth shirts. We had pants and battle jackets and the beret and the purses.

01:26:41.600 - 01:26:57.500

We had summer and winter weight. They were wool, but they were all the same shade of blue. Kelly: That is when you were fitted by— Lowry: Yes, at Saks Fifth Avenue.

01:26:57.690 - 01:27:33.340

We got trench coats, too, that had Saks Fifth Avenue in them. At some point along the way, I got an Arctic coat, which was a big pile-lined coat that a zip out lining. I think because we flew up there in real winter weather, we got the Arctic coats. I know I flew in a PT-19 and I was going south. I do not remember where

01:27:33.340 - 01:27:58.620

I picked it up, but I used that Arctic coat and the wool scarf around my face. I wore my leather jacket, sheepskin-lined leather jacket and leather pants. We had the big boots, sheepskin-lined boots, and you still froze. Your feet got so cold.

01:27:58.740 - 01:28:15.740

I thought I would never be able to put my feet on the rudders or the brakes when I wanted to land. It was cold. Kelly: After the party that they had for you and you were disbanded, where did you go then?

01:28:16.280 - 01:28:42.600

Mildred: I went to Lamar's, Iowa, which was where my mother was living in the dormitory. My sister was married and living in that area, so I visited there for about two weeks. Then I went to California to visit one of my bay mates, Wilma Moorhead, and stayed with her.

01:28:44.780 - 01:29:06.880

I started to go back to being a medical technician at St. Bernardine's Hospital, and that was pretty boring. Then we found out that they were hiring people to test jet engines, block tests, where they were tied down in a big concrete cell.

01:29:09.000 - 01:29:21.140

Wilma and I went out there for an interview, and they told us we would have to learn how to tear an engine down and build it back up. I thought that sounded great. I liked that idea.

01:29:22.360 - 01:29:49.920

And there was a secretary and a welder, and all the rest were men. But they treated us real well. The person we were assigned to, to help us tear down the plane and build it back up, was excellent in accepting what we did not know, but we learned the difference between

01:29:49.920 - 01:30:14.220

nuts and bolts and screws and that. And then we got to the point where we were testing them. We sat outside this concrete cell with a safety glass window and the controls outside. And we kept our records of the oil pressure and all of that outside and tested the engines.

01:30:15.440 - 01:30:39.260

And that was what I was doing when I met my husband. He was an engineer in civil service, and he was sent out to find out why the jet engines, after they were overhauled, did not give the same thrust as the manufacturers said they did and, excuse me, as the test pilot said they did.

01:30:40.240 - 01:30:57.640

And I was assigned to help him. Before he came, we had, by request of Harry H. Clayton for this test, by request of Harry H. Clayton. And we did not have copy machines, so it was copy all this information by hand.

01:30:59.660 - 01:31:25.080

I had decided I hated that man, but I did not really. What were the qualities that he possessed that made you fall in love with him? He was such an honest, caring person. He was an engineer, and we could talk about aircraft engines.

01:31:25.080 - 01:31:53.900

He was a project engineer on the first jet flight. Because we could talk aircraft engines and flying, even though he was not a pilot. He had a college education. He was sent to the University of Kentucky to get aircraft engineering after he finished

01:31:53.980 - 01:32:20.160

at the University of Arkansas. He was just a southern gentleman. All I can say is very, very kind and thoughtful, compared to a lot of the young men at that time.

01:32:22.500 - 01:32:38.000

Well, you know, they were pretty egotistical. Kelly: How long after you met him before you married? Mildred: I met him at the end of March and married him in August. Kelly: Tell me about your wedding.

01:32:39.270 - 01:33:03.080

Mildred: Well, it was very simple because my mother lived in the dormitory at the college, And my brother and his wife were in New Orleans, and he said, "Well, come down here and we'll make the arrangements." And so we were married in a church in New Orleans, and then went back to his house and

01:33:03.180 - 01:33:26.480

had a little reception. Of course, I didn't know most of the people, but that was where we were married. Then we drove all the way back to California. At first, I was still living with a roommate in a house with a woman who had a couple children.

01:33:27.100 - 01:33:45.920

She was working. The roommate and I helped with the laundry and the meals and things like that at this place. Then Harry would come in on weekends, and that only lasted a couple of weeks.

01:33:46.320 - 01:33:59.940

Then he found a place where we could rent an apartment. Kelly: Then did you quit your job? Reifeldt: Yes, I quit my job. Kelly: How did you spend your time when he was at work?

01:34:02.800 - 01:34:33.120

Martinez: I guess I was trying to get used to keeping a house, which was a little apartment. Figuring out what we could eat, planning some meals, just being a housewife. He was head of the engineering department at Edwards Air Force Base and had five different divisions under him.

01:34:33.820 - 01:35:02.720

Photography, the sled where they were testing to see how many Gs a person could pull, stand, and the rocket department. He was given one of the wary houses, that's what they were. They poured concrete houses, they built a hundred of them, and they were officers in

01:35:02.940 - 01:35:19.940

all of them except ten. There were civilians that were allowed to live in one of the ten. So we lived there, and then they built other housing, and we were allowed to have one of the houses on base.

01:35:21.020 - 01:35:35.140

It was a different area. The first ones were the poured concrete and they set the two together and closed them off, so there was a hallway between. Go ahead.

01:35:35.470 - 01:35:55.500

Kelly: While you were at Edwards, was that during the time that Chuck Yeager became famous? Reid: Yes, I knew him. Did your husband have anything to do, interaction, with what Yeager was doing? Well, only as far as the engineering part was concerned.

01:35:55.820 - 01:36:13.180

But actually, Yeager was in more or less flight testing, and that was a little different than just the engineering. But we did know him quite well. I read the book and write stuff.

01:36:13.920 - 01:36:38.960

We lived there until my husband was assigned to the engineering job on the nuclear airplane, which was being worked on in Fort Worth, Texas. out at, what was it, Carlsbad, I think was the name of the base. Carswell.

01:36:39.690 - 01:36:54.480

Carswell, yeah. And then they finally decided they were going to have robots flying those planes because of the nuclear control. They decided that it wasn't going to work.

01:36:56.000 - 01:37:23.140

And we had a friend who had been with Bell Aircraft Company and was working for Hughes Aircraft Company, and he suggested they get Harry to come in and be the manager for Hughes Aircraft Company at El Mogordo, New Mexico. And so we left civil service at that point and went to work for Hughes at El Mogordo,

01:37:24.240 - 01:37:39.060

And then we were transferred here later to Tucson, and he worked his ten years for Hughes, and then he started his own company. And I went to work for him. What did you do?

01:37:39.760 - 01:38:07.120

Well, I did, I went back to the university and took finance and accounting at the university here. I did the bookkeeping and actually we had government contracts and there was a lot of auditing being done because it was a government contract and it had to be that way.

01:38:11.480 - 01:38:29.980

Proposals were going out all the time for different jobs. We made the lights that were in Skylab and got that contract in spite of big companies going to do the job. We did it.

01:38:31.320 - 01:38:48.960

It was a little electronic company. It was not easy to compete. Kelly: Somewhere along the way, you had some little bundles of joy. Reid: Oh, yes.

01:38:49.300 - 01:39:16.960

Kelly: Tell us about those. Reid: We were married in August, and then the next year in November, Bob was born. We were still in this little apartment over in Rosemont on the Dry Lake. After that, we got a house, one of the hundred homes, before Sharon was born.

01:39:18.080 - 01:39:45.620

She was born on our anniversary in August of '49. Bob told our neighbors in Fort Worth—yeah, after we moved to Fort Worth, he told our neighbors that he was born before we were married. can that little second grade kid do something like that?" And I asked him why he would say that,

01:39:45.860 - 01:40:12.700

because she asked me about the neighbor. And he said, "Well, Sharon was born the day you were married and I'm older than Sharon." So anniversary and marriage were the same to him at that point. She was born on our anniversary, and she was. -How were you involved with your children as they were were growing up. Were you involved at school or scouts?

01:40:13.090 - 01:40:54.080

Oh yeah, scouts, Girl Scouts, cookie chairman, cookie, yeah, all of that. And then in El Mogordo, I joined the Garden Club. And the Hughes wives wanted to take on a project of making a little park. He had a piece of land in the center of town that was not used for anything and there was a Mr. Bothnerby who had a nursery. He worked with us to plant

01:40:54.180 - 01:41:18.860

areas and the garden club did this whole thing for the city of Elmogordo. And he was, I don't remember whether it was Norwegian or Swedish, but had quite an accent and he just, he enjoyed working with us, he really did. He was an older man and just, it was fun.

01:41:20.380 - 01:41:38.680

We were planting stuff, you know. It was work, but we did that. And then, of course, with both Bob and Sharon being in school and having—they had gymnastics classes and things like that that they had to go to.

01:41:39.960 - 01:42:02.760

Kelly: Were they into things, into sports or things that you attended? No, Bob was in gymnastics. And of course, when we came here, he was a freshman in high school and they started gymnastics at Amphitheater High School.

01:42:03.600 - 01:42:30.940

And he was good enough, so he got a four-year scholarship to the University of New Mexico in gymnastics. And Sharon was more into, well, she was in a class where they did gymnastics and they did these little things, but she was far more interested in that horse and riding him.

01:42:31.060 - 01:43:01.840

And because she had another girl who had the horse in our corral, they would just go out riding, and that was more important to her than any of the sports. She took out rides during the summer for Westward Look. When they had people there during the summer, she'd take the rides out, lead them out. And then when they had the rodeo parades, they took

01:43:01.840 - 01:43:17.000

all of their horses down to ride in that parade. And I know one time she made blankets of aqua-colored cloth for every one of their horses, and there were twenty-some horses. She sewed them all.

01:43:17.030 - 01:43:32.600

Kelly: And what are your children doing today? Lowry: Well, our daughter and her husband have retired from the Army. They were both in finance and accounting. After twenty-six years, they retired.

01:43:33.340 - 01:44:04.100

She was a full colonel, he was a lieutenant colonel. They built a home in Chattanooga, and they are living there. Our son got his engineering degree from the University of New Mexico, and actually worked for Duval Mining Company for ten years and then went into sales for Southwest Gas, but he did not

01:44:04.960 - 01:44:41.440

really like that. A company in Australia needed someone who had engineering experience with mines to represent them in a process that they had for a flotation process for separating the ore. And so, and he still, he started his own company as a consulting and engineering company and works for them, but also takes other jobs and works on other projects. And then tell me about your

01:44:41.320 - 01:45:17.300

granddaughter? Well, she was born in 1977. They were married for—I was afraid I wasn't going to have any children. Bob's wife said, "I didn't want two children at the same time because Bob acts like a child, acts like a kid." Anyway, she was born in '77. They were married in '71 and she was born in '77. We still had the company until '84. We sold

01:45:17.400 - 01:45:38.600

the company and Harry and I stayed on for two years. She would come out and visit weekends And she was such a good little house guest, you can't imagine. I asked her one Saturday morning when she got up what she would like for breakfast.

01:45:39.940 - 01:45:53.740

And she said, "Oh, I think I'll have popcorn and a casserole." And I said, "Popcorn and a casserole?" Well, popcorn was fine. I mean, it was cereal, so it was fine.

01:45:54.280 - 01:46:18.980

And I said, "What kind of casserole?" Just like the ones you have on Sunday morning, sweet rolls. But to her that had to be a casserole. But she was a delightful child and they just didn't have really problems with discipline

01:46:19.100 - 01:46:41.360

with her. They did a better job. They didn't holler at her or scream at her like I did at my kids. And she went to the university and took international marketing studies, took Portuguese, Spanish,

01:46:42.580 - 01:47:03.900

and has a job now with the man who was Reagan's economic advisor and started his own company in San Diego. She works for him. Her husband is in training for the Marines as a pilot.

01:47:07.720 - 01:47:22.520

We do not know where he will go. Sylvia, I know that you lost your husband a year ago. Tell me, how did you get through, during your life, good times, bad times, sad times, how did you get through those sad times?

01:47:23.800 - 01:47:41.020

That was pretty tough. But he was, as I said before, a good patient. He was so willing to put up with having to wait for things and wait until things were done for him.

01:47:43.860 - 01:48:02.560

As I said, toward the end, it was having someone here all day long until nine o'clock at night. Then from that time, I'd be up usually until midnight, and then I'd get up a couple times during the night and check on him.

01:48:03.260 - 01:48:28.220

And then eight o'clock in the morning, the aide was supposed to come and get him up. And we had therapy for him, physical therapy, he had speech therapy, he had occupational therapy. And everything that the therapist tried to get him to do, he'd work at it and he'd try to do it.

01:48:29.780 - 01:48:47.180

How do you spend your time now? I'm trying to clean out some files and closets. For five years, everything got stuffed in drawers. Are you involved in any activities or volunteering or anything?

01:48:47.800 - 01:49:15.560

now the wasps here in town do get together every time one has a birthday. If we don't have a birthday, we make up one like we did for Alberta. And we were a really pretty close-knit group, and Alair Bennett, who died in, what was it, August 3rd, was one of the instigators. Did you, have you interviewed Ruth Helm?

01:49:17.100 - 01:49:45.060

And she was, she was able to, you know, try to pull us together all the time too. I did at the church, I went to the United Christian Church, the Congregational Church, and I was the treasurer there for quite a few years. When the kids were little, I worked in the Sunday school as Sunday school superintendent.

01:49:47.840 - 01:50:13.120

I really was pretty involved with the church on boards and on committees. Never felt as if I didn't have anything to do. I always had things to do. Now I have been volunteering at a place called Family Attic, which is a group of, the man

01:50:13.120 - 01:50:40.660

who is in charge is the grandson of the first minister at the Congregational Church. They try to help women who are pregnant, don't know what, make their decisions, try to help with their decisions and what they're going to do with these children and keep them from getting on drugs and things like that.

01:50:41.300 - 01:51:05.660

But what I have done has just helped in the sorting of all the donations that have gone to them. They have all this resale material and what is not in good condition, they do not keep in their store. They have things in their store that they say anybody could walk in

01:51:05.740 - 01:51:31.860

and buy and be proud to wear. So I've done that a few times. But then I belong to the PEO, which is, you've probably been in a PEO, and they keep you busy with different things. Kelly: When I ask you what got you through the sad times, after knowing now that you

01:51:31.860 - 01:51:48.640

were a Sunday School superintendent, I think you got some help. Lowry: Oh, with taking care of the sad times? Kelly: No, with the sad times. Lowry: Yes, but I think actually—well, there were some friends in the church who were just

01:51:49.080 - 01:52:08.780

wonderful, and the Wasps were very, very good, and PEO members. Is it time to quit? Kelly: No, I wanted to ask you about Hazel. Martinez: Hazel was stationed at Romulus, Michigan, and she went to pursuit school when

01:52:08.820 - 01:52:33.380

I did. We were together quite often. When she was on that flight to Great Falls, she had been cleared to land. And the pilot in the plane that did not have radio contact, he thought he had been given

01:52:33.520 - 01:52:49.600

a green light to come in. And she was below him and ahead of him, and she could not see him behind her and above her, and he did not see her. But she was told then to pull up and go around, pull up and go around.

01:52:50.240 - 01:53:08.940

And she pulled up right into his flight path, and they crashed right on the airport. They were that close. And the thing they did not realize at first was that her jacket, the lining in her jacket was burning, and she was burned very badly.

01:53:09.820 - 01:53:37.260

They got her to the hospital, but she was just so badly burned. I think it was just a day or two that she lived. I was on a flight taking a P-51 back to Fort Dix and was weathered in at Romulus. I was there and helped pack her things.

01:53:39.380 - 01:54:00.420

The thing that had happened, there were so many pilots that had been out on orders and trying to get into Great Falls at the same time, apparently. They were trying to get them in. It was very hectic from what I have heard and what I have read about, because of the

01:54:00.620 - 01:54:12.260

weather. Kelly: Tell me about the mascot that is on your jacket. Reifeldt: That is a little Feefanella. Kelly: What is a Feefanella?

01:54:12.510 - 01:54:37.500

Reifeltt: It is a little girl gremlin. Walt Disney designed this early in 1943, when the wasps were very, very new. I know we had leather patches, and I still have my leather patch with the little Fifanella on it.

01:54:39.800 - 01:55:10.940

I guess it has stayed with most of us most of the time. Kelly: Who put that particular Fifanella on that? My daughter painted it and did it from a little decal, a little six-inch decal. Tell me, what is your personal opinion about Jacqueline Cochran and the WASP organization?

01:55:11.340 - 01:55:36.700

What do you feel that that accomplished? I think Jacqueline Cochran proved that with the program, the training program and everything, that women could fly just as well as men. And I heard Chuck Yeager say, "Airplanes don't know what sex you are."

01:55:36.700 - 01:55:53.460

And he spoke at a WASP reunion we had. I think that was in Las Vegas or Reno, I've forgotten, but he made a point of that, that he thought, and he was a good friend of Jacqueline Cochran's.

01:55:56.400 - 01:56:12.100

In fact, I think he was the personal representative of her estate when she died. But he had no feeling of resentment toward the Wasps at all.

01:56:12.940 - 01:56:36.280

Maybe it was because he was a good friend of Jacqueline Cochran's. She befriended his wife and the kids. I remember hearing him say he had four kids before he knew where they came from. So here he was with a wife and these four little kids.

01:56:39.020 - 01:57:11.920

He was—I think he felt that she did an excellent job in her getting the training program going. And of course, Hap Arnold was with her, I think, one hundred percent. Then Bruce Arnold came along and felt that he had to really help and work to militarize or get us to be made veterans.

01:57:12.200 - 01:57:36.320

That was the thing. I know you probably did too, worked at trying to get the WASPs you knew to write letters at that time when they were having the hearings. Kelly: Why do you think that the Wasps were never militarized, as Pat Barnum had promised?

01:57:38.020 - 01:58:14.280

Mildred: I read a book, written by a military—she was a lawyer for the military—who really a lot of it, and she said a lot of it was because they couldn't figure out why, how to handle WASPs, because we came in as officers being pilots, and if we washed out in training, what did they do with us? Because none of the girls wanted to go

01:58:14.360 - 01:58:39.920

back and just join the army, the women's army, and she felt that there was so much lobbying by the civilian pilots who did not want to have to go over in combat, because we were taking their jobs. There was just a lot of that.

01:58:40.760 - 01:59:04.500

She put a lot of material in her book that showed the articles that had been published in the paper, which were just flat-out lies. Things like that. Why can't I think of the name?

01:59:05.200 - 01:59:26.020

Anyway, I think it was because of the difference in what would they do with us if we washed out. What do you think the legacy of the WASP will be? That we just proved that a woman can do almost anything she wants to do.

01:59:27.380 - 01:59:45.240

Of all the things that you've done in your life, and you've done so much, what is the one thing that you're most proud of? Being a WASP and getting my wings and flying afterwards. Because I accomplished more, I felt, in that.

01:59:46.520 - 02:00:07.320

Anybody could take business and finance and keep books and records. Anybody could be a medical technician. There are lots of them, but not everybody could be a WASP and fly. And fly all the different planes that I got to fly.

02:00:08.880 - 02:00:36.740

If you could say something to children for generations to come, your grandchildren, great-grandchildren, that might encourage them, what would you like to tell them or to say to them? Believe in yourself and try to do what you think you want to do, and you can do it. You've got it in you to do it.

02:00:38.800 - 02:01:05.660

I think because there was so much negative feeling about, "Oh, wasps couldn't do it, women couldn't do it," and we proved we could, and we did. I think I would tell any grandchild, "Whatever you want to do or think you want to do, you can do it.

02:01:05.840 - 02:01:39.080

Believe in yourself." My granddaughter went to Brazil between her senior year and her first year at the university for a year with—I cannot think of the men's organization that sent them over there. She went to a school, a Catholic school, with the family she lived with.

02:01:39.180 - 02:01:58.360

They had five girls and she went to that and enjoyed it all. Talked about those girls were her sisters. The only sisters she had, of course. Is there anything that I have left out about your early life or your training in the WASP

02:01:58.360 - 02:02:24.440

or your service in the WASP, or since then, that you would like to tell us about? I think we have pretty well covered everything. Because I was a lucky wife, I had a very good husband, and we worked together in the company he started.

02:02:26.280 - 02:02:48.420

we had 28, 30 employees, we were undercapitalized, so it was a tough, tough job. But we worked together very well, and I wouldn't change any of that. You have been blessed, and you have blessed us with this interview. Well, I was blessed.

02:02:48.560 - 02:03:14.940

I had a very good family that I was born into. There was no question about getting college education, even though my mother didn't have that. When my father died, there was no way we were going to not go to college.

02:03:18.320 - 02:03:39.000

My husband was one who was very proud of the fact that I'd been a wasp. Very proud of it. If we'd go someplace and meet people, if the conversation came up that he could work it in there he'd say she was a pilot.

02:03:50.380 - 02:04:19.740

Wasp. Pilot. Well, it's past lunchtime and I don't have anything I could do. Barbara Donoghue, that was the commanding officer at Romulus, Michigan for the gals. I don't even remember hearing her name, because I wasn't in ferry command. Where were you stationed?

02:04:20.060 - 02:04:26.120

At Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida. That's in Panama City. And what did you fly there?