ShareThisMartha McKenzie Carpenter flew off to war with a puppy in her lap, towing targets for other pilots to shoot at.
Carpenter was among the roughly 200 survivors of the 1,102 Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs, given Congressional Gold Medals at the Capitol on Wednesday, in what many speakers said was a tribute long overdue. The civilian pilot volunteers were pioneers in women's aviation but were given little recognition for their service until recently.
Between 1942 and 1944, at the height of the war, more than 25,000 women applied to the WASP program. Though they were civilian pilots, they became the first women ever to fly military aircraft under the direction of the United States Army Air Forces. Their job was to fly non-combat missions during the war so that male pilots would be available for overseas duty.
Most of the WASPs have long been deceased. Thirty-eight of them were killed in service. Those who survive are in their 80s and 90s, and many of them who came to the medal ceremony arrived in wheelchairs.
Carpenter, 87, who lives in DeSoto County, Miss., near Memphis, Tenn., said she still has four living room drapery-sized targets with the bullet holes and instructors' chalk she brought home after her service. The targets trailed 125 feet behind the planes for other pilots to shoot at.
"You'd get in and let it rev up and I had a little dog that flew with me -- a puppy, named AWOL, because he was always running off. He'd come back and I'd put him in the plane and he'd sit in my lap and look out the window. He'd look up at me with the most childish expression," she recalled as she waited for the program to begin.
Carpenter brought along great granddaughters-in-law and great-great-grandchildren to see the tribute by an array of speakers that included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader John Boehner.
Pelosi recalled a line from a song WASPs learned during training exercises: "If you have a daughter, teach her to fly."
NBC's Tom Brokaw, author of "The Greatest Generation," said one proof of the accuracy of his book title was that the WASPs were able to get all four party leaders to speak from the same podium.
Deanie Parrish of Waco, Texas, who accepted the gold medal on behalf of all of her fellow WASPs, said the women gladly did their part without any expectation of recognition or rewards.
"It was a privilege and an honor to serve our country in some of the darkest days of World War II," she said.
Betty Fernandes, 89, a Chicago native now living near Bartlett, Tenn., said she mainly ferried fighters from Michigan to Montana to be flown on to Russia by male military pilots.
"I flew fighters for the last, maybe, year," she said "I never got scared or worried about it, or even thought about crashing, or anything like that."
But she did almost have to ditch once and said if she had she might still be in the water because she was way too far from shore. The carburetor light signaled the problem and the throttle wouldn't respond, she said. She eventually made it back to the base in Michigan safely.
"That was about the closest I came to ever came to ever having a crash or ever drowning," she said.
The outpouring of gratitude surprised Fernandes as she gazed on what Pelosi said was one of the biggest crowds ever to visit the Capitol.
"I had no idea anyone still cared about the WASPs," she said. But I guess they do."
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
