Ken

When the United States entered World War II, the Army Air Forces didn't have enough pilots. Two famous aviators, Jacqueline Cochran & Nancy Harkness Love, pitched a simple idea: let women fly the missions at home and free up the men for combat. More than 25,000 women applied. About 1,100 earned their wings. As the Women Airforce Service Pilots, they ferried more than 12,000 military aircraft from factories to bases, tested planes, towed targets for gunnery practice and trained pilots. Altogether they flew about 60 million miles. Their mascot was a little female gremlin named Fifinella, borrowed from a Roald Dahl story, which I think is fantastic. But officially, they were civilians. Thirty-eight were killed in service, and because they weren't military, their families had to pay to bring them home. No military honors at the funerals. In December 1944, the program was shut down and its records were sealed. For decades, it was as if it never happened. They weren't recognized as veterans until 1977. They received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009, and in 2016 Congress finally allowed them to be laid to rest at Arlington.