First Womens Airforce Service Pilot to Die on Duty

WASP Margaret “Margy” Sanford Oldenburg 43-W-4

(29 July 1909 – 7 March 1943)

 

WASP Pilot Margaret Oldenburg

It had been a relatively quiet Sunday afternoon. A few of the women had taken advantage of the improved weather to fly some training flights. Margy Oldenburg had talked to her husband in California by phone at noon and then checked out a parachute and met Norris Morgan, her civilian instructor, on the flight line. They would fly a Fairchild PT-19, a basic trainer airplane used to introduce pilots to military aircraft before moving them up to more demanding planes.

Norris Morgan, Margy’s instructor, had been flying since 1933. Born and raised in Galva, Illinois, Morgan was a graduate of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, with a degree in agricultural engineering. 
 

Norris Goold Morgan

                                                                                                                (4 December 1901 – 7 March 1947)

Just about 6 in the evening, March 7, 1942, the base siren in Houston began to wail an emergency call. ... An unexplained spin had suddenly sent Margy’s PT-19 hurling straight down into a pasture seven miles southeast of the Houston Airport. She and Norris smashed into the ground at such speed that both of them died instantly.

 RIP

To Live and Die a WASP