Honor for unsung WW II women pilots

Austin (KXAN) - An overdue honor comes this week in Washington for a group of World War Two pilots.   The Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs, will be honored on Capitol Hill. 

The WASP served at a time when it was rare for women to fly.   Even more rare was for a woman to fly military aircraft.  But women got the chance to do that due to a shortage of male pilots on the homefront in World War II.

Women from around the country joined the WASP, drawn by a mix of patriotism and love of flying.  Mildred Dalrymple had both, but what pushed her to join was a personal tragedy.

She was Mildred Davidson during World War II, married to a bomber pilot.  The young couple took joy in flying together - him at the controls - before he was called overseas.

"He was killed. My husband was killed," Dalrymple said.   "He was flying a B-17 Bomber over Germany and it went down in the North Sea. So, that's when I decided."

Her decision - take flight lessons and join the WASP.   She had to pay for the lessons herself, working to earn money, then spending it for flight time.  It took several months for her to get the 35 hours of flight required to apply.

Once she signed up, her first stop was the west Texas town of Sweetwater.  That was the only WASP training base.  The women went there for flight training, and a bit of military discipline.

Tough conditions in Sweetwater pushed a lot of women out of the program.

"West Texas weather, when you're from New York or California, and there's green stuff everywhere, and all you've got out there is dust and dirt, and in the winter it's cold," said Dalrymple. 

"We were flying open cockpit planes. They didn't like that."

Dalrymple made it through, and earned her wings.

"We'd done a tough job. Half of our class washed out. and those of us who remained knew that we were good pilots."

After graduating, Dalrymple flew all over the country.  But on the ground, she and her fellow WASPs often faced lack of respect.

"The people around Sweetwater were used to us," Dalrymple said.  "But when we had to land at another field, going cross country, they were reluctant to give us gas, they thought we were mechanics, they didn't believe that there wasn't somebody else in that plane. And so, we kind of lorded it over them, and said, 'fill it with gas.'"

Despite their training and service, the WASP did not have military status.  That fact hit home when one of Dalrymple's friends died in a crash.

"We took up money among our classmates to send her body back to her mother," Dalrymple said.

"Her mother was so sorry she didn't even have a Gold Star she could put in her window and she didn't get a flag for her casket."

Then, the goverment grounded the WASPs, ending the program.

"All the combat pilots were coming back," Dalyrmple said.  "They didn't have any jobs for them to do, so either let them fly around doing nothing, paying for gas, or get rid of us. And guess what they did? December the 20th, 1944, they kicked us out."

Respect has come over the years.  WASPs now have Veteran Status, and this week, Dalrymple and fellow surviving WASPs will receive the Congressional Gold Medal.

And respect comes in other ways.  A family stopped Dalrymple as she walked to meet us at the Texas State History Museum - they wanted a photo with a real World War II pilot. 

Dalrymple says she appreciates the recognition, but doesn't feel that she did anything special:

"Everybody was doing everything they could, whether it was flying airplanes or doing Rosie the Riveter type things. We could fly airplanes, and we did. It was wartime, you did whatever you could."

Dalrymple is among five central Texas WASP members who will be honored on Wednesday. The others are Janis Wheatley of Georgetown, and Austin residents Susie Bain, Mary Tilton, and Elizabeth Whiting.

They'll each receive bronze replicas of the Congressional Gold Medal. The U.S. Mint will make one actual gold medal, which will be unveiled at the ceremony, and then donated to the Smithsonian Institute.