The Women with Silver Wings: The Inspiring True Story of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II
By: Katherine Sharp Landdeck / Narrated By: Gabra Zackman
Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
Such AWEsome women in this well-crafted and engaging audiobook!
The Women with Silver Wings starts with a bang as pilot Cornelia Fort is up in the air when Japanese Zeroes come up on her little plane and force her to the ground on December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor. She and her student take refuge in a hangar as planes are strafed and bullets come thaaaat close to piercing her plane’s gas tank, near ‘bout exploding everything to bits.
When a call goes out, Fort is one of the first women to join up in an effort to assist the Armed Forces. And so begins this absolutely wonderful account of the Women Airforce Service Pilots where young women from all around the country stepped up to aid their country in such a time of need. They left worlds as debutantes, worlds as daughters of families just making ends meet, worlds where p’raps they were victims of racism (Okay, pretty much only one young woman, Hazel, was Chinese American, all Black young women, despite many, MANY hours of flight time/experience were told they would not be admitted and to help out in far more mundane and menial ways).
My favorite women were Theresa, Dora, and one of the originators of the WASP program, Nancy Love. The other originator was Jacqueline Cochran, but she reeeeeally grated on my nerves. Because, you see, tho’ the program was meant to assist in all ways possible, and tho’ the writing is careful to couch things in an all-positive light, Cochran still comes off as egomaniacal and willing to let the program wither and die, fade away, if she couldn’t have exACTly the power she wanted.
This audiobook chronicles the many ways these women served, whether it was ferrying planes across the country to ports where they’d be packed on ships to join various theaters of war, or it was dragging targets across the sky so that young men could, with live ammunition, practice shooting at planes in the sky. The women faced unabashed sexism throughout the years the WASP program was in place, having to prove themselves time and time again. And sometimes their patriotism was proven by crashes and fiery deaths. Thirty-eight women lost their lives during this time, and for the most part, their deaths were treated as Civilian deaths, their families not eligible for the monetary compensation available from the military, their funerals not paid for by the military.
Soon, however, the tides of war started turning in the country’s favor, and the women began to be vilified. News reports, which at one point sang their praises, turned toxic as they posited that women, who should be doing their part by raising families, were taking jobs from pilot instructors, newly trained pilots, who were now no longer needed overseas. To say this made me peeved, to say this was a shameful way to treat heroines who gave up so much to do their jobs, is an understatement. But I’m glad the story went on to waaaaay after the War, to when these women met with each other again, to when they started advocating for themselves to be treated as veterans. Again! they faced sexism and discrimination, and they faced flat out ignorance about what they’d done through the War.
There aren’t that many happy endings here, tho’, so don’t think all is glory and wonderful memories. There are the aforementioned thirty-eight deaths; there are women who could NOT adjust to a life far from flying, stuck on the ground, no prospects (Think: suicide…), there is Jacqueline Cochran meeting with the women and averring that a woman’s greatest contribution could be made through motherhood (Think: she couldn’t have children of her own…). And there did indeed come losses the women suffered as a result of the theaters of war (Think: dead husbands).
Still, one can thank veteran narrator Gabra Zackman for keeping things light when things were looking mighty dark. Though she NEVER skimped on the pathos, I could’ve come away from this mighty depressed, but she performed with plenty of heart, and she didn’t bog us down in just how tragic some things were. It was fiery death, and then the women picked themselves up and went on to do their jobs; it was a telegram of an MIA husband, and then that particular woman hauled off and pulled every string available to get info… and THEN went on to do her job… until Hope died. Brava, Ms. Zackman: You had wonderful women to work with, and you made them live and breathe!
I dunno how it is in other countries, but sometimes I do feel a bit woebegone thinking of just how much history we Americans put aside or just plain sweep under the rug. The time of the WASP women SHOULD be shouted to the rooftops, SHOULD be taught in schools. What would be more inspiring to a young girl than to think of girls who grew to be women, fighting the good fight, living their dreams, having adventures all whilst serving proudly?
Women who flew, with those Silver Wings shining bright.
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