WASP Frances Fortune Grimes Class 43-W-3
A champion amateur tennis player before she flew.
Died shortly after take-off from Otis Field, Massachusetts
in an A-24 attack bomber.
(7 October 1914 - 27 March 1944)
Frances Fortune Grimes had begun her training at Houston’s
Municipal Airport in January 1943, and graduated at Sweetwater with “The Lost
Platoon,” class 43-W-3.
Frances competed in and won many amateur tennis tournaments
in the 1930s and early 1940s, including the Maryland and West Virginia
championships. She even ranked number one for a while in the Middle Atlantic
Lawn Tennis Association. She attended West Virginia University in Morgantown
and then the University of Pittsburgh, where she graduated in 1937 with a
Bachelors Degree in business administration. She learned to fly in Morgantown
as part of the university’s Civilian Pilot Training program
On Monday, March 27, Frances Grimes was taking off from Otis
Field in a Douglas A-24 Banshee on
another routine target-towing mission. She was still climbing when her engine
stalled and the assault bomber spiraled into the ground. Friends believed her
carburetor had iced up and caused the crash, but no one was ever sure. “We
hadn’t seen her since Christmas,” her sister, Ellen, later told a reporter.
“Frances was killed the day before she was to come home to Richmond. That was a
tragic weekend.” Three days after her crash, funeral services for the
29-year-old aviator were held at precisely 4:30 in the afternoon, at both Otis
Field and at the All Saints Episcopal Church in Richmond.
( An excerpt from: )
