Though the Women Airforce Service Pilots played a key logistical role during World War II, their contributions were not formally recognized by the US government until 1977.

83 years ago, on August 3, 1943, two civilian flight organizations merged together, creating a new unit that went on to fly thousands of military aircraft during World War II. What was remarkable about this unit in particular was the fact that all of its pilots were women.

The “Women Airforce Service Pilots,” or WASPs, played a critical role on the home front during World War II. At a time when male pilots were in overwhelming demand in Europe, Africa, and the Pacific, women helped fill in for them in the United States, testing and ferrying aircraft across the country and helping to train other pilots.

The unit had no official military standing at the time, although Congress retroactively recognized WASP members as veterans in 1977, entitling them to military benefits.

Just One WASP Aviator Is Still Living

As of August 2026, fewer than 45,000 American World War II veterans are still alive—representing under 0.3 percent of the 16.4 million Americans who served during the conflict.

Among this small minority is WASP pilot Nell Stevenson, who turned 105 on June 18 and is now the last known living member of the squadron that played a vital role in helping America win the war.

Stevenson was just 21 years old in 1943 when she saw an article in Flying magazine calling for female volunteer pilots to aid the war effort. The new program was meant to free up male pilots for combat roles outside the United States.

As a licensed pilot who had 75 hours of flight time, Stevenson more than met the requirements. She soon became one of the 1,830 applicants selected out of the more than 25,000 who applied—and was also one of the 1,074 who graduated and served with the WASPs.

The women in the WASP program received military training, including learning flight navigation, physics, Morse code, meteorology, military law, and mechanics. In a sign of the times, although the pilots flew every type of American aircraft, women aviators were required to wear lipstick to appear ladylike.

In Stevenson’s case, she was among the first women to pilot a B-25 Mitchell bomber, and she spent much of the war from Biggs Field in El Paso, Texas, and Mather Field in Sacramento, California.

The WASP Idea Wasn’t Popular Right Away

Today, women pilots regularly fly combat missions for the US Air Force around the world, and most officers would agree that they are just as qualified as their male counterparts.

The prevailing attitude was somewhat different in the 1930s. At the time, General Henry “Hap” Arnold, the chief of the US Army Air Corps, dismissed a War Department idea to use women pilots as unfeasible, arguing that women were too high-strung to serve as aviators and their use would serve “no military purpose.”

Aviation pioneers such as Amelia Earhart and Jacqueline Cochran had already proved that women could, in fact, fly aircraft, and fly them well. Yet as the clouds of war emerged on the horizon, little effort was made to change the minds of the men in charge in Washington—at least until Cochran wrote to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in 1939 to suggest that female pilots could be used in a national emergency in non-combat roles.

The First Lady in turn introduced Cochran to Arnold and to General Robert Olds, soon to be head of the Air Transport Command (ATC). When war broke out in Europe, Cochran volunteered to fly planes for the British Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA), and even recruited other American female pilots. In total, 25 women flew for ATA, and those individuals became the first American women to fly combat aircraft.

Meanwhile, another female aviation pioneer, test-pilot Nancy Harkness Love, proposed a similar plan to the Air Corps’ Ferry Command. Nothing came of the suggestion until the United States entered the war at the end of 1941. Love happened to be married to an Army Air Corps Reserve officer who worked for the unit’s commander, Colonel William H. Tunner. Together, Love and Tunner devised a plan for an aviation ferry program that utilized female pilots. Originally Tunner suggested the pilots would serve as part of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), but instead a new civilian unit was created as the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS).

Cochran, who had observed RAF in combat while in the UK, returned to the United States the day before the announcement of the WAFS and was angry to find that Love’s proposal had been accepted while her own was rejected. Cochran made her own case, and she was soon designated as the director of the Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD).

Although the WAFS and WFTD did not have strictly the same mission set—the WAFS was focused on ferrying aircraft to where they were needed, while the WFTD focused on training—the overlap was significant enough that military leaders felt the two groups were redundant. As a result, they were merged into a single group, becoming the WASP squadron in August 1943, with Cochran as the USAAF director for women pilots and Love serving as the WASP executive on the Air Transport Command’s Ferrying Division Staff.

Women Pilots Were an Early “Culture War” Battle

Not unexpectedly for the era, the WASPs encountered resentment from male pilots and commanders, who expressed anger that the women had a presence in a traditional male setting of the military.

World War II took place long before legislation had established formal equality between the sexes, and this imbalance was on display in the administration of the WASP program. Even as the women did the same job as male civilian ferry pilots, the WASP pilots were paid at two-thirds the rate of their male counterparts. Moreover, while the WASPs often had the privileges of Army Air Corps officers, they were never formally adopted into the USAAF. Instead, they remained civil service employees without injury or death benefits.

By 1944, there were bills in Congress to formally militarize the WASPs, but these bills were met by opposition from a few key individuals—including famed columnist Drew Pearson, who claimed with great sensationalism that women would replace all male aviators rather than releasing male pilots for active combat duty. The negative press fueled an intense uproar in Congress, with lawmakers questioning the cost and necessity of the training program. 

In December 1944, the WASPs were disbanded, due in part to political pressures but also from the increasing availability of male pilots. The pilots received no benefits after their termination, and the US military and federal government largely ignored the role they had played for more than 30 years. Only in November 1977 did President Jimmy Carter sign a bill that granted them veteran status.

Perhaps the greatest tribute to the program did come during the war, though. On December 7, 1944, General Arnold—one of the program’s earliest opponents—ate his words before the last WASP graduating class, noting:

“You… have shown that you can fly wingtip to wingtip with your brothers. If ever there was a doubt in anyone’s mind that women could become skilled pilots, the WASPs dispelled that doubt. I want to stress how valuable I believe the whole WASP program has been for the country.”

In January 2025, historical materials covering the WASP program were briefly removed from Air Force basic training, reportedly due to an overzealous compliance with a federal crackdown on diversity programs. After a public outcry, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth quickly ordered them restored, stating publicly that the removal “[would] not stand” and suggesting that the pioneering group had served as inspiring role models for female servicemembers. Yet as others have been passed over for promotion and forced into early retirement, the problems of women in uniform seem to be far from over.

About the Author: Peter Suciu

Peter Suciu has contributed to dozens of newspapers, magazines and websites over a 30-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a contributing writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. He is based in Michigan. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org.

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