“Querer es poder...if you can dream it, you can achieve it." --Lt Col Olga Custodio, USAF (Ret.)

Custodio was the first female T-38 flight instructor at both Laughlin & Randolph AFB in Texas. (Photo: Olga Custodio)

by Liz Duca


“Querer es poder...if you can dream it, you can achieve it.” Those words speak to the core of Olga Custodio and it is a mantra that she uses to inspire those around her. The moment Olga decided that she wanted to become a military pilot it became her mission, and she was not going to take “no” for an answer.

Olga’s desire to fly began at a young age. Her father was in the Army and she has many memories of traveling around the world with her family. However, when she first attempted to become a military officer through her university’s United States Air Force (USAF) Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), she was told women were not allowed into the program. A later attempt to enter through the USAF Officer Training School was also denied. Despite the obstacles that were placed in her path, Olga continued toward her goal full throttle with grit and determination. When she was 26 years old, already with a family of her own, she decided to make one last attempt to apply to USAF Officer Training School. Her three career choices on her application: pilot, pilot, and pilot. She became all three and then some.

Olga became the first Hispanic female to graduate from USAF Undergraduate Pilot Training, as well as the first female T-38 Talon Flight Instructor at both Laughlin Air Force Base (AFB) in Del Rio, Texas and Randolph AFB in San Antonio, Texas. It was during her time as a T-38 instructor that she was awarded the Headquarters Air Education and Training Command Aviation Safety Award for the superior airmanship she displayed while handling an in-flight emergency when one of her engines failed after a bird strike.

In total, Olga served 24 years in the military and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Air Force Reserve. She flew with American Airlines, retiring with over 11,000 hours flying the Boeing 727, Fokker 100, Boeing 757 and Boeing 767. She was recognized on two occasions by the Senate of Puerto Rico as an outstanding and exemplary citizen, and as the first and only Puerto Rican female pilot in the United States Air Force and American Airlines.

Olga continues to hold a number of roles in her community to include being Vice President of the Hispanic Association of Aviation and Aerospace Professionals (HAAAP), a non-profit organization she helped found in San Antonio in 2010, Executive Director and Treasurer of the Women in Aviation International Alamo City Chapter, a member and trustee of the Order of Daedalians, and a mentor with the Aviation Explorers in San Antonio and the School of Aeronautics at the Inter American University in Puerto Rico. She is also the Director and Founder of the Ballet Folklorico Boriken in San Antonio, a Puerto Rican folk dance group since 1992. The group was founded to promote and preserve Olga’s cultural heritage in Texas and has participated in many cultural and educational events.  Boriken is the only group representing Puerto Rico in the annual Texas Folklife Festival.

   As Captain with American Airlines (Photo: Olga Custodio)

Olga Custodio’s accomplishments, like the WASP, are a true testimony to the power behind believing that your dreams can become a reality. “The WASPs laid the foundation for us, the second generation of military aviators,” said Custodio. “We are the next layer of military pilots who continue to inspire more women to know they can do and become anything they dream.”

Querer es poder!

CW3 Eva Rodriguez, U.S. Army (Ret.): From Pilot to Author, Spiritual Healer, and Activist Serving Her Community

Eva on military duty. (Photo: georgeherald.com)

by Logan Walker

To most people who experienced a childhood as Eva Rodriguez did, a life of turbulent adventure and near constant travel might seem like a path to be avoided rather than actively pursued. Constancy and environmental stability can provide an undeniable lure to those who have never experienced it. But, as Rodriguez’s unique life and career prove, normal is sometimes just not enough.

Born in 1963 Detroit to Mexican-descended musician Sixto “Sugar Man” Rodriguez and his half-Cherokee wife Rayma, Eva and her family lived a gypsy lifestyle that wasn’t without hardships. She says, “(My parents) did tough things to keep going and raise three kids. I went to 13 different schools because we moved around all the time. Sandra and I were always the new kids at school and before we could make friends we moved again.”

Despite the lack of stability, her parents did their best to keep the family together in a supportive and loving environment. Art was a pervasive part of the Rodriguez home, with Eva recalling that, “Music was always a part of our life. Rodriguez played guitar and we were encouraged to sing and perform poems, drum, and dance.”

Life would change when a U.S. Army recruitment team visited Eva's school. She signed up right away; “As my dad’s daughter I was taught to love not kill. I was a hippie. But the opportunity came along and I realized if I did not get out of Detroit I would probably end up being a mom on crack.”

By 1986 she was working as a combat nurse, and spent a year stationed in South Korea working with the seriously injured. During this time, she helped to evacuate a patient by helicopter for the first time, an experience that left her with a growing interest in flying. Never one to rest on her laurels, by the next year she not only passed the difficult Army pilot training test but became one of the first women to do so. Officer training was intense and difficult, and Rodriguez was striving in what was undeniably a male dominated environment; in personal quarters, she shared a bathroom with 70 men. Despite what must have felt like at least an initial incongruence, Eva remembers an acceptance and camaraderie that eventually sprung up between her and her male co-trainees. Her training took her to Germany between 1988 and 1990 before she was finally rewarded as an official military pilot.

Life as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot was a whirlwind of travel and excitement, alternately thrilling and heart-wrenchingly tense. Sent to Puerto Rico, she spent time acting as a military advisor for Columbia and Barbados before traveling to Honduras, Guatemala and Belize as a safety program manager. Next disaster relief and humanitarian work called her across South America, to places like Nicaragua, Belize and El Salvador. A year later she flew in the Persian Gulf War, carrying patients and medical supplies through the war zones from Iraq to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

The steady and substantive financial perks of Rodriguez’s job allowed her to spend lavishly and purchase expensive clothes, cars, and houses (in both Egypt and Germany). Looking fondly on these days which stood in such stark contrast to the modest lifestyle she grew up with, Eva muses, “I literally lived the American dream.” But the dream darkened when the realities of her work in combat put her in serious concern of her life. “I had a lot of close calls, which make you realize you are not in control of everything,” she explained, adding, “There is a reason why you make it out alive and others don’t.”

Returning to America in 1991, Eva put her medical experience to work as a nurse in Kansas, working with patients for four years. Next she spent a yearlong stint as a peacekeeper in Egypt, an experience she recalls as a particular career favorite, before she returned once more to her life in Kansas. It was at this point that she was surprised to learn of two South African fans of her father who were searching for information on the current whereabouts of the “Sugar Man”, whose popularity, she would learn, was quite substantial in South Africa. Eva, who refers to her father only by his last name, was passingly aware of his status as a pop musician whose song (and epithet provider) “Sugar Man” had been an international hit for a period in the ‘70s, but knew relatively little of his music. Inspired by the renewed interest, she set about assisting in the revitalization of his career, taking photos of the musician for fans and arranging and accompanying him on a string of South African tour dates.

Eva, "On 3rd Degree: Rodriguez-Echoes of Freedom" (Photo: sugarman.org)

Once back from the tour experience, Rodriguez’s daily life had reached an adventurous and sometimes hectic fever pitch as it seems she was once more piloting helicopters for the military. Soon enough she found her life changed following the birth of her first child. The 1999 arrival of her son called into question how much longer she could continue in a line of work that meant near constant danger; “I was a soldier by day and a mom by night. But once you become a mom your mind-set changes. For the first time I had something to live for.”

The final straw came for Eva as she piloted a Black Hawk helicopter in the midst of a Columbia drug raid, an experience that forced her to realize that there was no room in her life for both her Army missions and her child. Honorably discharged as a highly decorated soldier, she ended her military career as a Chief Warrant Officer 3, and in 2001 moved with her family to the town of Wilderness in South Africa where she set up house in a rural cliffside cottage.

Reflecting on her long career, Rodriguez states that “As a woman, the effects after a war are very hard. Everyone admires you as a hero, but you don’t feel like one. Twenty years was enough, so I took early retirement.”  Years in the stressful environment of the Army as well as an awareness of her Mexican/Cherokee ancestors and their tribal healing practices influenced her interest in spirituality and native healing, a subject which she calls “full of sacredness and miracles”.

Eva authored the book, The Circle of Love, a book authored by Rodriguez and aimed at highlighting spirituality and nature for children. Picked by UNIMA as an arts intervention project and staged by over 300 students at a school in Cape Town, the book combined many forms of performative art over a period of eight weeks. In 2009, it was performed for the Amateur Arts Festival at George Society of the Arts Theatre where it was nominated for Best Performance and received acknowledgment for directorial and script efforts. According to Eva, “My vision is to promote The Circle of Love as a fundraiser to provide children with greater opportunities to express themselves creatively, encourage a true appreciation of nature, and in doing so expand their own circle of love.”

Immersed in a life very different from the one she led years ago, Eva has settled into a life of healing and authoring in her tranquil community, occasionally accompanying her father on tours and extending her efforts toward community involvement. Of her preferred lifestyle of late, she says “I live in Wilderness, it’s pretty remote. I’ve been there a long time. So I enjoy Cape Town, the art and the buzz, but it gets too much and then I long to go back to Wilderness.” After a career surrounded by men in a largely male-centric field, her current life has seen her surrounded by more women than ever before, as she is in her own words, “still trying to get in touch with my feminine side.” Now an executive committee member of the Outeniqua Business and Professional Women’s Club in George, she views helping with the club’s Phambili Refuge for Battered Women as a priority, stating “I have realized that one way I need to give back is by helping women be aware of their rights within relationships and that there are ways to pursue justice despite being abused and without resources.”

Although her piloting days are behind her, Eva’s continued commitment to serving her community and the larger world through authorship, healing, and community outreach are undoubtedly an extension of the active role she has always taken in meeting challenges head on and bravely participating in the change in both her local and global environment.

"We learned very young that in order to be successful you have to workhard at it, nothing is handed to you." --Major Marisol Chalas, U.S. Army

Major Chalas poses for a photo overlooking the Dominican Republic as part of International Women's Day and a book by Giovanna Bonnelly & Nicole Sanchez titled Mujer , which features 100 Dominican Women who have been trailblazers and opened doors for others to follow. (Photo: Nicole Sanchez)

by Jess Clackum

Major Marisol A. Chalas, decorated pilot with nearly 26 years of service, was born in Bani, Dominican Republic and at age nine, moved with her family to the U.S. to reside in Massachusetts. Chalas's parents were her greatest role models, often working two jobs each to take care of their children.  She says, “We learned very young that in order to be successful you have to work hard at it, nothing is handed to you.”

Chalas followed her parents example and when times got tough after her freshman year at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, she left for a time in order to work. She put in more hours on weekends than most people put in during the week just to make ends meet. When she returned to school, she successfully completed her Bachelor's Degree and went to work for General Electric.

Major Chalas began her military career as an enlisted soldier in the Army in July 1990.  She was among the top graduates at Fort Rucker Army Aviation School and in 2001 received her commission as Second Lieutenant in the Aviation branch from the Georgia Military Institute Officer Candidate School. She has served in various leadership positions, including Lean Six Sigma advisor (Lean Six is a methodology that relies on a collaborative team effort to improve performance through a number of initiatives), Battle Captain and Platoon Leader during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Aviation Liaison Officer with the Combined Joint Task Force for the New Horizons Humanitarian Assistance project in Barahona, Dominican Republic. In addition she has served as Aviation Readiness Officer and Company Commander with FORSCOM (US Army Forces Command) as well as Aviation Force Integrator for USARC (US Army Reserve Command) G-3/5/7 Aviation Directorate.

(Photo: Marisol Chalas)

Major Chalas has an extensive corporate career record with vast international experience. She worked for General Electric for eleven years in a number of management positions. She spent time in Latin America, Asia and Europe and graduated from GE's Nuclear Technical Leadership Program. She also served as a Consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, a global firm which provides management and technology consulting and engineering services to Fortune 500 corporations, governments and not-for-profit agencies.

Chalas received her Bachelor of Science degree in Marine Engineering from Massachusetts Maritime Academy (where she currently serves as member of the Board of Trustees) and a Master of Business Administration from J. Mack Robinson School of Business, Georgia State University. She is a certified Lean and Six Sigma Black Belt and member of the National Scholars Honor Society. She completed the Strategic Fellows Program at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC.

 

Chalas is currently serving as the Battalions Operations Officer for 1-158th Aviation Regiment in Conroe, Texas and currently serving as a member of the Congressional Staff on Capitol Hill as part of the Army Congressional Fellowship Program which began in May 2016 and ends in December 2017. During this time she is also working on her Masters in Legislative Affairs from George Washington University.

Major Chalas is indebted to the WASP for the opportunities their service opened up for her.

“Every time I read how this project began and how it has evolved I get goose bumps. These women are extraordinary, driven and true heroes. Thanks to these pioneers and trailblazers who found ways to follow their dreams and make them reality even when they were told 'no', I today can serve as a pilot in the Armed Forces. I salute and thank each of them for their persistence and perseverance."

Major Marisol Chalas, U.S. Army Black Hawk pilot: "We learned veryyoung that in order to be successful you have to work hard at it,nothing is handed to you."

Major Chalas poses for a photo overlooking the Dominican Republic as part of International Women's Day and a book by Giovanna Bonnelly & Nicole Sanchez titled Mujer , which features 100 Dominican Women who have been trailblazers and opened doors for others to follow. (Photo: Nicole Sanchez)

by Jess Clackum
Major Marisol A. Chalas, decorated pilot with nearly 26 years of service, was born in Bani, Dominican Republic and at age nine, moved with her family to the U.S. to reside in Massachusetts. Chalas's parents were her greatest role models, often working two jobs each to take care of their children.  She says, “We learned very young that in order to be successful you have to work hard at it, nothing is handed to you.” 

Chalas followed her parents example and when times got tough after her freshman year at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, she left for a time in order to work. She put in more hours on weekends than most people put in during the week just to make ends meet. When she returned to school, she successfully completed her Bachelor's Degree and went to work for General Electric.

Major Chalas began her military career as an enlisted soldier in the Army in July 1990.  She was among the top graduates at Fort Rucker Army Aviation School and in 2001 received her commission as Second Lieutenant in the Aviation branch from the Georgia Military Institute Officer Candidate School. She has served in various leadership positions, including Lean Six Sigma advisor (Lean Six is a methodology that relies on a collaborative team effort to improve performance through a number of initiatives), Battle Captain and Platoon Leader during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Aviation Liaison Officer with the Combined Joint Task Force for the New Horizons Humanitarian Assistance project in Barahona, Dominican Republic. In addition she has served as Aviation Readiness Officer and Company Commander with FORSCOM (US Army Forces Command) as well as Aviation Force Integrator for USARC (US Army Reserve Command) G-3/5/7 Aviation Directorate.

Major Chalas has an extensive corporate career record with vast international experience. She worked for General Electric for eleven years in a number of management positions. She spent time in Latin America, Asia and Europe and graduated from GE's Nuclear Technical Leadership Program. She also served as a Consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, a global firm which provides management and technology consulting and engineering services to Fortune 500 corporations, governments and not-for-profit agencies. 

Chalas received her Bachelor of Science degree in Marine Engineering from Massachusetts Maritime Academy (where she currently serves as member of the Board of Trustees) and a Master of Business Administration from J. Mack Robinson School of Business, Georgia State University. She is a certified Lean and Six Sigma Black Belt and a member of the National Scholars Honor Society and recently completed the Strategic Fellows Program at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC.

Chalas is the Battalions Operations Officer for 1-158th Aviation Regiment in Conroe, Texas and currently serving as a member of the Congressional Staff on Capitol Hill as part of the Army Congressional Fellowship Program which began in May 2016 and ends in December 2017. During this time she is also working on her Masters in Legislative Affairs from George Washington University.

Major Chalas is indebted to the WASP for the opportunities their service opened up for her. 

“Every time I read how this project began and how it has evolved I get goose bumps. These women are extraordinary, driven and true heroes. Thanks to these pioneers and trailblazers who found ways to follow their dreams and make them reality even when they were told 'no', I today can serve as a pilot in the Armed Forces. I salute and thank each of them for their persistence and perseverance."

"You just got into the air and had the fun of those powerful machines in the sky" -- Molly Rose, legendary British ATA pilot

by Logan Walker

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="412.0"] Molly Rose, 1942 (Photo: UK Daily Express) [/caption]

It was a chilly day in the waning years of the 1920s and it may have been an altogether more sensible idea to stay grounded inside by a fire, but Molly Rose was fortified by an excitement that defied reason. “I remember how cold it was,” she would remember years later and well into adulthood, “but when your big brother invites you on a flight, you don’t run into the house to get a cardigan!”

As a young girl, Molly often watched her brother take off in his Tiger Moth airplane from the windows of the Rose family home; now, as he led her to where it was parked in a field behind the house she could barely contain her excitement. As she recalled, “I was one of a large family, and as a little girl I thought anything my brother did was terrific…I very much enjoyed going anywhere he was prepared to take his little sister.”  It was the first of several trips that would confirm for the young Molly that her aspirations pointed squarely to the pilot’s seat of an aircraft.

In many ways Molly’s passion for flying was either extremely lucky or somewhat inevitable; planes were after all the family business. One of seven children born to Maude and David Marshall, Molly’s father founded the Cambridge company Marshall Aerospace in 1909. The business would later be taken over by Molly’s brother and sometime flying escort Arthur who would expand it to include aircraft construction and servicing. Educated for much of her youth at a local school near her hometown of Cambridge, Molly spent a year at finishing school in Paris before returning to England to work in the family business. By age 17 she had obtained both a driver’s and pilot’s license, and soon after began training as Marshall Aerospace’s first female airplane engineer.

Molly’s personal life had begun to blossom as well; in 1938 she met a young music scholar at St. Catherine’s College named Bernard Rose during a party in Cambridge and the two began dating. A year later, Bernard, was called up to join the war effort as preparations for WWII swept the country. The two were barely married before Molly’s new husband was shuttled off to command tanks in North Africa, Italy, and Normandy, where he would later be captured and imprisoned near Germany.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400.0"] Molly Rose (left) and fellow ATA pilots. (Photo: The Telegraph) [/caption]

It wasn’t long before Molly would receive her own army summons of sorts. In 1942 Rose received an invitation to join the ATA (Air Transport Auxilary), an organization founded by Sir Gerard Regis Leo d’Erlinger. Constructed on the belief that those not qualified to join the countries’ RAF (Royal Air Force) should be put to work transporting aircraft so that RAF members could focus on combat flying, the ATA started off accepting only men who for various reasons could not ordinarily qualify for Air Force service. Eventually, the ATA opened its doors to women, a historic development as Britain had never before allowed a woman in a military aircraft (the women of the ATA also had the distinction of receiving an equal wage to their male peers). In the end, about a fifth of the ATA pilots would be female, and collectively the organization would deliver over 309,000 planes over the course of the war. A natural choice for the job, Molly was seasoned in the world of aviation and a qualified pilot to boot, but despite her knowledgeable background she had spent only 57 hours in the sky (and just 18 of those as a solo pilot).

Molly's training with the ATA demonstrated her natural aptitude for flying, and she soon progressed from piloting the light Tiger Moth planes that she had taken her first taste of flight in, to more substantial single engine planes. Finally, she graduated to the cockpits of aircrafts like the Hurricane fighter and the infamous Spitfire, a piloting experience that Rose herself labeled “a thrilling moment.”

Expanding on her favorite aircrafts, Molly later commented that, “I didn’t like things like Walruses very much, which we had to fly sometimes. I think I liked all those gaudy aircraft that we flew, I mean particularly the twin engine light bombers, which were lovely to fly. And a Wellington was very nice, a reliable aircraft to fly.” Post-training she was stationed at Luton, then White Waltham, and finally in September of 1943 to Hamble airfield near Southhampton, an exclusively female unit that she would remain at for most of her time in the ATA.

Flying for the ATA was a difficult job by any standards. Aetheris avidi, or “eager for the air” read the ATA motto, and true to the description, on any given day Molly and her fellow pilots might be tasked with flying three to four different types of planes. Significant preparation and resourcefulness were needed for these flights, especially when operating a new kind of aircraft; checklists and aircraft notes where utilized in the absence of flight radios, which were not supplied, and often airfields where disguised and hardly perceptible from the sky. “If you were taking a new type of aircraft that you hadn’t flown before, you got the book out of the library, and if you got the chance you read it,” Rose remembered. “But equally you had a small, hard, loose leafed book which you could turn up to the page of the aircraft you were flying, and you stuck it in your flying boot. It became a joke to all the air force pilots in the we always had these. And when you were coming in to land you looked up any salient features of that aircraft.”

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="520.0"] Molly Rose during a visit to RAF Brize Norton in August 2013. (Photo: raf.mod.uk) [/caption]

The urgency of their missions, regardless of the hazards they sometimes posed, was never lost on the women of the ATA. “I was never challenged, but we all absolutely knew that we had our backs to the wall,” said Rose of the tense political climate of WWII Britain. “If Hitler had cared to do an invasion immediately after Dunkirk, he could have walked in. But everyone was doing what they could to help. There was tremendous camaraderie.” In other ways, the experience of flying was freeing; As Rose recalled, “In those days. You did not have to keep to flight paths and heights. You just got into the air and had the fun of those powerful machines in the sky.” Throughout it all, Rose and her fellow pilots maintained a no-nonsense work ethic and practicality that cut through any irreverence or air-stunts; “I think we were all very conscious of the fact that aircraft were special and you didn’t want to break any. I mean if you read Giles [Whittell’s book “Spitfire Women of WWII”] you would feel that everyone was larking about the sky having great fun doing aerobatics. In fact it really wasn’t like that, it was a serious job of work. And we would all realize that aircraft were very rare and very special, and if you could you were going to preserve it. And equally, fuel was very, very, very scarce.”

Over the course of her career as a pilot, Rose transported 486 aircraft of 86 different varieties; among them the Hurricane, Anson, Mustang, Gladiator, Beaufighter, and Wellington Bombers, as well as the notoriously difficult Mosquito aircraft. Each of these were delivered to RAF or Royal Navy airfields and maintenance units where they would await combat assignments, after which Molly and other fliers of the organization would hitch a ride from one of their fellow pilots to the next transportation job. Ever busy with delivery duties, it became common for the women of the ATA to re-label their acronym as “Anything to Anywhere”.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="650.0"] Molly poses in front of a Spitfire. (Photo: Oxford Mail) [/caption]

Molly’s hands were kept perpetually full flying out of her primary base of Ferry Pool No 15 , and in her most hectic year, 1944, she transported 253 planes from one location to another. Her hard work eventually earned her a promotion to first officer (the equivalent of a flight lieutenant). Located near the busy naval centers of Woolsten and Itchen, she also had close exposure to the large scale D-Day preparations happening around her. The immediate aftermath of that event would have a heavy impact on Molly’s personal life; her husband Bernard was captured in the wake of the invasion and reported dead, news that Rose herself refused to believe. Throughout that tense time, she relied on her work to focus her mind and distract her from the uncertainty of Bernard’s fate; “At least during the daytime, I was busy with my own skin. And you know, you do worry about yourself first, however much you love somebody. You’ve got to concentrate on what you’re doing, you’re trying very hard not to break airplanes.” As fortune would have it, she was proven correct when he was verified alive just weeks later.

Hazards abounded for Molly as well, who had her closest brush with disaster in the skies over Shropshire when the engine of the Swordfish she was piloting failed and sent her spiraling toward the ground below. Crash landing on a slanted field she narrowly missed hitting a farm worker before landing upside in her cockpit, hanging precariously from her safety harness.

The return of her husband signaled the end of Molly’s three year tenure with the ATA, and the last of her days as a pilot. Remembering the close of her flying career, Rose remarked that ““When he came back I came out of the ATA. I was much more needed to look after him. I think the war changed both of us, but we were fortunate in that we both liked each other, and we had a very happy marriage of 57 years.” Post-war the Roses settled in Bampton, Oxfordshire and raised three sons. In 1952 Molly was appointed as a magistrate on the Bullingdon circuit, while Bernard became an organist and choirmaster at Oxford’s Magdalen College. In the early sixties the couple to Appleton Manor, a 13th century estate near Abingdon. There Molly set to work hosting choristers, indulging in games of bridge and snooker, and raising funds for charity, a pursuit which earned her an OBE in 1989.

While her husband retired in 1981, Molly was appointed a deputy lieutenant for Oxfordshire two years later, and in due time became an active representative of the ATA in the media. Although her son stated that his mother spoke little of her work as a pilot during his childhood, Molly gained a higher profile as the organization gained new recognition circa the mid 2000s in the wake of developments like Giles Whittell’s WWII biography of the ATA and Gordon Brown’s official awarding of 50 surviving ATA veterans.

Appearing in televised interviews and broadcast programs such as BBC's “The Great British Menu: The D-Day Banquet,” Molly spent her later days active in raising awareness of the previously largely forgotten female pilots of WWII. Commenting on modern flight techniques during a visit to RAF Brize Norton in 2013, Rose stated that “It was much more interesting in my day because one was entirely in control of the airplane. They do not really fly it these days- it’s all computers.”

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="631.0"] Molly Rose pictured with one of the Hurricane planes she once flew. (Photo: airspacemag.com) [/caption]

In October 2016 Molly passed away during a trip to Scotland. At 95, she was one of the last surviving members of the ATA, and one of the few living reminders of a time when circumstances briefly allowed women to serve alongside men in an unprecedented military context, years before such opportunities became standard procedure. Whether as a child riding behind her brother on a freezing English morning or a woman flying through the air over a war-beset country with only an old map and her own resourcefulness to guide her, Molly Rose’s courage, cleverness, and sense of adventure never failed her. As a pilot and a women, she did what few before but so many after her could, which is at the least the sign of a trailblazer, and at the most perhaps the sign of an exceptional person.

“Embrace the possibilities!” –-Kasey Dixon, U.S. Army veteran andcivilian pilot

Kasey Dixon in the Army. (Photo: Kasey Dixon)

by Kasey Dixon

I was 28 years old when I obtained my Private Pilot certification after a lifetime of dreaming about becoming a pilot. Seeing the shark-toothed grin of a Flying Tigers P-40 at the local airshow as a young girl gave me the “bug” and the fascination never went away.

There were many perceived barriers to pursuing flying and plenty of naysayers along the way but the dream of flight was compelling.  For me, the path to flight involved joining the United States Army as an AH-64D Apache helicopter mechanic, serving one tour in Iraq. From there I earned my AAS in Aviation Maintenance, Airframe and Powerplant certifications, and finally my Private Pilot certification from Texas State Technical College. After becoming a pilot I earned my BS in Aeronautics from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and my current job is providing customer support for the Honda Jet. My ultimate goal is to one day fly corporate, so I am saving up for my Instrument and Commercial ratings currently and hope to begin training later this year.

Flying taught me how to depend on myself in new and exciting ways. I’ll never forget looking down at the ground falling away as I took off on my first solo flight and thinking, “Wow! I am the only person on earth that can bring this airplane down safely.”

When you solo an aircraft for the first time you gain a confidence in yourself that few other experiences in life can truly provide. As a pilot, you learn to adapt to situations and overcome challenges while remaining cool and collected. Just being in the air has a way of making you forget, if briefly, about the things that are stressing you out back on the ground. You also gain many lifelong friends in your fellow female aviators, and it is truly special to be a part of a tight-knit community that comprises just 6% of all pilots.

I encourage all women who have ever considered flying to take a leap and book that first lesson. Organizations like Women in Aviation and The Ninety-Nines will be there to support you on your journey. Don’t be intimidated by the cost or length of training. While some have been fortunate enough to be cleared “direct to” their destination, many of us took different routes, meandering and stopping for fuel along the way. There are those who would say the journey is more enjoyable that way. No matter which route you take, you never know what opportunities you will uncover on your path to your wings. Embrace the possibilities!

“Embrace the possibilities!” –-Kasey Dixon, U.S. Army veteran and civilian pilot

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="604.0"] Kasey Dixon in the Army. (Photo: Kasey Dixon) [/caption]

by Kasey Dixon

I was 28 years old when I obtained my Private Pilot certification after a lifetime of dreaming about becoming a pilot. Seeing the shark-toothed grin of a Flying Tigers P-40 at the local airshow as a young girl gave me the “bug” and the fascination never went away.

There were many perceived barriers to pursuing flying and plenty of naysayers along the way but the dream of flight was compelling.  For me, the path to flight involved joining the United States Army as an AH-64D Apache helicopter mechanic, serving one tour in Iraq. From there I earned my AAS in Aviation Maintenance, Airframe and Powerplant certifications, and finally my Private Pilot certification from Texas State Technical College. After becoming a pilot I earned my BS in Aeronautics from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and my current job is providing customer support for the Honda Jet. My ultimate goal is to one day fly corporate, so I am saving up for my Instrument and Commercial ratings currently and hope to begin training later this year.

Flying taught me how to depend on myself in new and exciting ways. I’ll never forget looking down at the ground falling away as I took off on my first solo flight and thinking, “Wow! I am the only person on earth that can bring this airplane down safely.”

When you solo an aircraft for the first time you gain a confidence in yourself that few other experiences in life can truly provide. As a pilot, you learn to adapt to situations and overcome challenges while remaining cool and collected. Just being in the air has a way of making you forget, if briefly, about the things that are stressing you out back on the ground. You also gain many lifelong friends in your fellow female aviators, and it is truly special to be a part of a tight-knit community that comprises just 6% of all pilots.

I encourage all women who have ever considered flying to take a leap and book that first lesson. Organizations like Women in Aviation and The Ninety-Nines will be there to support you on your journey. Don’t be intimidated by the cost or length of training. While some have been fortunate enough to be cleared “direct to” their destination, many of us took different routes, meandering and stopping for fuel along the way. There are those who would say the journey is more enjoyable that way. No matter which route you take, you never know what opportunities you will uncover on your path to your wings. Embrace the possibilities!

She's Got Grit: "The Navy Doesn't Reward Pioneers"

Jane O'Dea in front of a C1-A

by Shannon Huffman Polson

Jane O’Dea was born to a father who was a World War II pilot and a mother who was a WWII Supply Corps Officer. She grew up in the Iowa countryside outside of Ames and Des Moines, graduating from Iowa State University in 1972.

“I always wanted to be a pilot,” she says, “but little girls didn’t dream of being pilots in the 60s.” Still, she admits that “I was a rough and tumble girl growing up.” Both of her parents raised O’Dea and her sister to be tough in the face of the neighborhood bullies, and she attributes that to the grit she developed and brought with her through her life.

O'Dea planned to go to law school, but when she heard that the Navy might open flight training to women, she signed up right away. She was sent to Newport Rhode Island for Women’s Officer School (WOS).

“I figured if I wasn’t selected (for flight training), I’d get out of Iowa for a few years and finance law school through the GI Bill,” she says. Four women, including O’Dea, were selected for flight training. Three graduated, earning their wings in Corpus Christi, Texas in 1974.

“My dad dressed up in his service dress blues which I had never seen him wear,” she remembers. “He was the 1st man to pin wings on his daughter. That was a special day for both of us.”

Despite earning their wings, the women pilots were not allowed to carrier qualify (CQ) as part of their training, though it was required of all the male pilots. This exclusion wasn't the only indication of challenges ahead. O’Dea was warned another way as well in WOS.

“The commander, a pioneer in her own right, was excited for me but cautioned me to be careful saying “The Navy does not reward pioneers.”” She was right,” O'Dea says.

As a Lieutenant Junior Grade in 1976, O’Dea was flying C-130s when she discovered she was pregnant, prompting a two page article in the local paper. Despite the headline, “Rota’s first pregnant pilot continues as ‘a competitive asset to squadron’” O’Dea hints that things were not nearly as smooth as the article attempts to illustrate, though the extent of information provided on her circumstance in the published article alone suggests difficulty. It did give her the opportunity even in the 1970s to speak up about the balance of military duties and family. As she says, “I hope career-type women of the Navy will be a thing of the future. Childbirth is a natural thing and all organizations employing women will have to learn to deal with it.”

Her commander is quoted as saying, “her pregnancy has probably complicated her personal and career life more than it has made problems for me.”

When O'Dea was halfway through her career, as a field grade officer, an unexpected opportunity materialized.

“When I was a Lieutenant Commander I was given the opportunity to carrier qualify on the USS Lexington in a C-1A,” O’Dea says.

It was a big risk. “I already had a perfectly good reputation as a pilot,” O’Dea said. “I risked losing that if I didn’t do so well.”

She knew what she was getting herself into. “I’d been exposed to it enough having been ship’s company for over a year,” she says. “I’d seen the good, the bad and the ugly. I’d watched a cold CAT (catapault) Shot where something happened and the catapult misfired and the plane dribbled off into the ocean. The possibility of a cold CAT was especially scary for the plane I was flying because we didn’t have ejection seats so there was an additional risk.”

She pauses, remembering the cold CAT. “The guy I watched on a cold CAT punched out but he almost died anyway. He landed on the deck of the ship and was almost sucked into the intake of the aircraft waiting to take off behind him. Fortunately several brave sailors jumped onto his parachute and saved him.”

O'Dea, top left, with her fellow department heads on the U.S.S. Lexington, 1984

 

It wasn’t only the danger of a carrier landing itself that worried O’Dea. “I was worried I could let my dad down, too,” she says.

“Did I follow a life long dream? Or should I play it safe and say no, I don’t want to take this risk?”
O’Dea took the risk.

“It was very scary, very intense,” she says.

A normal runway has thousands of feet for takeoff. On the USS Lexington, O’Dea had 200 feet. The first time she went off the ship “I looked back once we were in the air and the ship looked like a postage stamp,” she says.

The carrier landing was the biggest challenge. “You learn to fly the Fresnel Lens,” she says. “There is a row of green lights on either side of a yellow or red light. This is referred to as the meatball. It goes up and down depending on whether you are above or below glideslope. If it turns from yellow to red, you are way below glideslope. When you roll onto final you call “roger, ball,” and your fuel status.”
In order to maximize space on the carrier, the deck was also angled ten degrees to the left. “With a fixed runway you correct for crosswinds but the runway doesn’t move,” O’Dea says, “but on a carrier you have to keep correcting because the runway is drifting away from you and you have to make constant left corrections. It’s the Skipper’s job to keep the wind within ten degrees of the nose of the ship. Carrier landings require you to put your life completely in someone else’s hands.”

Because the USS Lexington was a smaller World War II era carrier with a shorter runway, O’Dea had additional landing requirements.

“We had to do what they call a “blue water cut,” O’Dea says, “bringing our throttles to idle while still over the ocean. I looked down at the water while bringing my throttles to idle, and had to have total faith in that Landing Signal Officer (LSO) on the deck.”

She landed it. “I faced the fear and lived to tell,” she laughs.

What would O’Dea tell new young women leaders today?

“Even after all these years women are still up against tough situations. If they make it to flag rank, it is automatically assumed that they are tokens and they don’t deserve it. They are still harassed at all levels. All the sexual harassment training has done is to drive the resentment underground.”

O’Dea is perplexed at the effort by today’s women officers to save the skirts in uniform.

“I simply don’t understand. All we had were skirts and high heels when I was in the Navy. I and many others fought the battle with the Navy to get us trousers and comfortable shoes.”
 
She has specific thoughts on careers as well.

“The uniform doesn’t make the person wearing it. Performance is everything. Nothing will be given to you. Unfortunately, you will have to work harder and be good if not better than your male counterparts to prove yourself.”

O'Dea's flight suit is in the museum at Pensacola Naval Air Station 

What does O’Dea think about grit? “Merriam Webster says grit is toughness and courage. There were times in my career that required great mental toughness. I first stuck it out through survival training in the February cold and rain. I flew down the Suez in the Yom Kipper War. I left my two small children to go on deployment for six months. I took off into the sunset in a C-130 only to know that I would still be flying when it rose 12 hours later. Oh, but the stars out over the ocean were incredible!”
Not only can anyone develop grit, but “we are all born with grit. It is a matter of whether or not we want to nurture it.”

O’Dea recognizes different kinds of grit, though, too.

O'Dea's youngest daughter dressing up in her mom's helmet.

“There is the toughness that pushed the adventurer like I am to embark on a non-traditional career.

My sister and I have discussed this. She cannot understand how I was able to do what I did. She has a different kind of grit. She was a flower child of the 60s when I was flying airplanes. We could not have been more different. She became a nurse which I could never have done. It took all the grit I had to change my babies’ diapers. For many years she worked in LA juvenile hall helping troubled teens. She was attacked and had to carry mace with her to protect herself at work. In my mind, that takes a type of grit I don’t have.”

Even so, O’Dea is still facing the fear. The weekend before our conversation, she headed to a wind tunnel to simulate skydiving with her grandchildren.

O’Dea retired in the Navy as a Captain (0-6).

Shannon H. Polson is a speaker, author of North of Hope: A Daughter's Arctic Journey, mountain lover, mom and founder of The Grit Project. She is one of the first women to pilot the Apache attack helicopter in the U.S. Army. She is also an Ambassador for FlyGirls the Series. Read more about Shannon at https://medium.com/@ABorderLife/.

She's Got Grit: "The Navy Doesn't Reward Pioneers"

by Shannon Huffman Polson

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="577.0"] Jane O'Dea in front of a C1-A [/caption]

Jane O’Dea was born to a father who was a World War II pilot and a mother who was a WWII Supply Corps Officer. She grew up in the Iowa countryside outside of Ames and Des Moines, graduating from Iowa State University in 1972.

“I always wanted to be a pilot,” she says, “but little girls didn’t dream of being pilots in the 60s.” Still, she admits that “I was a rough and tumble girl growing up.” Both of her parents raised O’Dea and her sister to be tough in the face of the neighborhood bullies, and she attributes that to the grit she developed and brought with her through her life. 

O'Dea planned to go to law school, but when she heard that the Navy might open flight training to women, she signed up right away. She was sent to Newport Rhode Island for Women’s Officer School (WOS).

“I figured if I wasn’t selected (for flight training), I’d get out of Iowa for a few years and finance law school through the GI Bill,” she says. Four women, including O’Dea, were selected for flight training. Three graduated, earning their wings in Corpus Christi, Texas in 1974.

“My dad dressed up in his service dress blues which I had never seen him wear,” she remembers. “He was the 1st man to pin wings on his daughter. That was a special day for both of us.”

Despite earning their wings, the women pilots were not allowed to carrier qualify (CQ) as part of their training, though it was required of all the male pilots. This exclusion wasn't the only indication of challenges ahead. O’Dea was warned another way as well in WOS.

“The commander, a pioneer in her own right, was excited for me but cautioned me to be careful saying “The Navy does not reward pioneers.”” She was right,” O'Dea says.

As a Lieutenant Junior Grade in 1976, O’Dea was flying C-130s when she discovered she was pregnant, prompting a two page article in the local paper. Despite the headline, “Rota’s first pregnant pilot continues as ‘a competitive asset to squadron’” O’Dea hints that things were not nearly as smooth as the article attempts to illustrate, though the extent of information provided on her circumstance in the published article alone suggests difficulty. It did give her the opportunity even in the 1970s to speak up about the balance of military duties and family: 

“I hope career-type women of the Navy will be a thing of the future. Childbirth is a natural thing and all organizations employing women will have to learn to deal with it.”

Her commander is quoted as saying “her pregnancy has probably complicated her personal and career life more than it has made problems for me.”

When O'Dea was halfway through her career, as a field grade officer, an unexpected opportunity materialized.

“When I was a Lieutenant Commander I was given the opportunity to carrier qualify on the USS Lexington in a C-1A,” O’Dea says. 

It was a big risk. “I already had a perfectly good reputation as a pilot,” O’Dea said. “I risked losing that if I didn’t do so well.”

She knew what she was getting herself into. “I’d been exposed to it enough having been ship’s company for over a year,” she says. “I’d seen the good, the bad and the ugly. I’d watched a cold CAT (catapault) Shot where something happened and the catapult misfired and the plane dribbled off into the ocean. The possibility of a cold CAT was especially scary for the plane I was flying because we didn’t have ejection seats so there was an additional risk.”

She pauses, remembering the cold CAT. “The guy I watched on a cold CAT punched out but he almost died anyway. He landed on the deck of the ship and was almost sucked into the intake of the aircraft waiting to take off behind him. Fortunately several brave sailors jumped onto his parachute and saved him.”

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="700.0"] O'Dea, top left, with her fellow department heads on the U.S.S. Lexington, 1984 [/caption]

It wasn’t only the danger of a carrier landing itself that worried O’Dea. “I was worried I could let my dad down, too,” she says.

“Did I follow a life long dream? Or should I play it safe and say no, I don’t want to take this risk?” 

O’Dea took the risk. 

“It was very scary, very intense,” she says. 

A normal runway has thousands of feet for takeoff. On the USS Lexington, O’Dea had 200 feet. The first time she went off the ship “I looked back once we were in the air and the ship looked like a postage stamp,” she says. 

The carrier landing was the biggest challenge. “You learn to fly the Fresnel Lens,” she says. “There is a row of green lights on either side of a yellow or red light. This is referred to as the meatball. It goes up and down depending on whether you are above or below glideslope. If it turns from yellow to red, you are way below glideslope. When you roll onto final you call “roger, ball,” and your fuel status.”

In order to maximize space on the carrier, the deck was also angled ten degrees to the left. “With a fixed runway you correct for crosswinds but the runway doesn’t move,” O’Dea says, “but on a carrier you have to keep correcting because the runway is drifting away from you and you have to make constant left corrections. It’s the Skipper’s job to keep the wind within ten degrees of the nose of the ship. Carrier landings require you to put your life completely in someone else’s hands.”

Because the USS Lexington was a smaller World War II era carrier with a shorter runway, O’Dea had additional landing requirements. 

“We had to do what they call a “blue water cut,” O’Dea says, “bringing our throttles to idle while still over the ocean. I looked down at the water while bringing my throttles to idle, and had to have total faith in that Landing Signal Officer (LSO) on the deck.”

She landed it. “I faced the fear and lived to tell,” she laughs.

What would O’Dea tell new young women leaders today?

“Even after all these years women are still up against tough situations. If they make it to flag rank, it is automatically assumed that they are tokens and they don’t deserve it. They are still harassed at all levels. All the sexual harassment training has done is to drive the resentment underground.”

O’Dea is perplexed at the effort by today’s women officers to save the skirts in uniform.

“I simply don’t understand. All we had were skirts and high heels when I was in the Navy. I and many others fought the battle with the Navy to get us trousers and comfortable shoes.”

She has specific thoughts on careers as well.

“The uniform doesn’t make the person wearing it. Performance is everything. Nothing will be given to you. Unfortunately, you will have to work harder and be good if not better than your male counterparts to prove yourself.”

 

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="450.0"] O'Dea's flight suit is in the museum at Pensacola Naval Air Station [/caption]

What does O’Dea think about grit? “Merriam Webster says grit is toughness and courage. There were times in my career that required great mental toughness. I first stuck it out through survival training in the February cold and rain. I flew down the Suez in the Yom Kipper War. I left my two small children to go on deployment for six months. I took off into the sunset in a C-130 only to know that I would still be flying when it rose 12 hours later. Oh, but the stars out over the ocean were incredible!”

Not only can anyone develop grit, but “we are all born with grit. It is a matter of whether or not we want to nurture it.”

O’Dea recognizes different kinds of grit, though, too.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="484.0"] O'Dea's youngest daughter dressing up in her mom's helmet [/caption]

“There is the toughness that pushed the adventurer like I am to embark on a non-traditional career. My sister and I have discussed this. She cannot understand how I was able to do what I did. She has a different kind of grit. She was a flower child of the 60s when I was flying airplanes. We could not have been more different. She became a nurse which I could never have done. It took all the grit I had to change my babies’ diapers. For many years she worked in LA juvenile hall helping troubled teens. She was attacked and had to carry mace with her to protect herself at work. In my mind, that takes a type of grit I don’t have.”

Even so, O’Dea is still facing the fear. The weekend before our conversation, she headed to a wind tunnel to simulate skydiving with her grandchildren. 

O’Dea retired in the Navy as a Captain (0-6).

Shannon H. Polson is a speaker, author of North of Hope: A Daughter's Arctic Journey, mountain lover, mom and founder of The Grit Project. She is one of the first women to pilot the Apache attack helicopter in the U.S. Army. She is also an Ambassador for FlyGirls the Series. Read more about Shannon at https://medium.com/@ABorderLife/.

Wall of Honor - The 38 Fallen WASP

We honor the fallen...

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="219.0"]                Hazel Ying Lee       Aug 24, 1912 - Nov 25, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="235.0"]          Mabel Virginia Rawlinson         Mar 19, 1917 - Aug 23, 1943 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="204.0"]      Virginia Caraline Moffatt      May 22, 1912 - Oct 5, 1943 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="225.0"]         Marie Michell Robinson        May 23, 1924 - Oct 2, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="225.0"]          Gertrude Tompkins Silver          Oct 16, 1912 - Oct 26, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="225.0"]                 Mary P. Hartson          Jan 11, 1917 - Aug 14, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="175.0"]   Betty Louise Taylor Wood   Mar 13, 1921 - Sep 23, 1943 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="225.0"]               Elizabeth Mae Scott             Jul 26, 1921 - Jul 8, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="225.0"]               Dorothy F. Scott         Feb 16, 1920 - Dec 3, 1943 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="178.0"]          Lea Ola McDonald    Oct 12, 1921 - Jun 21, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="225.0"]           Jane Delores Champlin         May 14, 1917 - Jun 7, 1943 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="192.0"]          Beverly Jean Moses     Dec 21, 1922 - Jul 18, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="219.0"]        Jeanne Lewellen Norbeck        Nov 14, 1912 - Oct 16, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="204.0"]         Susan Parker Clarke      Aug 5, 1918 - Jul 4, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="205.0"]      Bonnie Jean Alloway Welz      Jun 22, 1918 - Jun 29, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="215.0"]   Evelyn Genevieve Sharp (WAFS)         Oct 1, 1919 - Apr 3, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="175.0"]        Betty Pauline Stine   Sep 13, 1921 - Feb 25, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="215.0"]       Mary Ann "Marian" Toevs        May 13, 1917 - Feb 18, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="175.0"]     Marjorie Laverne Davis    Dec 20, 1922 - Oct 16,1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="215.0"]        Marie Ethel Cihler Sharon        Apr 21, 1917 - Apr 10, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="223.0"]      Helen Jo Anderson Severson        Nov 2, 1918 - Aug 30, 1943 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="235.0"]      Margaret June "Peggy" Seip       Jun 24, 1916 - Aug 30, 1943 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="158.0"]       Gleanna Roberts Jan 11, 1919 - Jun 20, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="235.0"]        Margaret Sanford Oldenburg           Jul 29, 1909- M ar 7, 1943 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="198.0"]    Dorothy Mae "Dottie" Nichols       Sep 26, 1916 - Jun 11, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="255.0"]               Mary Elizabeth Trebing             Dec 31, 1920 - Nov 7, 1943 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200.0"]      Marjorie Doris Edwards     Sep 28, 1918-Jun 13, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="235.0"]              Peggy Wilson Martin            Feb 8, 1912 - Oct 3, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="235.0"]                  Alice E. Lovejoy           Aug 15, 1915 - Sep 13, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="171.0"]      Katherine Dussaq Mar 14, 1905 - Nov 26, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="175.0"] Elizabeth "Jayne" Erickson Apr 24, 1921 - Apr 16, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="235.0"]             Cornelia Fort (WAFS)         Feb 5, 1919 - Mar 21, 1943 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="215.0"]             Paula Ruth Loop       Aug 25, 1916 - Jul 7, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="175.0"]    Frances Fortune Grimes   Oct 7, 1914-Mar 27, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="215.0"]          Mary Holmes Howson       F eb 10, 1919-Apr 16, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="235.0"]         Edith "Edy" Clayton Keene          Dec 19, 1920-Apr 25, 1944 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="215.0"]   Kathryn Barbara "Kay" Lawrence         Dec 3, 1920-Aug 4, 1943 [/caption]




[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="195.0"]        Mary Louise Webster     Jun 30, 1919-Dec 9, 1944 [/caption]