Colonel Paul’s Corner – Our American Spitfire Women

In the early days of WWII, the U.S. had a wealth of warplanes but lacked pilots and crews. Jacqueline Cochran, perhaps the most famous woman aviator of her day, tried to convince Army General, “Hap” Arnold, to allow women to fly non-combat missions for the military, freeing men to fly into combat. Arnold refused, believing that women were not capable of flying military aircraft.

Jacqueline Cochran knew that women were flying in England. They were part of the Air Transport Auxiliary, the ATA. The pilots of the ATA flew airplanes to where they were needed, freeing male pilots to concentrate on combat missions. The ATA was made up of volunteers from 30 different countries. It included more than 1000 men too old or disabled for Royal Air Force duty and almost 200 women. The ATA eventually flew more than 140 different types of aircraft. Accidents claimed the lives of 174 ATA pilots.

More than 70 women pilots volunteered to accompany Jacqueline Cochran to England to fly in the ATA. She selected twenty-five. She led the first group of five to England in March, 1942. The last of the 25 would not arrive until August. By that time, the first group had flown practically all the different aircraft in the British inventory. They flew trainers, seaplanes, cargo planes, single-engine fighters, and the biggest 4-engine English bombers. One of the women flew a captured German bomber. When the U.S. 8th Air Force arrived in February, 1942, the women got the opportunity to ferry a variety of American warplanes. Some of them flew the new long-range P-51 Mustang fighter. Their favorite airplane was the British Spitfire. It was sleek, fast, and a joy to fly. They took its name. They were the “Spitfires”. They quipped that ATA stood for “Anything To Anywhere”. Along the way, the Spitfires accomplished an unprecedented success for women. In May, 1943, the English Parliament decreed equal pay for ATA women. Until that time, they had been paid 20 percent less than the men.

When the first five American women arrived in March, 1942, the English had their doubts. They saw the Americans as crude, loud, heavy drinkers and sexually uninhibited. Maybe they were a lot like the male pilots? The women had one quality that made up for everything else. They could really fly. They could really….really…. really…. fly. They could flip through a few pages of a flight manual, then hop into a plane they had not seen before and fly it. They had been crop dusters, speed racers, aerobatic performers, and civilian flight instructors. ATA flying was just another adventure for them.

The English soon decided they had enough of Jacqueline Cochran. They saw her as “unpolished and high-handed”. She was also plagued with continual sinus infections, keeping her from flying. They kicked her out of the ATA. She returned to the U.S. and again confronted Hap Arnold. The success of the American women in the ATA made it difficult for General Arnold to make a case against women ferry pilots. He relented, and the Women Airforce Service Pilots, the WASPs, were formed with Jacqueline Cochran as their leader. From August, 1943 until the WASPs were disbanded in December, 1944, the 1000 WASPs flew 80 percent of U.S. ferry missions, delivering more than 12,000 aircraft.

The Spitfires and the WASPs led the way for women pilots, but it was still a long road ahead. It was not until 1973 that a major airline would hire a female passenger airline pilot. In 1977, the USAF began accepting women into pilot training. In 1994, we saw the first American woman fighter pilot. The first female Space Shuttle pilot took the left seat in 1995. The last surviving Spitfire, Nancy Stratford, celebrated her 106th birthday on 12 June, 2025. She said her secret to long life was “chocolate and vodka tonics”.

By Paul Warrick: January 8, 2026 - Great Falls, Mt