Wings (13 page)

“But he seemed so proud to introduce me to his little world of flyin’, I just didn’t have the heart to stop him.” Joy Lynn whistled as she arranged her cards in her hand. “Ooo wee! Nice hand, Calli Duncan. Thank you, ma’am.”

Doubt walked in the room and sat down on the bed next to Liddy. She hadn’t seen him for hours and tried to keep the others from knowing he was there. He kept asking,
Why did you come to this place
? He said,
You’re just an air clown. There are real pilots here, and you can’t rate against them
. He mocked her for the ache she felt when she thought about Major Reid Trent, a man she barely knew who obviously believed she was—and that’s where Liddy cut Doubt off. She laughed and teased with her roommates and snubbed the unwelcome naysayer for the rest of the night.

“It’s almost ten. Lights out, first full day tomorrow,” Louise said.

Bet gathered up the cards and put them in her locker. The others set about putting their things in order and getting ready to turn in.

“Reveille at zero six hundred hours,” Louise reminded.

Bet looked inquisitively at Liddy.

“Six a.m.,” Liddy translated.

Once they were in bed and the lights were off, Bet’s mind raced. “If 0 one hundred hours is one p.m., then what’s twelve noon?”

“Twelve hundred hours,” Liddy said sleepily.

“That doesn’t make sense. Why doesn’t it start at the first a.m. time, twelve a.m.?” Calli joined the inquisition.

“It does, zero hundred hours,” Louise tried to help out.

“That’s twelve a.m.?” asked Bet.

“Yes,” said Liddy.

“I heard a trainee say, ‘twelve mid-hundred hours,” said Calli.

“It can be either,” Louise clarified.

“Either, only for twelve?” Bet asked.

“Only for twelve a.m.,” Liddy answered.

“So what’s one p.m.?” Calli asked.

Liddy buried her head under her pillow and pleaded, “Sleep, children, sleep.”

“I have the military time down but all of this, PT, AT, RON talk is driving me batty,” said Joy Lynn.

“Primary Trainer, Advanced Trainer, Rest Over Night,” Louise clarified.

The voices of Bet and Calli rose in the darkness in unison, “Rest where?”

Liddy and Louise sat up and pelted them with their pillows.

Five foot nothing and belting out morning reveille, the trumpeting trainee was silhouetted against the sunrise. The notes reverberated through the barracks and gave the future WASP their first military wakening.

Bet sat straight up. “What was that?”

“Your wake-up call, missy,” Louise said as she flipped off her covers and sat on the edge of her bed.

“Thank goodness. I thought there was a stampede of horny cows comin’,” Joy Lynn quipped.

“Again, real classy, Georgia,” said Marina.

“Clearly, you’ve never heard a horny cow.”

“I haven’t lived.”

The women got out of bed reluctantly, donned their PT shorts and marched to calisthenics. Then they returned to their bays and zooted up.

Training days would always include marching and no talking was allowed when they did it. First to calisthenics, then to change, then to breakfast they marched. Trainees would then march, without talking, to the line where they were coached or bashed by their flight instructor, then they marched to lunch without talking, marched to shower without talking, and on to the classroom, which of course they marched to also without talking. The order would be reversed for half the class as they were split into two sections.

Marching to the flight line that first morning, the new trainees passed Major Trent and Jenna Law at the flight boards. Liddy saw Trent tilt his head as he chuckled. She wasn’t close enough to see, but she just knew that he looked at the woman with that boyish grin and she was jealous. And it wouldn’t be the last time. Liddy couldn’t remember ever having been jealous over anything but now it set up shop inside of her. It seemed every time she turned around Major Trent and Jenna Law—Jenna Law and Major Trent were together.

Lowering herself into the cockpit calmed her,
and the reasons she came to Avenger Field returned. Liddy could always count on a plane to lift her spirits, but for some of the women, the flight line became a place of love and dread. Flying the Army way was full of precision and regulations that didn’t look much like the joy rides they had known. Although a few of the women had been instructors and test pilots, most were not professional flyers, and flying in the program was serious fare.

Their match to an instructor also colored a trainee’s experience in the air. Homer Nash politely helped Marina onto the wing of the plane and into the cockpit, something some women would detest in that environment.

Joy Lynn and Carl Paxton established a rhythm as he loved to praise, and she bloomed when affirmation was showered upon her. She sailed in and greased a landing and Paxton gave her a thumbs-up.

Bet was up with Gant for the second time. When she made a sharp turn that knocked him hard against the side of the pit, she braced herself for the fireworks. Gant’s face lit up, but he held his fury and the attack never came. Liddy flew by the book that day, and to calm Gant’s nerves she found herself making small talk.

After lunch the task of twelve women showering with two shower heads in ten minutes became a group project. Modesty had no place, and no trainee ever washed-out for being tardy, so the women apparently gave up every modest bone in their bodies.

They were still dripping when the call came to line up and march to ground school. Captain Ellis Charles was one of the main instructors for the book work and he made it pleasant, for the most part. Any man dressed in a military uniform at once becomes the boy next door, but Captain Charles was the real deal. He became the charming big brother to the trainees. If they stepped out of line he would come down with firm correction, but he guided and protected them with an unbroken commitment. He took it on as his individual responsibility to make sure each trainee was well prepared.

This was the second class of female flyers he had brought into the fold of military aviation, and he had hit a zone. “You have in front of you a list of the planes you will train on. Starting today you will continually transition from one plane to the next. Those of you who are assigned to ferry commands after graduation, will fly bombers or basics and fighters from base to base for training or from the factory floor to U.S. harbors. Planes delivered to the coast will be shipped overseas. The hardest working, the most skilled among you will move these planes at the bottom of the page.”

Liddy studied the list and heard Doubt snicker.

“These are fighter planes, pursuits. These planes are designed to pursue the enemy in battle. Transition to pursuits as well as the bombers will take place at additional training facilities where WASPs train and study alongside male cadets. Those of you good enough to be assigned to ferry pursuits or bombers, will get to crack open a few more books after graduation.”

The class listened intently as Captain Charles talked about what they would be studying: flight theory, communications, navigation, weather conditions and the History of Aviation made up part of the list. Liddy had to lock her neck to keep from looking at the planes out the window. Sometimes you just have to do one thing to be able to do another.

Scoping out the ropes
and sizing-up the other trainees were part of the first week of training. The baymates debriefed each other every evening, reporting on what was what, who was who, from where, and what their flying background was. Some of the women had just enough hours to get into the program, while others had logged a hundred hours or more in the pit.

Most of the female pilots in the country who had more than five hundred hours in their log books had been recruited, before the WASP program, by Nancy Love for the Woman’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron. Before a program had been established in the United States to utilize female pilots for non-combat military flying, Love had assembled this elite group of women. She took them to England where they were allowed to ferry planes for the war effort.

The WAFS were very experienced pilots. The majority were well educated from well-to-do backgrounds. But a WASP trainee couldn’t be put into a mold. These women were as different as a cat is from an elephant. They were experienced aviators and novices, rich and poor, young college graduates and married women in their thirties.

The original Army sponsored program established by Jackie Cochran was the Woman’s Flying Training Detachment. As opposed to the WAFS, it was developed to train average female flyers to not only ferry planes, but to do other non-combat flying for the military. General ‘Hap’ Arnold made the decision that the two programs should merge if they would both be serving in the states, and the WASP was born. But, in their minds, the women who had been WAFS remained WAFS, even though they all did the same flying for their country.

Joy Lynn and Louise had learned to fly in a Civilian Pilot Training Program, Marina and Bet had received private instruction, and Calli’s Steven had taught her. Her roommates knew Liddy’s father had taught her to fly, but she didn’t go into detail beyond that. It was a big stew pot of women, but the main ingredient was that they were all pilots who wanted to fly to serve their country.

After supper, the baymates had staked out a group of chairs and sofas in the rec hall and sat back for their nightly reports. Songs that drew the gal’s hearts to memories of home, fun and sweethearts drifted through the fabric panels of the big floor radio. The girls shared the skinny on what they’d learned about the base, the program and the other trainees.

Jenna Law walked in carrying on with some of her classmates, and Joy Lynn set her elbows on her knees and leaned in toward the gals. In a hushed voice she said, “Did any of you see Jenna Law up today?” Joy Lynn whistled quietly. “I was impressed, and I don’t impress easily. That was some smooth junk. Don’t know I’ve ever seen a straighter dive.”

“That’s one confident lady.” Louise raised her eyebrows and shook her head.

“I don’t think there’s one bone that can be shaken in that broad.” Joy Lynn sat back and twirled her hair.

“She’s nice,” said Bet. “She showed me how to keep my chute straps from sliding, and she got me a couple of seat cushions to move me up in the pit.”

“She may be nice as long as you don’t mess with the rules, huh, Liddy?” asked Marina.

“I’m glad she helped you, honey.” Liddy squeezed Bet’s knee.

“Hey, Bailey, you know how to play ping pong?” Joy Lynn kicked at Bet’s feet that she had propped on the sofa table.

“I have three older brothers. What do you think?”

“I’ll take you on then.”

Joy Lynn and Bet picked up the paddles and went at it. And Liddy snuck off to the canteen. Liddy had discovered that the canteen wasn’t much of a hot spot. It was small, a little shabby and quiet. It became her place to be semi-alone, as any aloneness was a rare state since she boarded the train in Missouri. She wasn’t accustomed to having people around all the time and there were moments, many moments, she missed Crik’s place and her little trailer.

She’d close her eyes and listen to hear the sounds of the farm when everything slept, or the tires of the Dodge, jumping from rut to rut on the dirt roads and no one in the car but her. Even in the air she was accompanied by an instructor. She craved the day when training would move past solos, and she would have her time in the sky to herself again.

Before she slipped away to the canteen, Liddy took pen and paper from her locker to write home before lights out. She wrote to Daniel and Celia, and she jotted off a note to Rowby. She would tuck it away until she heard word from Daniel where she should mail it. She was careful to make sure it was light and friendly. She knew how natural it would be for him to make what he wanted of it. And then she wrote to Jack and Crik again:

May 12, 1943

Dear Daddy and Crik,

Well my time of luxury is over, but the food at the mess here would put Carol Ann at the diner to shame. The kitchen puts out quite a spread and encourages the trainees to pile it high. I had eggs and brains for breakfast. I think it must be like what I’ve heard Earl talk about. He’ll be glad to know I’m taking some risks. The barracks are crowded, but I’ve been bunked with some gals that are sure to make the next five months interesting.

I flew a PT-19 the past two days. It’s a heavy ship and like all the planes here, has some miles on it, but boy are there lots of planes. When you look out on the main strip, there must be 100 of them lined up and then there’s more on the back fields and in the hangars.

Texas is dry and I’m bracing myself for the heat of summer. People keep talking about the blistering heat to come like it has wheels and is going to roll over us like a freight train.

We haven’t been back to the town of Sweetwater. We’re restricted to the base for the first two weeks “quarantined” but the townspeople seemed nice, a little unsure of us, but nice. I think of the show and how just one lady pilot knots up the sensibilities of our little crowds, and Sweetwater has hundreds of lady pilots on their spot of the earth, all at one time. I guess that’s a lot for a groundling to handle.