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XVIII

MILITARIZATION OF WASP

An act of Congress was necessary to place the WASP on military status as a part of the Army Air Forces. The program was started on a civilian basis in the belief that it should be tested first as to its potentialities before taking decision as to desirability of militarization. It was known that the women ferry pilots in England were employed by British Overseas Airways and were put under term contract, which carried $10,000 insurance benefits at no cost to the pilot and which not only assured service after transition training, but also contained stipulation dealing with controls and off-duty discipline. Such term contracts were not found possible here. The training program could be and was set up along military lines, even though the personnel was not militarized.

With comparatively few women pilots on operational until the fore part of 1943, the need for early militarization was not urgent, and in the beginning the writer recommended that the question of militarization be deferred until enough experience had been obtained to determine the usefulness of the women pilots to the AAF. But, with graduates of Sweetwater being assigned in large number to operating stations, it became increasingly evident that the best results from the women pilot program could not be obtained unless the WASP could be governed, directed, and treated as a part of the Air Force personnel. They were flying the same as AAF flying officers on domestic assignments but were not subject to the same rules. They were living at AAF bases, dealing with Air Force equipment, eating in officers mess rooms, and associating with flying personnel, and yet were governed by an entirely different set of laws and regulations. They did not have any progressive schedule of advancement

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6-1262,AF