The Originals: The Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron of World War II - Softcover

Rickman, Sarah Byrn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 194509138X ISBN 13: 9781945091384

Publisher: Braughler Books, LLC, 2017

Synopsis

Who were The Originals?

• Experienced women pilots – the first to fly for the U.S. military
• 28 women who dared to challenge 1940s barriers of gender, politics and bureaucracy
• Farm girls, socialites, daughters of working families, college graduates; from 15 different states; married and single; three with young children
• Young women – ages 21 to 35
• Three of them died serving their country
• World War II heroines with “the Right Stuff”

Based on personal interviews with the nine who were still alive as of 2000, on papers and diaries, and on interviews and correspondence with descendants and others who knew them. This book tells the story of the WAFS, who they were, how they are different from the WASPs (Women Airforce Service Pilots), and how they ultimately became part of the WASPs. A must reference book for libraries in aviation communities, but it reads like a novel. Second Edition, Revised and Updated.

About this title

About the Author:

Sarah Byrn Rickman has been researching the WASP and closely following their activities for 25 years. In that time, she has written and published seven books about these women who flew for the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II - two novels, three biographies and two histories. She has another WASP biography currently in the works and expects publication later in 2017. Sarah currently serves as an oral historian for the WASP Archives at Texas Woman's University and as editor of the official WASP newsletter. She has written numerous WASP articles published in national magazines and journals. Inspired by the WASP, she earned her Sport Pilot certification in 2011. Sarah is a former reporter/ columnist for The Detroit News and the former editor of the Centerville-Bellbrook Times (suburban Dayton, Ohio). She earned her B.A. in English from Vanderbilt University and an M.A. in Creative Writing from Antioch University, McGregor. She now lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with her husband, Richard, and their black Lab, Lady.

Review:

“I knew at the moment I pulled the trigger on the collective and watched the rotor blade start turning on my medivac helicopter that history for all women was about to change in military aviation. We were all going to make history. I thought about the WASP I had read about towing targets during WWII to train our young male pilots, hopefully giving them a fighting chance to win and survive. Now, me, three wars later and a long generation since WWII, would carry the hope for all those women and this task I was about to perform would show our country ‘yes’ women can do this job of flying and be superior at it, too. I prayed not for my safe return to my family, but I prayed like those many, many, young male pilots before me that I would have the courage to do my duty.

“I loved this book. I couldn’t put it down and looked forward every single night to flying with the WAFS. While I was cozy in bed by 10 PM, the rest me was hanging around with the girls. I smoked a few cigarettes with them and had my share of Highballs... I knew what it was like to get up at o’dark thirty for formation and then wait all day for the weather to clear... When they came down with the flu, I wanted to curl up and die right along with them. But, of course, it was our commitment to the mission that made us crawl like death warmed over out of bed and into the cockpit to fly. For three nights last week I was a WAFS. Highballs, anyone?”  -- Ann Hollingsworth Patrie, STC, USAR, Veteran Aviator, Desert Storm, UH-1 Medivac Pilot

 

“The WASP and WAFS are role models of mine. They are greatly respected for their services to our country.”  -- Eileen Collins, NASA Astronaut

 

Rickman tells the often neglected story of the role played by a courageous and determined group of 28 women who made up the WAFS. They fought the boundaries of gender, bureaucracy and the politics of competition in order to become a part of their nation’s aviation history... a fascinating account. Rickman’s retelling of the hardships and hazards faced by these women brings a sense of comradeship, empathy and joy to all of us. Her recounting of this history in enables readers to enjoy sharing their courage and contributions, as I did.  -- Dr. J. Dudley Pewitt, COL. USAF (Ret.), Distinguished Service Prof Emeritus, University of Alabama; Director, Southern Museum of Flight

 

Technically well researched and filled with wisely selected and wonderfully intimate details lifted from diaries, Rickman fulfills the promise of her title. The 28 women who were the first WAFS were indeed originals. Good humored, strong-minded—they had to be—and quite often beautiful, these women are depicted as being more than up to the struggles they fought, not only to be pilots in the 1930s but to answer the needs of their country in World War II. Rickman’s account is set up against that drama as well as against the conflicts of Army infighting, congressional politics and the rival ambitions of an American female icon, Jacqueline Cochran. A remarkable era and some of the remarkable women it spawned spring to life off these pages,—especially the 28 originals who changed not only the history of flight but in a very short time helped revolutionize the roles of American women in the 20th century.  -- Suzanne Clauser, author of A Girl Named Sooner and East of Mandalay and award-winning screenwriter

About this edition

• Publisher: Braughler Books, LLC
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 194509138X
• ISBN 13: 9781945091384
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 418