In Her Own Words: Bee Haydu Talks About "The Eager Beaver Show"

by Christina Leigh Burns

The weather at Avenger Field wasn't always ideal. Often the WASP found themselves grounded for days at a time due to the harsh wind or rain.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500.0"] Avenger Field, Sweetwater, Texas [/caption]

Bernice Falk Haydu's class was grounded for two weeks waiting to fly because the previous class had been held back due to bad weather. This gave Bernice and her classmates nothing to do for the last half of every day.

"I suggested to my classmates that we put on a show giving our first impressions of Army life and demonstrating some of the experiences were encountering in barracks living.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500.0"] Bernice "Bee" Falk Haydu was picked as the Master of Ceremonies at the WASP's Eager Beaver Variety Show. [/caption]

Mrs. Leota Deaton, Chief Staff Executive Officer, agreed it was a great idea. She asked Julie Jenner (44-3) if she would help us since Julie had been a Ziegfeld Follies girl before joining the WASP.

It was amazing to discover the many talents of these young women in our class. Some wrote comic skits about visits to the psychologist, our trials undergoing the physical training, our experiences in our bays and the joys of twelve women sharing two showers and two johns etc. Some danced, some played musical instruments and I was elected Master of Ceremonies."

The show was named Eager Beaver and it was such a success they were sent to Camp Tye and Camp Barkeley to perform.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="960.0"] The Cast of the Eager Beaver show. [/caption]

"We were bussed to Camp Barkeley March 17th to give our show. Since there was no stage entrance, we fifteen girl student flyers had to march in from the front door and walk down the center aisle through this already seated enthusiastic crowd of whistling and hooting young men.

We could do nothing wrong! They loved us! A few days later Mrs. Deaton called us to a meeting. Our show was such a success she wanted to know if we would like to 'take it on the road'. When we asked what would happen with our flight training if we said yes, we were told we would have to give that up.

There wasn't a yes in the crowd!" - Bernice "Bee" Falk Haydu

Support our WWII Women Aviators: funddreamer.com/campaigns/flygirls