Thursday, March 11, 2010
Congress / Phillips Cornelia Fort, WASPs Honored in Washington: "I Am Grateful That My One Talent, Flying, Was Useful to My Country"
Posted by Betsy Phillips on Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 7:35 AM
On Wednesday, the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) who flew
Among the women honored was native Nashvillian Cornelia Fort, who was one of 38 WASPs to give their lives in service to their country (though she, and the other WASPs were not considered service members until 1977, when the WASP records were unsealed and the women extended veteran's benefits).
Fort was literally in the air over the island of Oahu on Dec. 7, 1941 when she found herself in a sky filled with Japanese bombers. She was killed in 1943 during a ferrying mission, in a fatal crash whose causes have been disputed over the years.* It earned her the tragic distinction of becoming the first U.S. woman pilot killed in active service. She was 24 years old.
I literally cannot write this post without getting all choked up. These women fought discrimination every step of the way just to be able to serve their country. They had to fight discrimination while serving their country. Then they had to wait over 30 years to win the right to have a flag on their coffin.
We often talk of the first person to do something -- the pioneer, the groundbreaker. But that first person can always be written off as an anomaly. The first person is important, but it's the 1,100 (in this case) who come after her who are really crucial, who prove that such a thing is not out of reach of women.
I am so very glad we didn't wait until they were all dead to honor them.
* From editor Jim Ridley: A section added by me initially attributed the crash to hazing by male pilots, an assertion that has been published in various sources (including a Scene cover story by Rob Simbeck). But that account has been challenged, and E. Thomas Wood has pointed out that Simbeck's subsequent book Daughter of the Air -- which acknowledges the hazing many WASP pilots underwent from male peers -- leans toward a more sympathetic and accidental explanation of the crash. In other words: blame me, not Betsy. Thanks to Tom for pointing out the clarification.
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What is the source of your assertion that she died as a result of male hazing? Nothing I can find supports that statement. Everything I found indicated the crash was the result of a mid-air collision with the fixed landing gear of another plane.
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From the Rob Simbeck story linked in the article:
"Then, on March 21, almost three years to the day after her first plane ride, she was at the controls of a BT-13, flying as part of a routine ferrying expedition from San Diego to Texas. There were seven planes, some piloted by men, some by women.
"Adela Scharr, a friend of Cornelia’s, recounted what happened next in the July 1987, issue of World War II Times:
"Some of [the male pilots] began teasing [Cornelia] and then they began to pretend that they were fighter pilots.
"She was easy game for them, for she had never had any evasive training in military maneuvering. By the time they got to Texas, a few of the men had become too bold and were flying too close. A joke had become harassment.
"Lt. Frank W. Stamme Jr. nosed his plane into a rolling dive. Cornelia could see him above her through her open canopy. He passed close enough to frighten her, and she tried to evade him.
“ 'She zigged when he guessed she would have zagged,' said Scharr, 'and he snagged her.'
"Stamme’s landing gear leg snapped off the top of Cornelia’s left wing and peeled six feet of the wing back toward the center of the plane. Cornelia may have hit her head; nothing else indicated that she was conscious. Her plane rolled, then went into an inverted dive, slamming vertically into the red Texas soil. It stood there, without moving or catching fire, the engine buried two feet in the ground. Cornelia was dead."
http://www.nashvillescene.com/1996-05-30/news/daughter-of-the-air/
I should also mention that the paragraph in question was added by Betsy's editor -- me -- to clarify who Cornelia Fort is.
When Betsy and I corresponded about this post yesterday, I did not remember that Rob Simbeck's 1996 Scene cover gave a different account than his 1999 book Daughter of the Air. I wish I had thought to mention that Simbeck revised his account. Here is the relevant graf from the book:
"Almost at once, rumors began circulating that Stamme had been hotdogging, trying to scare or impress Cornelia during the flight. Many of the WAFS had seen such actions from young male pilots. The story, reprinted in several books about the WAFS, was that Stamme had been showing off and that, in doing a roll over Cornelia's plane, his plane struck hers, causing the crash. There is no evidence that such a thing happened. It is known that they were flying closer together than was permitted, and that her wing struck his landing gear. Either could have made the split-second mental error that resulted in the collision -- Stamme had less than 300 hours in the air, but Cornelia had precious little experience flying anything other than tiny planes."
Simbeck goes on to quote a WAFS commander as saying she did not thing there was "anything malicious" about what happened and that it was a "plain accident." He then cites the official AAF investigation report on the crash: "100 percent judgment. Momentary lack of mental efficiency. General lack of alertness etc." He says the report did not assign blame.
I have read through a number of WWII-era military air crash investigation reports in my research on LTG Frank M. Andrews. In every instance, they appeared extremely thorough and not at all averse to casting blame on the living or the dead. The fact that the report here did not blame the other pilot settles the matter, for me, as conclusively as it can ever be settled.
Whatever the circumstances of her death, I should add, I too felt a little choked up when I read of the ceremony on Tuesday at the Air Force Memorial in Arlington:
"Nearly 200 of the surviving women pilots attended the ceremonies with family and friends, and family members represented other pilots.
"Thirty-eight of those women were honored with roses during the memorial ceremony for having made the ultimate sacrifice for their country during their service, and the 20th Fighter Wing from Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., performed a flyover in the 'missing man' formation."
My wife's grandmother was born two weeks before Cornelia in 1919 and is very much alive and active in her community. Imagine if we had a 91-year-old Cornelia in our midst today.
Betsy:
Thanks for the information on Cornelia Fort. I have been interested in the WAFS and the WASPs since the late 1950's, and I am overjoyed to see the surviving members get the recognition they so richly deserve.
Maybe some day we will stop making artificial distinctions between people who want to serve their country, and simply be grateful for their service.
A couple of thoughts...During my research for the book "Daughter of the Air," I realized no one had questioned the many printed reports that essentially blamed Lt. Stamme for Cornelia's death. I really hadn't at the time of the Scene article. No writer had ever interviewed the men who were with Cornelia during her last flight. I found two of them once I started the book and it helped take everything in a new direction. Cornelia's death appears to have been a tragic and needless accident with no malice or hazing of any kind. I am very happy to be among those spreading the word about these incredible women, who did indeed face great obstacles with grace and determination. I will be speaking on November 13 as Cornelia is inducted into the Tennessee Aviation Hall of Fame. I will, as always, fight the emotion I still feel for her and those who flew with her. For what it's worth, I felt a great responsibility to get it right, to make it thorough. I knew it was my gift to Cornelia, and I didn't visit her grave until Atlantic Monthly Press approved the final manuscript. I was changed and deepened by the experience of writing the book and of meeting and talking with the women who were her friends and who flew with her during the war. --Rob Simbeck
