The Few: Women Who Flew the P-38

By Larry W. Bledsoe

Only a few women got to fly Lockheed’s P-38 Lightning in World War II. They were a small group of Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) assigned to Ferry Command of the Air Transport Command. They were experienced pilots before becoming ferry pilots, and it was their love of flying and spirit of adventure, plus being at the right place at the right time that made it possible for them to fly America’s best military planes in WWII.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543906134

Book preview

The Few: Women Who Flew the P-38

by Larry W Bledsoe

Copyright © 2016 by Larry W. Bledsoe

Copyright in U.S.A.

All photos are from Iris Cummings Critchell’s private collection unless otherwise indicated.

Published by: BAC Publishers

564 E. Princeton

Ontario, CA 91764

Printed in the United States of America

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Disclaimer:

The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. All recollections are those of the author and others without any guarantee on the part of the author or the publisher, who disclaim any liability incurred by the use of specific details herein.

Print ISBN: 978-1-54390-612-7

eBook ISBN: 978-1-54390-613-4

First printing 2017

This book is dedicated to two very special ladies:

Iris Cummings Critchell – a long time dear friend and an invaluable resource. She is one of The FEW whose help made this book possible.

Jane - my helpmate, partner and loving wife, whose support and encouragement makes each day, and this book even better.

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

WWII Opened a Door

Col. Tunner - Man with a Problem

Nancy Love and the Originals

More Women Pilots Needed

Women Assigned to Ferry Group Commands

Qualification Ratings

Was the P-38 Unique?

Ferrying the P-38

1944, What a Year!

Epilogue

Appendices

List of Abbreviations

Foreword

When I was assigned to up-grade transition training in the P-38 Lightning in May of 1944, I was both pleased and alerted. I was the fourth of The Few (26) women ferry pilots in the Air Transport Command recommended for this challenging opportunity.

When the P-38 went into factory production and was being delivered by the pursuit qualified pilots of the Ferry Command at Long Beach Army Air Base, I had been following the accounts about this unique engineering design achievement by Kelly Johnson and his Skunk Works at Lockheed. But, I had not assumed I would get to fly it.

The Transition Training department at Long Beach provided Operations Flight Manuals for study, a written exam, and a good walk-around, and a cockpit check-out in this unique design, high performance, supercharged, twin-engine, single-pilot fighter. While we recognized the challenges, we took great pleasure in flying many P-38 transcontinental deliveries to modification centers and Newark for overseas deliveries.

Many years later, I joined with Mary Lou Neale, one of the next women pilots to check out in and ferry P-38’s, to assemble an exhibit about The Few, the adventuresome women Ferry Command pilots who flew the P-38. This historical collection for the P-38 National Museum at March Field brought back many memories.

As Mary Lou and I assembled the pictures, artifacts, and stories of the 26 women who ferried the P-38, we enjoyed recalling some of the unique flight adventures we had shared back in 1944.

With much appreciation to Larry Bledsoe for assembling and writing this special bit of aviation history about these Few women and this unique fighter plane.

Iris Cummings Critchell

Introduction

Why So Few?

When the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) were disbanded on December 20, 1944, 1074 women had graduated from the pilot training program. Before the WASP program began, the Ferry Command started with 28 WAFS that are now known as the Originals. The WAFS were all experienced pilots with a minimum 500 hours flying time. At its peak, there were 303 WASP serving in the Ferry Command of which only 26 flew Lockheed’s famous fighter, the P-38 Lightning.

Many years ago, the P-38 Association created a museum at March ARB, Riverside, California. Two women, former WASP Iris Cummings (Critchell) and Mary Lou Colbert (Neale), created a display for the museum honoring the women who flew the P-38 in WWII.

At the time, Iris (Critchell) and Mary Lou (Neale) searched records they had access to and identified twenty-four women who checked out in the P-38 and ferried them. In the process of writing this book and subsequent search by Critchell, two names were added.

It was more than twenty years ago that Jane and this author first met Iris Cummings (Critchell). She and four other WASP signed Young & Invincible, a print depicting a P-38 that we had just published to honor the WASP. When Iris put the display together for the museum, we were glad to help in any way we could.

From the time we first met these charming ladies, questions lingered in my mind. Why so few of the thousand WASP got to fly the Lockheed Lightning? Who were these women? What was so special about them? Who were the WAFS, and what did they have to do with the WASP? Why did only those women in the Ferry Command fly the P-38?

By the time they were disbanded, the women in the Ferry Command delivered 77 different type aircraft, and made 12,652 safe deliveries. Why didn’t the women start ferrying the P-38 until March 1944? What was different about flying the P-38 than other pursuit aircraft?

These questions needed answers. This book answers these and other questions about The Few: Women who flew the P-38.

Lockheed’s famous fighter has always been a special fascination for this author since the fifth grade. My teacher, Mr. Miller had a stack of photos of WWII aircraft for us to browse through. But it was the photo of a P-38 that captured my attention and kept me returning to daydream about someday flying that awesome warbird – a desire never satisfied, but the dream still lives on.

*****

While researching for this book this author found in Sarah Byrn Rickman’s book Nancy Love and the WASP Ferry Pilots of World War II, that Nancy Love and her husband bought a P-38 after the war. At the time, they lived in Chester County, Pennsylvania.

Chester County is where New Garden Airport is located, the airport where I got my private pilot’s license in 1976. It was also the home of the Colonial Flying Corps Museum, which had a P-38. It was my first encounter with a real Lightning. Could that be the same plane Nancy Love owned and flew after the war? A personal question that needed an answer.

The many questions about these women needing answers was the driving force for this author to tell the story of The Few: Women who flew the P-38.

*****

All women who served as WASP during WWII deserve recognition and accolades for their service, and rightly so. Authors such as Sarah Byrn Rickman, Kathrin Kay Gott (one of The Few), and others have written books about them. Each WASP has their own unique story to tell, some of their stories have been documented for posterity. Others have passed on with their story written only in their heart and mind. This book focuses on the twenty-six women who flew the P-38 for the Air Transport Command (ATC) and the unique role they played in the WASP story.

*****

A word about certain protocol followed in this book.

This story takes place from June 1942 to December 1944. Most of these women were single at the time and were known by their maiden names. Now they are known by their married names. To avoid confusion, this book uses their names while they were WASP and shows their current married name in brackets, if different.

For example, Iris