The WASPs: Women Pilots of WWII

Summary:

The story of the first female pilots in WWII.

Additional Credits and Funding:

Associate Producer: Teal Krech
Assistant Producer: Shelley Preston
Editor: Deborah George
Consulting Editor: Ben Shapiro

Thanks to all the WASPs in our story:
Leonora Anderson, Caro Bayley-Bosca, Mickey Bright, Louise Bowden-Brown, Vi Cowden, Ethel Finley, Libby Gardner, Charlyne Greger, Dawn Seymore, Kaddy Steele, Julie Stege, Dora Strother, Elizabeth Taylor, and Marty Wyall.

Thanks: Chris Turpin/All Things Considered, Laura Gross, Matt Richman, Kate Landdeck and Tracey Mac Gowan at Texas Woman's University, and all the WASPs we met. Support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Language:

English

Description:

In the early 1940s, the US Airforce faced a dilemma. Thousands of new airplanes were coming off assembly lines and needed to be delivered to military bases nationwide, yet most of America's pilots were overseas fighting the war. To solve the problem, the government launched an experimental program to train women pilots. They were known as the WASPs, the Women Airforce Service Pilots.

Broadcast on NPR's All Things Considered on Dec. 18, 2002.

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