The Uniform: Pilot trainees in the Women's Flying Training Detachment

Post by M.

July, 1943

Avenger Field, Sweetwater, TX
All photos by Peter Stackpole.

Shirley Slade, sporting an official dress uniform of a white blouse, tan slacks and overseas cap.

The Women's Flying Training Detachment was made up of American civilian women who learned to do the jobs male Air Force pilots did on the home front so that the men could go overseas to fight. After observing a similar program in England, Jacqueline Cochran, an American pilot, urged General Henry H. Arnold to create also create a pilot training program for women. The WFTD was later combined with Women Airforce Ferrying Squadron to create the Women Airforce Service Pilots or WASPS. The pilots training at Avenger Field lived the Military lifestyle, including "uniforms, drills, regulations, and morning reveille." In 1944, as the war wound down, the WASPs were dissolved. Cochran "lobbied for a one-day militarization, which would at least give her women veteran status and access to GI Bill benefits, but she was denied." For many women the war was the last and only time they would fly, as piloting jobs after the war went to men once they returned from overseas. Women were expected to return to the traditional roles they held before the war. In 1977 the WASPS finally received veteran status and military recognition. Source: U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission.