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The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) (also Women’s Army Service Pilots or Women’s Auxiliary Service Pilots) was a civilian women pilots’ organization, whose members were United States federal civil service employees. Members of WASP became trained pilots who tested aircraft, ferried aircraft and trained other pilots.
More than 25,000 women applied for the WASP, but only 1,830 were accepted into the program with 1,074 earning their wings after four months of training who then became the first women to fly American military aircraft.
WASP recruits were required to complete the same primary, basic, and advanced training courses as male Army Air Corps pilots and many of them went on to specialized flight training. They flew almost every type of aircraft flown by the USAAF during World War II including B-29s and also the Bell P-59 twin jet.
The WASP arrangement with the US Army Air Forces ended on December 20, 1944. They flew over 60 million miles; transported every type of military aircraft; towed targets for live anti-aircraft gun practice; simulated strafing missions and transported cargo. Thirty-eight WASP members lost their lives and one disappeared while on a ferry mission.
