Born Marjorie Laverne Davis, December 20, 1922, in Hollywood,
California, Margie was the second of five children and the first daughter of
Clinton and Margaret Davis.
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| WASP Marjorie Davis |
Just 23 days before her graduation, October 16, 1944, Margie (Class 44-W-9)
was in advanced training, flying solo on a 2,000-mile cross-country flight from
Avenger Field in an AT-6 Texan. The destination for the flight of 13
aircraft was Courtland Army Airfield in north central Alabama. Their first
refueling stop was the Stuttgart, Arkansas Army Airfield, where the women and
Lieutenant Leonard Gonye, their instructor and flight leader, took a break and
ate a meal before flying on.
When Margie had graduated from
Hollywood High School in 1941, Stuttgart, Arkansas was probably one of the last
places she expected to be visiting. She told her high school yearbook committee
that she planned to be a teacher. That fall, she entered UCLA in pursuit of a
physical education major, but just two weeks before her 19th
birthday, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and Margie’s education plans turned
toward aviation. Without telling her parents, she left UCLA in 1943 and headed
for Sparks, Nevada, just south of Reno. There, she shared a room and expenses
with another woman and learned to fly.
In Stuttgart, after they finished
eating, Margie and the rest of the flight climbed into their planes and took
off. At about 7:30 in the evening, Margie was about 90 miles from Courtland
Field in Alabama and just over the Tennessee state line, a few miles south of
Walnut, Mississippi. The sky was clear and temperatures were slowly dropping into
the upper 40s. Except for the stars sparkling in a cloudless sky, it was dark. Flying
by instruments, Margie was lost and already overdue at Courtland Field.
Margie was the last WASP to die in
training. Her funeral was held in California at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
Writer
Bill Miller is the author of “To Live and Die a WASP: 38 Women Pilots Who Died
in WWII.
