Women Fliers to Be Honored for Contribution in World War II

The WASPs were unsung pilot heroines of World War II, flying P-38s and other single-engine airplanes fresh off the production lines to military staging areas where they could be shipped overseas to the flyboys.

Of the 350 Women Air Force Service Pilots nationwide, about 80 were stationed in Long Beach.

“Most of us were flying long before World War II,” says Barbara London, 75, commander of the Long Beach WASP squadron. “I was teaching Navy cadets before that.”

With virtually every male flier engaged in the war effort, there was a desperate need for qualified pilots for transport. “That’s why they even considered taking women,” says London, who runs an aircraft sales company in Long Beach.

The WASPs will be honored today at ceremonies at Long Beach Airport, where a special historical exhibit will be unveiled. About 40 WASPs are expected for the event, which is part of Freedom Flight America, commemorating the 40th anniversary of the end of the war, airport officials said.

The women fliers delivered 12,652 airplanes in their two years and three months of operations. “The production was staggering,” London says. “Lockheed was turning out three or four P-38s a day.”

The women were considered civilian employees until 1977, when Congress voted to declare the survivors military veterans.

It didn’t mean much in terms of benefits but it mattered to the families of the 38 WASPs who died in accidents of one kind or another, London said. “They could say their daughters were veterans.”

The WASPs were disbanded at the end of 1944, after returning veterans complained that women were holding down male jobs. “It broke our hearts that we didn’t get to finish the war,” London said.