[Clipping: They just wanted to fly] (open access)

[Clipping: They just wanted to fly]

Newspaper clippings of an article about WASP members, including Grace Birge Mayfield, Mary Macabe, Kristine Lent, Alice Riff, Ann Oliver, Ann Criswell Adden, Verda Mae Jennings Lowe, Betty Haas Pfister, Florene Miller, Millicent Young, and Barbara Flemming Foss. The article discusses the personal experiences of the women serving in WWII. On the back of the clippings, there is an advertisement for a drapery shop and an article on catalog ordering.
Date: November 6, 1988
Creator: Magid, Ken
Object Type: Clipping
System: The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Richard Bennett, November 15, 2001 transcript

Oral History Interview with Richard Bennett, November 15, 2001

Interview with Richard (Dick) Bennett, a pilot during World War II. He discusses his enlistment in the Army Air Corps, basic training and flight school. He then went to a base in South Carolina to learn to fly B-25s. At Fort Myers, Florida he flew B-26 bombers and trained to fly them off of aircraft carriers so they could drop torpedos on the Japanese fleet during naval battles. He traveled across the Pacific to Brisbane only to be told that they didn't have B-26s for the crews; the colonel there knew nothing about the plan to launch B-26s from aircraft carriers, so they were sent to New Guinea to fly B-17s and supplement the crews for those bombers. From there they made bombing runs or "Washing Machine Charlie"-type runs to keep people awake at night on various Japanese targets in the islands, particularly the base at Rabaul. In fall of 1943, the Army grounded the B-17s due to the damage they had incurred and replaced them with B-24s. The men received manuals and were given only a few days to familiarize themselves with the new planes. They were then sent on bombing runs. He finished his tour of duty at …
Date: November 15, 2001
Creator: Cox, Floyd & Bennett, Richard
Object Type: Sound
System: The Portal to Texas History

[WASP Posed Outdoors]

Photograph of twelve WASP posed in two rows in a field outdoors. The front row can be seen kneeling while the back rows stand, and all are in uniform with wing pins. Notes listing the names of those in the photo can be seen on the back that read, "Back L to R Kathleen Dooly, Marjorie Nakrhan "Bobbie", Mary Ann Showers "Peter", Mary Rance, Yvonne Pateman, Eleanor Feeley, F L to R, Beverly Dietrich, Marybelle Lyall, Margarie Papeel, Ethel Meyer, Irene MacConnihay, Irene Minter, Jeanne Norlock killed, Betty Lefevre - on duty army, Nov. 1944 Shaw Fld, Sumpter, S.C."
Date: November 1944
Creator: unknown
Object Type: Photograph
System: The Portal to Texas History