Viewing page 9 of 140

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

stated, "We don't want to let down the bars to women in the army." (1) So U.S. women were not allowed to take part "officially" in World War I as pilots. (2) But the women flyers did serve. They flew exhibition flights and fund-raising flights for the Red Cross and Liberty Loan drives, lent their famous names to the recruiting effort, and even trained future military pilots at private airfields.

This book will attempt to bring to the public's attention the women who contributed so much in those early years to shaping the future of aviation. There were women test pilots in those pioneer years, women who set altitude and distance records, and women who flew for the sheer joy of it. All of them are examples of what can be accomplished when the desire and the determination to succeed are strong.

During my research I came to feel close to these women, to sense their frustrations in trying to find aviation schools which would accept them, people who would trust them with their aircraft, and then, as acceptance of them as pilots was

1 Murray Hurlbert, "Yes - Let Women Fly," Air Travel, volume I, number 6 (February 1918) page 250

2 In Russia, however, at least one woman was allowed to fly in World War I. The first Russian woman to serve as a military pilot, and possibly the world's first, was Princess Eugenie Mikhailovna Shakhovskaya. She made a personal request to the Tsar to be allowed to fly in the War and was assigned to the 1st Field Air Squadron as a reconnaissance pilot. An unusual job which she later held was chief executioner for the Cheka (secret police) in Kiev.

Transcription Notes:
Some superscripts are in parentheses, while others are not (in the transcript).