These daredevil women pilots helped beat Hitler in WWII
The pilots have been mostly forgotten ever since. But during the war, they shook things up wherever they landed, prompting headlines like one in the New York Herald Tribune. The pilots, it said, 'Fly 121 Types of Planes, Sleep Wherever They Land, Find Romance and Tragedy.' Jacqueline Cochran, American aviatrix, winner of Bendix Transcontinental Air Race, 1938. Photograph by Bettmann, GETTY IMAGES
No wonder the public was fascinated. Noble, glamorous, and bold, the pilots represented a cross-section of American womanhood, from crop dusters to debutantes, college girls to performers in flying circuses. The famous aviatrix Jacqueline Cochran was the most celebrated, having risen from childhood poverty to become a millionaire cosmetics mogul who won cross-country air races and shattered records for speed. She set the adventure in motion by inviting the others to join her across the Atlantic.
Britain, suffering under constant aerial attack from Germany, was desperate enough to accept a mix of pilots—even foreigners, and yes, even women. Those who made the grade performed one of the most dangerous jobs of the war for a unit called the Air Transport Auxiliary. One in seven pilots died in the course of the work, which called on them to deliver ultimately up to 147 different models of relatively untested fighters and bombers from factories to the frontline airfields of the Royal Air Force, then turn around and return shot-up wrecks for repair. They knew very little about what could go wrong until they were high in the sky. Many pilots crashed or made spectacular saves.
Far from home, the free-wheeling, free-thinking American women proved themselves in the air, flying the world's most advanced aircraft in all conditions. On the ground, they reinvented themselves as they pleased, defying expectations for women at the time and often shocking their British hosts with thoroughly modern behavior. Under simulated flight conditions, Women's Air Service Pilots learned the intricacies of proper handling of equipment at high altitudes in a pressurized room at Randolph Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas, 1940s. Photograph(These female pilots broke down barriers in aviation) Bulgaria's cultural capital Socialites and speed demons
Twenty-three-year-old Dorothy Furey was a stunning beauty determined to overcome an impoverished background and an eighth-grade education. She passed in England as a sort of American aristocrat by acting imperious and recycling a single red evening dress. Impervious to scandal, she carried on an adulterous affair with a British lord. Eventually she married him and became a countess.
Meanwhile, Virginia Farr, also 23, was known back home as 'the flying socialite.' Her wealthy family expected her to marry well, but she seized on her service in Britain to escape from that gilded cage. Thanks to discipline and rock-solid nerves, Farr advanced quickly to the most difficult assignments in rugged outposts. In private, she fell in love with a woman. January 10th, 1940: Women pilots of the Transport Auxiliary Service, who ferried new RAF aircraft from factory to aerodromes, ran to their planes to give a demonstration of their skills. Photograph by Hudson/TopicalFarr's archrival in the sky was Winnie Pierce, a 25-year-old who lived for thrills and delighted in breaking the rules. When she first arrived, the British rolled their eyes at the hard-drinking party girl. But early in her service, the entire airfield watched in horror as her engine failed just after takeoff in a brand-new Hurricane fighter.
Everyone knew this was one of the most perilous circumstances a pilot could face. The Hurricane was too low to offer time for Winnie to find a suitable farming field where she might glide down to safety. Protocol called for her to aim straight ahead and crash into some buildings, because any other alternative was even more likely to be fatal. To try to turn back to the airport was a maneuver known as 'the impossible turn,' because few pilots possessed the skill to pull it off.
In a snap, Winnie decided to defy procedure. She pushed through shock with shaking hands as she swung aircraft around, wobbled into position and hit the field without a swerve. Suddenly, she was treated with new respect— 'all that rot about 'good show,'' she wrote in her diary.
Hazel Jane Raines, a 25-year-old former stunt pilot in Georgia air shows, also showed her mettle when the engine of a Spitfire fighter failed just as she entered a cloudbank. The whiteout made it impossible to judge left from right, up from down. Raines slipped into a deadly spin that could have drilled the aircraft straight into the ground. But when she finally broke free from the haze, she used her stunt flying expertise to level out in time and save her life. On land, Raines befriended the rich and powerful Lady Astor, who wanted Hazel to marry one of her sons, but Hazel declined. She insisted, 'The sky is my home as long as there is a place up there for me.' American pilot Jacqueline Cochran (far right) talked to members of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force at work on a Hawker Hurricane MkIIb fighter aircraft of 242 (Canadian) Squadron Royal Air Force Fighter Command. Photograph by Central Press/The women competed to fly the biggest, fastest, scariest aircraft, hoping that they could secure careers in the air when the war was over. Jackie Cochran returned home early in the fall of 1942 to help launch the Women Air Force Service Pilots [the WASP]. They delivered aircraft within the United States based on the success of the women in Britain. After the war, Cochran achieved more aviation landmarks, becoming the first woman to break the sound barrier.
It was tough going for others as the war ended. Passenger airlines wouldn't hire female pilots, yet some found other aviation work. Ann Wood had been a college graduate who spent her downtime in London making connections with diplomats, generals, journalists, and spies who might help her career. After the war she had to decide between marrying a man she loved and pursuing a serious job. Wood eventually landed a position at Pan Am as the first woman vice president of an American airline.
Nancy Miller, who today is the last surviving pilot at the age of 105, became the second American woman to earn a commercial helicopter license. She and her husband founded the first helicopter charter company in Alaska. Nancy Harkness Love, 28, director of the U.S. Women's Auxiliary Ferry Squadron, adjusted her helmet in the cockpit of an Army plane before taking off from an eastern United States base. The women under her command flew planes from factories to coastal airports, for transport to overseas battle fronts. Photograph by National Archives (208-N-4223)
At the age of 19, Mary Zerbel had been the youngest woman flying instructor in the United States. When she returned from England, she delivered dicey surplus aircraft to dodgy locations around the world. Her career was so dramatic that Lana Turner starred in the movie The Lady Takes a Flyer based on Zerbel's life. Yet when she died in 2012, her obituary consisted of only three sentences in a newspaper in Idaho—no mention of her flying career. Few of her colleagues received any notice either.
The pilots had lived as women ahead of their time, but despite their pioneering service, they were barely remembered when a busy world moved on after the war. Because they weren't permitted to serve within the United States military, they have been excluded from commemorations, and from history itself. With the 80th anniversary of VE-Day marking the end of the war in Europe on May 8th, 2025, it's time these Spitfires got their due.
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This string-bean Irish street kid making scraps as a photographer was not exactly what my grandparents had in mind for a suitor. He faced an insurmountable wall of separation policed by my pint-sized Sicilian grandmother, Josephina. The two gradually came up with a way to meet that even my grandmother could not refuse: doing crosswords in the bay window of their grocery store. It worked. She believed in him, and, when he said he wanted to be an architect, they decided that he should study under arguably the most famous architect of the time: Mies van der Rohe, who developed the modern steel and glass structures that transformed cities. It was an act of sheer hubris, if not insanity. The two arrived late on a snowy night in Chicago with $1.37 in their pockets. They stopped in a shop and ordered the only thing that they could afford: a cup of coffee. Before they left that night, my mother had a job as a waitress. He would become one of Mies's closest associates and, after his death, a partner at Skidmore Owings and Merrill, who helped design some of the most famous buildings in Chicago and around the world. With my parents' success came the ability to help others. They founded organizations that would have a significant impact on this city, including one of the first inner-city community credit unions to provide local businesses and families access to loans. She was president of Jane Addams Hull House and the founder of an array of organizations that fought for better housing, education, and safety for the poorest of the city. She helped create one of the first shelters for abused women and a group to maintain support for our public schools. She ran for city council in the 46th Ward, and the Chicago Tribune described her as the 'scrapper' from Uptown seeking to transform the poorest areas into decent places to live. She was all that — fearless; the embodiment of pure will. I remember going into slums with her as she faced down violent landlords and pimps. On one occasion, she and other mothers literally chased pimps and gang bangers out of a playground and a low-income building. I can still see the face of one pimp as a mix of amazement and amusement at this tough Sicilian mother with two young children in tow, pushing him into the street. I looked at her with that same 'What do we do?' look, but she did not flinch. She had that crazy Sicilian look that said, 'I am ready to go all the way, are you?' I was convinced that we were dead. But he never came back. My parents' success also gave my mother the opportunity to have something she had dreamed of as a little girl growing up during the Depression: a beautiful home filled with family. They bought one of the oldest houses in Uptown near the lake, with a room for each of their five children. 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It is a moment that comes for all of us, but few are ready to say goodbye when the time comes. When her health took a sudden turn for the worse, I rushed to the airport to be with her, only to have the airport shut down due to a raging storm. For the first time, she was out of reach. She died as I waited at the gate. My last moment with her had come a week earlier. I sat late at night at the end of her bed, staring at her and trying to hold it together. I had to catch a flight back to Washington in a few hours. I couldn't say a thing; I just looked at her with the same 'What do we do now?' look. I think that somehow, she knew. She suddenly sat up and looked straight at me with those beautiful hazel eyes and smiled. She then threw me a kiss. She then fell back to sleep. It was as if she were saying, 'You're going to be okay. You can take it from here.' And it was the last thing that my mother ever said to me. She had always been there. 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(RNS) — In 1775, a year before there was a United States and six weeks after the Continental Army was formed, George Washington made a declaration that has shaped the military ever since. 'We need chaplains,' he reportedly remarked, prompting action by the Continental Congress near the start of the Revolutionary War. The U.S. military chaplaincy marked 250 years on July 29 as the national military marked its own 250th anniversary in June. A week of celebrations includes a golf tournament at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, hosted by an organization raising funds for scholarships for family members of chaplains, and a sold-out ball nearby in Columbia. Meanwhile, across the globe, thousands of clergy in uniform continue to provide counsel and care to military members of a range of faiths or no faith. 'In times of peace and war, our chaplains have held fast as beacons of hope and resilience for our troops, whether enduring the brutal winter of Valley Forge, comforting the wounded and dying on the battlefields during the Civil War, braving trench warfare in World War I, storming the beaches of Normandy during World War II, marching the frozen mountains during the Korean War, slogging through the rice paddies and jungle battlefields of Vietnam or traveling the bomb-filled roads of Iraq and Afghanistan,' said retired Chaplain (Major General) Doug Carver, a former Army chief of chaplains in charge of the Southern Baptist Convention's chaplaincy ministries, at the denomination's June annual meeting in Dallas. A month later at the annual session of the Progressive National Baptist Convention in Chicago, Navy Chaplain J.M. Smith, the grandson of a former PNBC president, stood before delegates and described his just-completed tour as a Marine Corps command chaplain in Okinawa, Japan, and his plans to report to a ship in Norfolk, Virginia, to begin a tour of Europe and the Middle East and be promoted to lieutenant commander. 'My team and I have ministered to thousands of Marines, sailors, civilians and Japanese,' he said. 'We increased our chapel's membership from eight to 100. We incorporated spiritual readiness into our base's core curriculum.'' ___ Chaplains serve in hospitals, hospices and manufacturing plants, and while chaplaincy researchers see commonalities among them, there are also key differences in the military. All are involved in gaining the trust of people who are in their particular milieu, enabling them to think and sometimes pray through their times of greatest need and day-to-day struggles. An example of both the danger and the dedication of military service chaplaincy is the 1943 death of four chaplains — two Protestant, one Catholic and one Jewish — who helped save some of those aboard a World War II ship, turning over their life jackets and praying and singing hymns before it sank. All four were trained at Harvard University, then the site of the Army's chaplain training school, during a two-year wartime period. "It was a real defining moment,' said retired Gen. Steve Schaick, who served as Air Force chief of chaplains from 2018 to 2021, and in the same role for the Space Force from 2019 to 2021. 'The stories that came from that really kind of highlighted chaplains at their best.' The Army's chaplaincy corps also includes religious affairs specialists and religious education directors. Some service members provide armed protection to unarmed chaplains and set up worship spaces in on-base chapels or makeshift altars on truck hoods in the field. For example, Berry Gordy, who later founded Motown Records, served as a private in the Korean War and played a portable organ and was known as a chaplain assistant, notes ' Sacred Duty,' a new comic book posted on the Army's website to mark the anniversary. While 218 chaplains served in the Revolutionary War, 9,117 chaplains served in World War II, according to the Army. Currently, the Army has 1,500 chaplains on active duty. The Navy Chaplain Corps, which began on Nov. 18, 1775, had 24 chaplains during the Civil War; 203 by the end of World War I; 1,158 at its height in 1990; and currently has 898 on active duty, according to the Navy. 'Today's Chaplain Corps includes Chaplains representing a multitude of faith groups, and the Chaplain Corps recruiting team is actively working to increase the Corps' diversity, with a special focus on increasing the number of women Chaplains in the Corps and the number of Chaplains representing low-density faith groups,' reads an Army historical booklet marking the Chaplain Corps' 250 years. Initially, U.S. military chaplains were Protestants. The first Catholic chaplains served in the Mexican-American War in 1846, and the first rabbi was commissioned in 1862 and served in the Civil War. The first Muslim chaplains were commissioned in the Army in 1993. The first Buddhist Army chaplain was named in 2008, followed by the first Hindu chaplain in 2011. Chaplain Margaret Kibben, acting chaplain of the House of Representatives and former chief of chaplains of the Navy — the first woman in that role — said the isolation and the immediacy of ethical decisions faced by military members, as well as a high level of confidentially, can make the work of military chaplaincy teams different from other settings where chaplains work. 'It's the one place that people can go where there's essentially a sanctuary around them, wherever they find themselves, a safe place to have somebody to talk to about a whole host of issues,' she said, adding that topics can include anything from supporting their families to handling combat responsibilities. 'How do you deal with those issues in a place where you're not going to look stupid, you're not going to look weak or unreliable because you have these doubts and you have these concerns — to have a place that you can go to ensure that you can get that off your chest?' Those private conversations often are not faith-filled, added Kibben, reflecting on her military career that began in 1986. 'What I realized later, 20, 30 years later, was that many service members have never learned the language of faith,' she said, citing terms like confession and forgiveness. 'So as a chaplain, we had to figure out our way around the lack of a lexicon of faith. How do you speak about grace to someone who doesn't have a clue how powerful grace is?' Another change, sparked by the efforts of Julie Moore, the wife of a military officer who served in the Vietnam War, was the Army's method for notifying the next of kin when a soldier died. Soon after a 1960s battle in that war, a chaplain and a uniformed officer began teaming up to knock on families' doors; prior to that time, the news arrived in a telegram delivered by a cab driver. The work of chaplains has sometimes been the source of church-state debates. For example, Michael 'Mikey' Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for separation of church and state in the U.S. military, has questioned what he viewed as proselytism in the chaplains' ranks. Meanwhile, conservative Christian organizations have voiced concerns about an antipathy against some Christians in military ranks. Karen Diefendorf, a two-time Army chaplain and a board member of the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps Regimental Association, which supports chaplains and their families, said the primary goal for chaplains is 'to provide for the free exercise rights of every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, Coast Guardsman.' She currently is an interim minister of an independent Methodist church in South Carolina, after serving as a chaplain at Tysons Foods and in hospice care. 'I had soldiers who were practitioners of Wiccan faith, and my job is not to say to them, 'Hey, wouldn't you like to love Jesus?'' she said, recalling how she assisted a Wiccan Army member serving in Korea. 'My job was to help that young soldier find where his particular group of folks met and where he could practice his faith.' Also during her service in Korea in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Diefendorf said she provided cassette tapes of sermons to soldiers and entrusted one with Communion elements because she knew she wouldn't be able to reach their location often. 'So far, the courts have upheld that you certainly have two competing clauses within the First Amendment, establishment and free exercise,' she said. 'And at this point, certainly chaplains have to walk that fine line not to create establishment in the midst of trying to also enable people to practice their beliefs.' Schaick recalled being deployed overseas in the Air Force when a new rabbi joined his staff. On arrival, the rabbi described himself as 'first and foremost a chaplain and secondarily a rabbi' — an order of priorities that Schaick said applies to chaplains to this day, regardless of their faith perspective. 'The longer you serve in the chaplaincy, I think the closer you get to really believing that — and therefore, religious affiliation becomes secondary,' he said. 'It's 'How're you doing today?' and 'I'd love to hear what's on your heart' and 'How can I be able to help you today?' Those kind of questions, quite frankly, are impervious to religious distinctions.'
