The Fatal Coin Toss

Late in the afternoon, October 16, 1944, Jeanne Lewellen Norbeck (Class 44-W-3) and Marybelle Lyall (44-W-4) flipped a coin to see which of two planes they would fly. Jeanne won the flight line

WASP Jeanne Lewellen Norbeck

coin toss and chose the BT-13 that had just been released by mechanics. The previous pilot had said the plane had a “heavy wing,” rolling slightly to the left. It was Jeanne’s job to test it and make sure everything was now in working order. It wasn’t, and Jeanne would die in the crash that came barely 8 miles away from the Shaw Army Airfield, her South Carolina duty station.

Born November 14, 1912, in Columbus, Indiana, Jeanne was the daughter of Darcy Lewellen and Mayme Emmons. Her father was the founder and president of Lewellen Manufacturing, a company he set up just after WWI that specialized in transmissions and machinery.

Before WWII, Jeanne and husband had Edward lived about eight miles from the naval base at Pearl Harbor and were eyewitnesses to

the Japanese planes flying over during the December 7, 1941 attack.

Jeanne was anxious to join the war effort. She had flown some in high school and college and decided to apply to the WASP program.

That simple coin toss had had ended it all.

Writer Bill Miller is the author of “To Live and Die a WASP: 38 Women Pilots Who Died in WWII.