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accepted for training, and in many ways supported a position against militarization of WASP, although it made no specific recommendation in this respect.

The Army Air Forces, in the absence of WASP militarization and in view of this specific recommendation of the Ramspeck Committee, terminated all further acceptance of WASP trainees, which automatically brought the training program to an end in December 1944. This termination of the training program would have meant the end of the whole WASP program in due course, for an organization that has no way to offset attrition through deaths, resignations, and other severances, becomes a shrinking organization. Such a termination would have resulted in time even if the situation with respect to the war, male flying training program, and available pilot material had not changed so rapidly as to make the women pilot program no longer needed.

The failure of militarization may not have shortened the life of the women pilot program, for the situation with respect to available pilots rapidly changed soon thereafter, but it left the WASP on deactivation without any rights or veterans benefits; it left them without reserve status that might otherwise have been possible, and even desirable from some angles; it left next of kin of those who died in the service without any insurance, and even without the right to display the gold star.

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6-1262, AF