Two WASP Pilots Die on the Same Day

Two WASP Pilots Die on the Same Day

  (excerpt from To Live and Die a WASP)

It was October 1944. Even with the limited number of days and hours left to fly before the program ended, there was still plenty of danger for the women pilots.

Margie Laverne Davis 44-W-9T

(20 December 1922 - 16 October 1944)

Just 23 days before her graduation, October 16, 1944, Margie Davis (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.

WASP Marjorie Davis

… 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.

… 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. The sun had set over two hours earlier and the moon had disappeared nine minutes later.

Flying by instruments, Margie was lost and already overdue at Courtland Field. Investigators found one witness who said Margie’s plane had been flying in circles for nearly an hour. Apparently, she had tried to land in a field, but on her approach, she snagged a power line, snapping it in two. She accelerated and went around for another try. Crash investigators believed she had loosened her harness and opened the canopy to lean out in the dark and try to find the fast approaching ground. When her wheels touched down the impact forced her head against the edge of the cockpit canopy—hard enough to kill her. The plane slid to a stop just a few feet from an irrigation ditch.

… As flight leader and trainer, Lieutenant Leonard Gonye was with the women during the entire flight. When he landed in Alabama, he quickly realized that Margie had strayed and was missing. As he began the process of searching for her, word came that she had crashed and that Margie was dead—the last WASP to die in training.

Hallie Stires (44-W-4), WASP and also Staff Advisor at Avenger Field, escorted Margie home to California for her burial in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

 

At nearly the same moment that Margie was about to crash in Mississippi, a telegram was arriving at Darcy Lewellen’s Columbus, Indiana home. His daughter’s plane had crashed and Jeanne Marcille Lewellen Norbeck (44-W-3) was dead.

Jeanne Lewellen Norbeck 44-W-3

(14 November 1912 – 16 October 1944)

Late in the afternoon, October 16, 1944, Jeanne and Marybelle Lyall [44-W-4] flipped a coin to see which of two planes they would fly. A month before her 32nd birthday, Jeanne had just returned from a weekend visit with her parents in Columbus, Indiana. Jeanne won the flight line 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.

... Jeanne graduated from training at Avenger Field in April 1944 and was assigned to Shaw Army Airbase in South Carolina, about 8 miles northwest of Sumter. Before she reported to Shaw, she attended the controversial School of Applied Tactics in Orlando, Florida, what some believed was actually officer training for the women. A month later, with the course completed, she reported to Shaw as an engineering test pilot of repaired airplanes.

 

WASP Jeanne Norbeck

... Just before 4 o’clock, Jeanne and Marybelle in separate airplanes were in the air and flying south toward the Shaw Field testing area, about 15 miles away. They were in constant radio contact and when they reached the test area, both agreed that their airplanes were flying well. They separated, flying in opposite directions. That was the last Marybelle ever heard from Jeanne. At 4:15, flying through a clear sky with little wind, Jeanne was heading back to base, flying at 500 feet, and entering the landing pattern. The plane slammed into the ground, upside down, canopy first. Jeanne never had a chance.

... Jeanne Lewellen was born November 14, 1912, in Columbus, Indiana, the daughter of Darcy Lewellen and Mayme Emmons.

… While studying at Washington State University, Jeanne met Edward Norbeck who was finishing his degree.

… During the summer of 1940, Jeanne returned to

WASP Jeanne Norbeck and Husband Edward

her Indiana home for a visit with the family and to tell her father that she and Edward Norbeck were going to marry. Shortly after her return to Honolulu in late September, Edward in a white, three-button, double breasted suit and Jeanne in a simple bridal gown were married.

… Jeanne and Edward lived about eight miles from the naval base at Pearl Harbor and could see the Japanese planes flying over during the December 7, 1941, attack. For nearly a year and a half, they suffered through food shortages, nighttime curfews, and martial law. Tens of thousands of civilians were anxious to return to the mainland, but the U.S. government wasn’t sure of Japan’s military strength east of Hawaii, and the possibility of an attack on the Pacific Coast, so they delayed evacuations for weeks.

In early 1943, with the threat of invasion eased, Jeanne and Edward returned to the mainland. In May, while in Los Angeles, Edward enlisted in the Army and Jeanne briefly returned to Indiana. … Jeanne was also anxious to join the war effort. She had flown some in high school and college and decided to apply to the WASPs.

… No one could remember a WASP’s body ever receiving a military escort home; nevertheless, not only was an Army officer escorting Jeanne’s body to Indiana; he also brought a flag to cover her casket. Now an Army corporal, Edward was studying at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri and got a mere, one-day leave to attend the funeral. Jeanne’s body arrived in Columbus late in the afternoon, October 19, and rested in her father’s home. The next morning, after the closed casket funeral service ended, a procession followed Jeanne on the one-mile trip to the Garland Brook Cemetery. Edward returned to Fort Leonard Wood the next morning.

WASP Jeanne Norbeck

 RIP