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| WASP Mary Jean "Barnsie" Barnes Sturdevant |
Her final flight
By BILL MILLER
For the Mail Tribune
We have nearly lost an entire
generation of heroes. Of the 1,074 women who qualified as U.S. Army Air Corps
pilots during WWII, perhaps fewer than 30 remain with us. It seems, nearly
every few weeks, another of these brave ladies takes off on what her sister
pilots call, “her final flight.”
They were the WASP, Women Airforce Service Pilots. For
nearly two and a half years these women did the same jobs that thousands of
male Army officers were doing at the same time—doing it for less pay—without
military benefits—no insurance—and even having to pay for their own meals and
lodging.
After six months of training, the women were assigned to a
myriad of different jobs. They ferried planes from factories to military locations
throughout the county, flight tested repaired aircraft, and pulled cloth
targets through the air, while male gunners practiced shooting at them with
live ammunition. Some learned to fly bombers. Others sped through the air in
the latest fast fighters.
The plan had always been to
militarize them with a commission as officers in the regular Army, but the U.S.
Congress refused, and for over 30 years, their files were sealed and their war
time contributions largely forgotten.
“People didn’t really know anything
about us or that there were women who were flying for the military,” Mary Jean
“Barnsie” Barnes Sturdevant said. “We always laughingly said that it was the best
kept secret of the Army.”
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| WASP Mary Jean "Barnsie" Barnes Sturdevant |
Mary was one of 15 WASP pilots who
claimed Oregon as their home state when WASP training began.
Born September 28, 1921 in Bend,
Mary was the only daughter of Deschutes County Judge William Barnes and his
wife, Cornelia. Not long after Mary was born, the family moved to Phoenix. It
was a comfortable life and Mary was a good student, but by the time she was in
the 5th grade, the Great Depression began to take its toll. Her
father died when she was 16, leaving her, her mother, and her brother in near
poverty
“I didn’t mind having one pair of
shoes, a skirt, and a couple of blouses,” she said, “because all of my friends
were in the same way.”
At her 1939 graduation from Phoenix
High, Mary received a college scholarship that allowed her to study at the Southern
Oregon College, today’s SOU. In the spring of 1941, she was one of three women students
who enrolled in a pilot training course offered by the college and the U. S.
Government. She earned her pilot license and soon qualified as a ground flight
instructor.
Following graduation, she set up
and taught a pre-flight training program at Medford High, but, within months, she
accepted a similar position at the Eastern Oregon College in La Grande. After a
year there, she moved on to Washington State College at Pullman. There she
trained male Air Corps pilot trainees to fly.
Accepted into the WASP program in
the spring of 1944, hers was the seventh class to graduate that year. After
graduation, her assignment was the Merced Army Airfield in California’s Central
Valley. That’s where she met her flight instructor husband.
Mary’s final flight was on June 24,
2017 at her Graham, Washington home.
Thankfully, unlike so many of her
sisters, Mary finally had been lucky enough to hear her country say, “Thank you
for your service.”
Writer
Bill Miller is the author of “To Live and Die a WASP: 38 Women Pilots Who Died
in WWII.” Reach him at newsmiller@live.com or WilliamMMiller.com.
