Spitfire Pilots WWII-Extraordinary Women by Emma Gee

Author:Emma Gee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, love, historical, spitfire, women pilots, london blitz, war heroes
Publisher: Emma Gee

Chapter 19

Recruits from the USA

The ATA attracted pilots from nearly thirty different countries around the world, such as Canada, USA, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Austria, Poland, and Chile to name a few. Some referred to the ATA as the ‘Flying Legion of the Air’ because of the number of pilots who joined the organization from so many countries from around the world.

Female pilots flocked to Britain to fly military aircraft. Only men flew military aircraft in most countries. However, these brave women wanted to use their skills as pilots to help win the war against Germany. Likewise, due to the shortage of trained RAF pilots in Britain, many American men who were qualified pilots sailed to Britain to join the ATA to ferry operational aircraft to the RAF squadrons. In 1939, the USA had not yet entered the war, so ferrying aircraft for the ATA was their way of contributing to the war effort.

In 1942, Jackie Cochran of the United States recruited twenty-five women pilots that had more than three hundred and fifty hours of flying time in their logbooks, to ferry aircraft for the ATA in England. This was the largest foreign contingent of women pilots from one country.

Jackie Cochran was a record setting American Aviator. She was a natural at flying and held many speed records in the USA, sometimes referred to as the “Speed Queen”. She was also part of an organization called “Wings for Britain”, which raised money in American to supply airplanes to aid England in the war against Germany.

Cochran presented her idea to General Hap Arnold of the United States Army Air Force suggesting that qualified female pilots should ferry military aircraft for the USAAF. General Arnold turned down her proposal, but she took his recommendation to join the ATA in Britain along with some American qualified female pilots. She would learn how the ATA trained their pilots as well as the administrative organization. Jackie Cochran was determined to prove to the Government of the United States that if American female pilots were capable of flying operational military aircraft in Britain, they could perform the same duties in the United States. Cochran was a very persistent person, she was not used to taking ‘no’ for an answer. She believed it was simply a matter of time until the US Government implemented a comparable organization to the ATA in Britain. The First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Roosevelt supported the idea of women pilots ferrying military aircraft in the USA. It was Jackie Cochran’s plan to be in command of an all women ferrying group in the USA, similar to the British ATA.

Jackie Cochran was the first woman to fly an American bomber, a Lockheed Lodestar, across the Atlantic to Britain, thanks to her influential husband, Floyd Bostwick Odlum. He was able to arrange it because he was a major contributor to Roosevelt’s Presidential campaign. He used his political connection to persuade the Ministry of Aircraft Production to allow Jackie Cochran to fly the bomber across the Atlantic to England.

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