Nancy Love and the WASP Ferry Pilots of World War II (North Texas Military Biography and Memoir) - Hardcover

Rickman, Sarah Byrn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1574412418 ISBN 13: 9781574412413

Publisher: University of North Texas Press,U.S., 2008

Synopsis

She flew the swift P-51 and the capricious P-38, but the heavy, four-engine B-17 bomber and C-54 transport were her forte. This is the story of Nancy Harkness Love who, early in World War II, recruited and led the first group of twenty-eight women to fly military aircraft for the U.S. Army.When the United States entered World War II, the Army needed pilots to transport or ""ferry"" its combat-bound aircraft across the United States for overseas deployment and its trainer airplanes to flight training bases. Male pilots were in short supply, so into this vacuum stepped Nancy Love and her Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS). Initially the Army implemented both the WAFS program and Jacqueline Cochran's more ambitious plan to train women to do many of the military's flight-related jobs stateside. By 1943, General Hap Arnold decided to combine the women's programs and formed the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), with Cochran as the Director of Women Pilots. Love was named the Executive for WASP.Nancy Love advised the Ferrying Division, which was part of the Air Transport Command, as to the best use of their civilian WASP ferry pilots. She supervised their allocation and air-training program. By example, Love won the right for women ferry pilots to transition into increasingly more complex airplanes. She checked out on twenty-three different military aircraft and became the first woman to fly several of them, including the B-17 Flying Fortress. Her World War II career ended on a high note: following a general's orders, she piloted a giant C-54 Army transport over the fabled China-Burma-India ""Hump,"" the crucial airlift route over the Himalayas.Young women serving today as combat pilots owe much to Love for creating the opportunity for women to serve. Now author Sarah Byrn Rickman, aviation historian, presents the first full-length biography of Nancy Love and her role in the WAFS and WASP programs. Her book will appeal to all with a love of flight.

About this title

About the Author

SARAH BYRN RICKMAN is a former journalist with a Masters in Creative Writing. Her freelance job and research with the International Women's Air and Space Museum produced first an award-winning WASP novel, Flight from Fear, followed by The Originals: The Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron of World War II. She lives in Centerville, Ohio.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of North Texas Press,U.S.
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1574412418
• ISBN 13: 9781574412413
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352