Remembering On-Duty WASP Pilots who died in October

Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) who died while on duty in October

The Memphis Belle surprise photo

Recently on Twitter, a photograph appeared of four women dressed as WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots. These women were standing in front of what appeared to be the WW2, B-17 bomber, Memphis Belle.

Some commented that they never had seen the photo before and wondered who the "WASP" were.

L-R: Rosann Patterson, Shelly Mulvaine, Peg Horton, and Mia Kosicki,

They were not WASP and their Memphis Belle was not really the Memphis Belle.
It was a posed photograph taken at the Lorain County Airport's (Ohio) annual air show, taken sometime in the early 2000s.

The Memphis Belle in the photo was the replica of the original bomber that was used as a stand-in in the 1990 motion picture, The Memphis Belle.

At the time, the original Memphis Belle was being restored at the National Museum of the Air Force Museum, near Dayton, Ohio. She had not flown since 1946.

Returning to base after a mission

 The Flying Fortress, the Memphis Belle, #13, led the force of 13 B-17 bombers on a successful raid from England to the Five Lille Locomotive Works at Lille, France on January 13, 1943.

Crew of the Memphis Belle, June 1943

She was piloted by Captain Robert Morgan of Ashville, NC, who had named the ship for his fiancé, Margaret Polk of Memphis, Tennessee.

 

Captain Robert Morgan

After completing her required 25 bombing missions, the Belle returned home, arriving in the United States 16 June 1943.

 

Coming home, 9 June 1943.

Almost immediately, the Belle and her crew set off on a six-week tour of the country, urging support of the war effort by buying Liberty Bonds. Before the tour ended, Captain Morgan’s finance announced that the wedding was off “by mutual agreement.

In early October (1943), the Memphis Belle was sent to Spokane, Washington for a major overhaul; however, the war was winding down by the time she was ready, and the Belle was sent to the aviation graveyard near Altus, Oklahoma, arriving August 1, 1945.

She might have stayed there, but for the City of Memphis, which purchased here for $350 and accepted her on the Belle’s last flight on 17 July 1946. The Army had asked $13,750 for the bomber, but found no takers.

 

Altus, OK, aviation graveyard

Stored outside and deteriorating, in February 1947 the Belle finally moved into a temporary hanger. On 20 August 1950, the Memphis Belle was mounted on a cement stand and dedicated as a war memorial in Memphis.

 

Over 50 years as a Memphis, TN War Memorial

After 59 years since her last flight, the Belle was reclaimed by the Air Force, disassembled, and brought to the Air Force Museum, near Dayton, OH, for restoration. She was in bad shape, having spent most of those 59 years weathering the elements.

It took years, but now the Belle is proudly on display at the National Museum of the Air Force. 

https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/

U.S. Navy finally chooses aviation

26 September 1910 - 

Captain Washington Irving Chambers

Captain Washington Irving Chambers, USN “designated as the officer to whom all correspondence on aviation should be referred.”

Captain Washington Irving Chambers

This is the first recorded reference to naval aviation within the Navy Department.

Eugene Ely

Through Chambers' efforts, pioneer aviator Eugene Ely, went on to become the first person in history to not only takeoff from a naval ship, but also to land and takeoff from another naval ship.

Eugene Ely flies from the U.S.S Birmingham

Women behind the wheel

There’s always a lot of looking back and remembering which man did what first, but discovering which woman did the very same thing and when is rare.

We’re pretty confident that Elmer Elwood bought the first automobile in this part of Southern Oregon in 1903, and just about as confident that in 1904 A.C. Allen bought the next one. A year later, A.C. followed up his 1904 car with the purchase of a 1905 Oldsmobile, the third auto owned in the valley.

A. C. Allen

Now, here’s where it gets interesting.

Sometime before buying that second car, Albert’s sister-in-law, Margaret Keith, came to visit. According to A.C.’s wife, Margaret became the first woman to actually drive in the area. Some say Margaret owned the car she drove, but it seems more likely that A.C. let her drive his.

Within a couple of months of buying that 1905 Oldsmobile, A.C. sold his 1904 version to the first woman to own an automobile in the valley, Medford’s telegraph operator, Carrie George. We don’t know if she ever drove it, but if she did, it wasn’t for long. She quickly traded the 1904 horse-buster for a quarter block of residential property in west Medford.

By spring 1909, there were 150 automobiles in the valley, and by fall there were over 200, although, how many of those cars were actually driven or owned by women wasn’t reported. There were, however, a couple of local women who were setting records behind the wheel.

In 1908, Mrs. Ina Olwell, wife of a prominent real estate salesman, was the leader of a five-car caravan to Crater Lake. “We’ll make it to Crater Camp tonight,” she vowed, “or we’ll bust every tire on this machine.”

It took her 10-1/2 hours of constant driving, but

she made it.

No sooner had Edgar Hafer, head of a Butte Falls lumber company, taken delivery of his 1909 Packard, than Annie, his wife, motored off on a record-setting drive. She was the first woman to reach the rim of Crater Lake in an automobile, and she did it in just 8 hours, 52 minutes.

1909 Packard

The last five miles up the rim had been the toughest.

“You steer the car with one hand,” she said, “and with the other you throw rocks under the rear wheels as the car advances inch by inch. The right foot is engaged, forcing gas into the tired motor. The left foot is kept free for the oft-anticipated leap to safety should the car slide overboard.”

Motoring at Crater Lake, Oregon

A few months later, surprised to find Annie wearing a greasy duster over her dress in her garage and working on the Packard’s engine, a Portland newspaper reporter dubbed her “the best woman auto driver in Oregon.”

By the summer of 1910, a Mail Tribune reporter couldn’t say how many women drivers were behind the wheel, but he believed it was 20 to 40 ... or more.

“At any moment of the day,” he said, “huge machines of many different makes are seen darting hither and thither with some member of the fair sex at the steering wheel.”

It seems the ladies had just made a significant turn, and now they were driving in a completely new direction.