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was trapped the following night in a hotel fire in Springfield, Mo., and escorted down ladders in the middle of the night. But the bad luck for the week was not over. The flight leader arrived at the field next morning to pick up her plane and was greeted with the announcement, "Oh, we're so sorry, miss. Somebody ran into your plane last night. It will take some time to get it repaired." And it did.

On base, you'll find the girls either in school or in the ready room. School is in continuous session at ferry bases. Pilots, when not flying, are expected to attend. It keeps their minds fresh on such subjects as meteorology, navigation, radio and new techniques in flying. They like it.

Wherever they are, their ears are always subconsciously listening for their own names to be read over the loud-speaker system. Maybe it's 0600 o'clock, 1400, or perhaps they're in the middle of a coke in the Pilot's Loft.

"Clark . . . Richards . . . McGilvery . . . Miller . . . Scharr."

Names are up. They report to Operations, collect maps and orders, return to their quarters, pick up the B-4s, draw their chutes, and they are on their way. Perhaps they go to a nearby aircraft plant by car or if it's a base some distance away, they may fly by Army transport. They arrive, pick up the aircraft to be ferried and take off. They fly no night missions, so unless they can complete the mission an hour before sundown, they land at a previously designated airport, check in at Operations, send an RON (remain overnight) to their headquarters, find a hotel and fall into bed.

Up at 0600 the following morning, the resume the flight. After their mission is accomplished, they collect their receipt forms, order a car to the commercial airport, present their Priority BB credentials for a reservation on the next plane--and wait. This is the worst part. They read, play solitaire, kill time in the airport restaurant, wander around restlessly. Finally they are on the plane and headed for home. Maybe they get back to base at midnight, but "woman's work is never done." There are shirts to wash and iron. There are clothes to clean and press, for clothes must be kept spotless. This may take until 0300 o'clock. Bed, breakfast, school. By noon, perhaps they have new orders are off again.

Sometimes getting back is not so easy. Once they've delivered their aircraft the pilots are at the mercy of the public carriers. And many fields are hundreds of miles from the commercial airways. Not infrequently that means trains, or worse, buses--buses jammed with war-time travelers. Often they have to stand for 200 miles or more to get to a commercial airline.

There are times when sleeping quarters present their own problems. Several WAFS, ferrying Cubs, once had to land at the Marine base at Quantico, Va. Anxious to provide true Virginia hospitality, the Marines took part of the VOQ , partitioned it off with a sort of "wall of Jericho," and posted a sign "Keep Out! Ladies Present." This time, the ladies had the situation well in hand. 

Nor are these women pilots immune from the flying episodes that keep ferrying from being humdrum. You'll hear about the time six WAFS flew some PTs from Great Falls to Billings, Mont. Twenty minutes out, the flight  leader noticed all five of the flyers below circling without apparent reason. There were no radios in the ships by which she could ask the score. She flew down, straightened them out. Within a few minutes planes started circling again.

Again the flight leader came down. Again they straightened their course. And again they circled. This routine kept kept up until a distraught flight leader located the first alternate airfield she could find on the course and signalled for the girls to land--a tricky business because of icy runways, high snowbanks and too little room. The leader landed, crossed her fingers, and prayed. The girls came down safely, rushed up to one another and all shouting at once.

"Look," said the girl who had been designated navigator of the flight, "I lost my maps, all of them, twenty minutes out. I kept circling to let you know something was wrong and to let someone else take the lead. And of course everytime I circled, all the other planes followed instructions and circled after me. Couldn't you tell I must be off course?"

But it developed she had been on course all the way, which is the reason the flight leader couldn't imagine what was wrong. With nothing but a watch and a compass, the girl had done quite a job of navigating. 

There are no days off in the ferrying business. The girls would not take them if there were. They would much rather stay on base than take a chance of missing a flying assignment. Like men, they would rather fly than eat. 

Although many of the original group of WAFS are young in years, all of them were seasoned pilots long before they took these jobs. Original requirements called for 500 hours of flying time, but the average for each of the girls in the first group of 25 members was 1,162 hours. 

Mrs. Love has spent the last thirteen years flying. Before the war she was the first woman to ferry planes to the Canadian border, where they were towed across the line in compliance with the Neutrality Act. With her husband--now Colonel Robert Love, deputy chief of staff for the Air Transport Command--she initiated many flying clubs in colleges. A year before the organization of the WAFS, Mrs. Love worked with the ATC. She mapped ferry flights and learned command procedures and routes.

The first pilot to qualify for the WAFS was Mrs. Betty Gillies of Syosset, Long Island. She had 1,400 flying hours when she joined the organization, holds almost every kind of rating, was for two years president of the "99," an international club of women flyers formed by Amelia Earhart. At present she is squadron leader of WAFS in the 2nd Ferrying Group, Wilmington, Del.

Almost without exception, the girls composing the original WAF squadron were professional flyers before the war. Some were instructors; several ran airports. Mrs. Lenore McElroy, executive officer of the Romulus (Mich.) group, had 2,500 flying hours and eight years as an instructor when she came into the WAFS. Evelyn Sharp, with 2,950 hours, taught flying in California. Nancy Batson came to the WAFS direct from Embry-Riddle Flying School in Miami where she was an instructor. Mrs. Esther Nelson operated a flying school in Ontario, Calif. Dorothy Fulton, who had flown 2,500 hours, ran her own airport in New Jersey.

Bound together by mutual interest in flying and in releasing male flyers for combat, these girls, all of them under 35, have put homes and families behind them until the war is won. Many are married and several have children. Almost all have relatives or sweethearts in the Air Forces who, they would like to think, are as proud of the job the girls are doing as the WAFS are of their fighting brothers. [[star]]

[[caption]] Nancy Harkness Love, head of the WAFS. [[/caption]]
[[image - photograph]]

12  Air Force, September, 1943

Transcription Notes:
[[image]] of a woman named Nancy Harkness Love leaning on the propeller of an airplane.