WASP Marie Ethel Chiler Sharon 43-W-4
(21 April 1917 – 10 April
1944)
 |
| WASP Pilot Marie Chiler Sharon |
While in final navigation
training in a B-25 near Tecumseh Nebraska, she and instructor Lt Hinton Daniel
died while flying through heavy rain and wind.
Excerpt from To Live and Die a WASP
On April 10, barely 24 hours after WASP Evelyn Sharp’s
funeral in Ord, Nebraska, Marie Ethel Sharon, (43-W-4) took off from Rosecrans Army
Airfield in St. Joseph, Missouri with her instructor, Lt. Hinton Daniel. This
was a navigational training flight in a B-25 Mitchell bomber. The Midwest weather that had delayed Evelyn Sharp
on her flight across the country had gotten worse. As Marie maneuvered their
bomber for over an hour in a thick overcast, passing from point to point and
into Nebraska, pelting rain began smashing against the aircraft’s skin. The
B-25 began to rattle and shudder violently against “extremely hard winds,” gusting
at 45 mph. Lt. Daniel and Marie frantically fought to maintain altitude and
control. Suddenly, the nose wheel door began to twist with a screeching
metallic sound. The hinges gave way in the wind and the door flew away,
slamming into the right side motor. Sixty-five miles south of Omaha, there was
smoke, the engine failed, and the bomber lunged into a nose first dive. It shattered
in pieces as it hit the ground and buried itself deep into a farmer’s field.
The 38
RIP
