Roughly 80 years ago, women in white blouses and khaki slacks marched about the barracks and hangars of Sweetwater, Texas, a place surrounded by little more than open sky, sagebrush and apparently enough rattlers to crown it the “Rattlesnake Capital of Texas.”
From personal accounts, though, these women didn’t mind the dust, if they could stay. Too many others had tried to keep them from being there at all.
During World War II, these Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) were stationed at Avenger Field in Sweetwater and were the first women to fly American military aircraft. When the demand for pilots was high and the supply of men was not, the War Department planned to utilize women, if only momentarily.
“We do not think they will ever be able to fly military airplanes,” department correspondence read. “Get rid of them as soon as possible.”
At the beginning of 1943, the first WASP answered the call and reported to Sweetwater, determined to prove their worth.
Far from the deep of the Pacific or the frontlines in Europe, this seemingly desolate patch of west Texas was abuzz with women training to ferry planes from factories to bases, tow targets for male trainees and test the fighters and bombers at home before the aircraft waged the Allies’ war abroad.
As the tide of the war turned, the WASP faced the ire of men who, upon returning stateside, declared they would not walk while the girls “flew their airplanes.”
In December of 1944, the WASP were subsequently disbanded and paid their own way home. Of the 1,074 women to complete the same Army Air Force training program required of the men, 38 died in service, but the military prohibited flags from draping their coffins.
Local legacy
These women, considered civilian contractors by the military, lived out much of their lives without benefits or honors until the WASP won a 33-year battle for veteran status in 1977.
The WASP may be lesser-known heroes of The Greatest Generation, but Fredericksburg groups have worked to honor their legacy by celebrating both the 80th anniversary of the WASP formation and Women’s History Month this year.
From March 4-10, Gwen Fullbrook of Crosswind Aviation, a flight school at the Gillespie County Airport, hosted an exhibit where visitors could comb memorabilia, records and stories of the WASP to the hum of airplane engines and 1940s music. The National Museum of the Pacific War also filmed a Women’s History Month education program from the exhibit.
The display featured three WASP in particular, all with ties to the Hill Country.
The spirited Mildred (Millie) Inks Davidson Dalrymple (class 44-4) was raised in Llano and soloed in just 11 days before becoming a WASP.
A yearbook, logbooks, flight patches and other memorabilia belonged to Muriel (Mimi) Lindstrom Segall, who graduated with the 44-2 class and was in Ferry Command, where she flew BT-13s and heavy bombers. After the war, she worked for North American Aviation as a technical writer who penned the handbooks for the first American jet fighter, the F-86, and the B-25J “Mitchell” bomber.
Her belongings have a more permanent home at Crosswind, as her son, Lindy Segall, is a resident of Fredericksburg and has spearheaded much of local WASP project.
Additionally, Fullbrook said she was “totally jazzed” when Lisa Taylor, the executive director of the National WASP WWII Museum in Sweetwater, lent a traveling exhibit to the Fredericksburg display, as well.
“With (the museum’s) contract that you have to sign … it talks about things that you can do to embellish the exhibit and bring it more to life,” Fullbrook said. “One of the things was putting your own stuff out there as well and perhaps getting a speaker. I went, ‘I just happen to know one.’”
Kid-of-WASP (KOW) Segall gave a presentation about the WASP at a reception on March 10, where he recounted the plights and perseverance of Mimi, whose quote reflects the unglamorous, hard-nosed patriotism shared by the WASP: “Don’t ever begin what you don’t intend to finish … with perfection. We had a job to do, and we did it very well.”
Crosswind
The third featured WASP, Jean Pearson, was already an accomplished pilot and commander of an all-women Civil Air Patrol when the WASP were formed. She graduated with the 43-3 class, competed in over 70 air races and joined the Navy after the war. For 40 years, she took to the skies with her own petite 1960 white and sky-blue Cessna 172, which is now owned by Fullbrook, who shared her own passion for flying by starting Crosswind in 2018.
Not only did Pearson help pioneer an age where women are a more common sight in the skies, her plane continues to instill a love of flying in Texas locals with joyrides over the Hill Country.
In 2021, Fullbrook’s mechanic notified her of an oil issue that grounded the plane she used for instruction.
“That night I prayed, ‘God, if you want me to have a flight school, you’ve got to find me another airplane,’” she said.
On the eve of Good Friday, Fullbrook found Pearson’s plane for sale online, and took it home the day after Easter Sunday. “It was a gift from God.”
Fullbrook said her aviation journey has been “one little miracle after the other,” and that the WASP exhibit was just one step in her future plans to create more exhibits and bring more awareness to aviation in Fredericksburg and beyond.
She also wants to start A is for Airplane, an educational foundation dedicated to “inspiring youth to pursue aviation in some form or fashion” through pre-school playscapes, career days and secondary education curriculum.
Segall is currently developing a musical called “Sweetwater” and spoke of the WASP 80th anniversary homecoming in Sweetwater on April 29-30.
Through their efforts to both expand historical knowledge and inspire future generations of aviators, Fullbrook, Segall and others hope to honor the legacy of the women who, as Segall said of his mother, proved that “even the sky has no limits.”
