Student led (Keri Kittleson) interview with author and historian: Sarah Rickman |
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Interviewer: Can you give me some background about being a writer and historian on the topic women in aviation and how you became interested in the topic?
Mrs. Rickman: I’m a retired journalist whose dream, since I was 5 years old, was to write books. I Read about Amelia Earhart in 9th grade. I was fascinated by her --- still am. My desire to learn to fly came from that experience. She inspired my interest in aviation, but I had no opportunity to pursue it until the early 1990s.
-Editor of local newspaper.
-IWASM (International Women's Air & Space Museum) member. Through it met some of the pioneer women flyers – Nancy Tier, Faye Gillis Wells, B Steadman, Betty Gillies, Edna Gardner Whyte, and Bobbi Trout (my first WASP whose story blew me away). She took me to the WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) 50th reunion in 1992. That was the beginning.
Interviewer: How many historical books about women in aviation have you researched and written?
Mrs. Rickman: I have 5 WASP books published: 1 history, 2 biographies and 2 novels.
I have 2 more books ready for publication. 1, a biography, will be out this fall. The other is probably a year away from publication. It is the story of the WASP ferry pilots, the women who flew for the Ferrying Division, Air Transport Command.
Interviewer: Is your subject matter mostly on WASP’s and Nancy Harkness Love?
Mrs. Rickman: Yes. My first 4 non-fiction books concentrate on the original WAFS (Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron) My seventh book concentrates on all the women who flew for Nancy Love in the Ferry Command — and that includes the women who were recruited by Jackie Cochran, were in the earliest classes trained in Texas, and went on to fly for Nancy. Iris Critchell is one of them— one of the leaders as well as one of the top pilots.
I have interviewed nearly 70 WASP and know the story of the WASP as a whole — or what I call the Cochran half of the story. I am the editor of the WASP newsletter, I work for the WASP Archives, and I am good friends with several of the women who entered training way too late to be in the Ferry Command. But my books are about the WAFS and the WASP ferry pilots. The reason is, I firmly believe that the work the women ferry pilots did is the MOST important job done by the WASP in WWII. There were 303 women who were ferry pilots. Of those roughly 130 became pursuit ferry pilots and they were the ones delivering the fighters – or pursuits – to the docks in 1944 to be shipped to the war zone in Europe where they were desperately needed to win the war against the Germans.
Interviewer: Can you tell me more about Nancy and her leadership skills and the importance of her being a role model female aviator?
Mrs. Rickman: Nancy was not interested in command per se. She wanted to fly. She wanted to use her skills as a pilot — and she WAS a skilled pilot— to help win the war. Before the US got into the war, she suggested approximately 50 women flyers who she thought capable of ferrying the smallest of the Army planes: liaisons and primary trainers. This would free male pilots for combat-related duties. General Henry H. Arnold turned down the proposal. When Col. William H. Tunner, head of the Ferrying Division, was desperate for ferry pilots in spring/summer 1942, he turned to Nancy to find those women pilots for him. The result was the 28 original WAFS — September 1942. At the same time, Cochran sold Arnold on the flight training school for women, and it received its first class in November 1942. BUT— and this is important—the purpose of the flight training school initially was to train women pilots for the FERRYING DIVISION. Each of these programs was half of the whole—which was to become the women pilots of the Ferrying Division.
The WAFS were already beginning to ferry small planes for the Army and the women of the Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD) were being trained to join them. The WFTD and WAFS were NOT merged in August 1943, as is commonly thought. They were already 2 halves of a whole — complementary of each other. But when Cochran began to send women graduates to jobs OTHER than ferrying, everything changed. She was named Director of Women Pilots in July 1943, and she began to change things as she pleased, and General Arnold went along with it. This caused huge headaches for Tunner and Love, but Cochran had Arnold’s backing, so they had to make the best of it —until things began to “fall apart” so to speak.
Interviewer: Can you tell me about the relationship between Cochran and Love? And contrast their leadership skills?
Mrs. Rickman: Nancy led by example. Tunner trusted her and gave her permission to fly anything she could prove she could handle. What that means is, he gave her the nod to work with the transition officers at any given base to “transition” — learn to fly — any airplane she wanted to fly. Once she had been checked out and had flown an aircraft, she had proved to the men that a woman could fly it and she asked that her women ferry pilots be allowed to transition in the same aircraft. She was the first woman pilot to fly many of the aircraft.
Nancy also delegated. When the 28 WAFS were split into four groups that were the seed groups for new squadrons of women ferry pilots, she appointed four of her WAFS to lead those squadrons. Tunner wanted Nancy, herself, in charge overall — the head of all the squadrons. As the women graduated from flight training in Texas, they were assigned to one of the four squadrons and each began to grow. Nancy had complete faith in those four women to perform the job of squadron commander. In the long run, two of them failed her and she replaced them. The replacements performed well and earned her trust. But Nancy always delegated the command of the squadron to her squadron leaders and did not interfere unless problems arose and she or Tunner felt she needed to step in.
In other words, her squadron leaders and their “lieutenants” or assistants were autonomous, left to run their own squadron. Iris was one of Barbara Erickson’s assistants at Long Beach.
Nancy was not power hungry. She expected her women to perform at their best and she gave them the credit for doing their jobs. She preferred to stay out of the limelight.
Cochran was in it for the personal glory, power and recognition. Granted, because of her, 1,074 young women graduated from Army flight training and had the opportunity to fly aircraft for their country in wartime. But hers was a self-centered motive; because she made up her mind she was going to be the leader. Preferably end up a colonel in the Army Air Forces. She needed numbers to achieve what she wanted, a Women’s Air Corps within the AAF. The minute the first of the women she recruited were on their way to fly for Nancy Love and the Ferrying Division — May 1, 1943— she wrote to General Hap Arnold (Commanding General of the AAF) and told him now that several women were flying for the Army that there should be a woman in charge of all of them and she wanted to be that woman. She made a case for herself and he bought it.
Nancy Love remained the leader of the women of the Ferrying Division because her boss, (now) General Tunner put her there and intended to keep her there. He didn’t like Cochran. He did not trust her.
The name WASP was created to take in BOTH the original WAFS and the women from the flight training school that were now flying for Nancy Love; also the women in training in Texas, AND the women Cochran was sending to job other than ferrying. The first was to learn to tow gunnery targets and Camp Davis NC.
With Cochran, it was a power move and she got most of what she wanted. But Nancy, because of Tunner, was always in charge of the women ferry pilots once they were assigned to her.
Interviewer: Can you tell me some of the greatest struggles women aviators had to overcome? What struggles to you think remain today, if any?
Mrs. Rickman: The early women aviators —and the women today — STILL have to overcome the male ego. Women have ALWAYS had to be better to get an equal shot at anything with men. True then. True now, though women pilots now are accepted much more readily to get a chance to prove themselves.
The difference now is enough women have flown, every aircraft, and they’ve proved their worth. There are STILL relatively few women flying — in any field, military, corporate, commercial, general recreational flying — compared to the men. I think fewer women are interested in flying and have bigger obstacles to overcome if they are interested. Case in point: a woman with young children –in most cases — is not going to have the time or the money to learn to fly. The cost of flying and the time that MUST be put into it are deterrents for anyone, but they are more likely to deter a young woman with other demands on her time than a young man.
The difference is there are fewer barriers for a woman to hurdle now than there were 75 years ago when WWII was just beginning and women WANTED to do their part — it was truly a patriotic time. The WASP made it then and more women can and will make it today.
Saying it is “easier” for women to make it flying today is a mis-statement. There is far much more in favor of a woman flying now than there used to be because more women have done it and done it well and many of the prejudices have been pushed aside. But those prejudices are still lurking in the background. They have NOT gone away. This is life. This is what it is to be a woman in our society. We always have to be better.
Interviewer: Which aviator did you find the most inspiring, how did they inspire you?
Mrs. Rickman: Amelia fascinated me and got me interested. But it was Amelia’s persona, her drive, being an early advocate for feminism that made her unique. She apparently was an average pilot. Louise Thaden, to me, is the best of the early women pilots. Today, I know many of the women pilots. I know several women who fly aerobatics in air shows and they are phenomenal pilots. Col. Jill Long is one you will be hearing from I think. Nicole Malachowski was the first woman Thunderbird pilot – F-16s!!!!!! You can’t get any better than that.
Interviewer: How were the women aviators WAFS and WASP’s integrated and was this a good thing?
Mrs. Rickman: Many early WFTD graduates could have qualified for the WAFS but circumstances prohibited them from doing so. Iris is one. She was under contract teaching young men who were going to be our fighter and bomber pilots and she had to wait until the contract was up before she could join.
These experienced women pilots were sent to one of the four women’s squadrons and began doing the same job the WAFS were doing. But there were only a limited number of women pilots who had 300 hours, let alone 500 like the original WAFS. The Civilian Pilot Training Program, which took women from late 1939 through June 1941, trained many of the women who became WASP. But by the later classes, women were qualifying with only 35 hours and they were not going to be able to get the number of hours needed to go to pursuit school — 500.
It was a matter of time —accumulated flying time — ability, drive (desire), and when the women was admitted to a class. Time simply ran out for many of them.
Yes, they were integrated and it worked. Women from the first six classes were given the chance to be ferry pilots. If they could not make the grade, they were reassigned elsewhere — but they were still WASP.
Yes it was a good thing. Women got the chance to fly many different jobs in the Army and they proved to do it well.
Interviewer: What characteristics made a good WASP, Air WAC, and WAFS during WWII?
Mrs. Rickman:
Determination — how badly did she want to do the job.
Ability and skills – was she suited for the job.
Good sense – always a necessity for success.
Interviewer: How were the African-American women treated differently from the other women if any in WASP’s?
Mrs. Rickman: No African American women were WASP. A small number applied, but Jackie Cochran turned them down because —given the racial prejudices in the US at that time — things like housing the Black women would have been a problem. And, honestly, the women would not have been safe flying into a Southern airfield --- though the North was nearly as bad. Ferry pilots had to spend nights in hotels enroute to deliver aircraft. Black woman would not have been allowed in most hotels in the South and many up North. The problems were just too great. Unfortunate, but true. It was a different world.
This is from 2 pages in In Jackie Cochran's first autobiography that I promised to send to you to add to the interview when we talked on the phone. The book is The Stars at Noon, on pages 127-128 is the reference to Negro women pilots. I am copying from those 2 pages here:
“The so-called Negro question was laid on my doorstep in a very direct way in the women pilot's training program. Several Negro girls applied for training but never more than one at a time out of the thousands of applicants. I interviewed these particular applicants in proper order without prejudice or preference, hardly knowing what I could do at that stage of my program if any one of them had passed the preliminaries. Fortunately for the formative stages of the work none met all the specifications. Finally one, a New Jersey school teacher who was a pilot and a fine physical specimen, made application for acceptance as a student at Sweetwater. I asked her to join me for breakfast on a Sunday morning in my New York apartment and made a special trip to New York for the purpose. I told her the manifold troubles I was having getting the program started and ended by stating that I had no prejudice whatever with respect to the color or race of my candidates but that the complication she had brought up for decision might, for one reason or another, prove the straw that would break the camel’s back. This fine young Negro girl recognized the force and honesty of my arguments, stated that first of all the women pilot's program should be stabilized and strengthened, and she withdrew her application. She also saw to it I believe, that I was left alone thereafter so far as this particular issue was concerned. I appreciated her understanding and respected her as a person”.
Interviewer: The theme for this year in NHD is leadership and legacy. Which female aviator do you think was the best leader and the worst leader, and why (pre-1945)? What do you think stood out most as their legacy?
Mrs. Rickman: Personally, I think Cochran was the worst leader. If she couldn’t get her way, she would tank the whole idea. Her legacy is very shaky. She was NOT a friend to other women pilots.
Nancy Love was a good leader and therefore she gets my vote. However, a woman pilot named Phoebe Omlie made Eleanor Roosevelt’s 11 Most Influential Women List in the mid 1930s.
Phoebe was the first woman to work for the Board of Air Commerce that became the CAA and is now the FAA. She knew how to deal with the men and acted as the advocate for women in aviation in Washington for many years. There is a book about her.
Betty Gillies, too, had a respected voice in aviation in the 1930s. She fought women pilots loosing their licenses taken away from them when they were pregnant. The problem was primarily with commercial pilots -- women who flew professionally. If they couldn’t fly when pregnant – get in the required hours to stay current — because of time limits, their license would lapse during the 9 months they couldn’t fly.
Interviewer: Which women in government do you think had the most impact in helping women in aviation, If Eleanor Roosevelt? Why?
Mrs. Rickman: Eleanor, absolutely! She was phenomenal — a true advocate for women. But Phoebe Omlie should get her due.
Interviewer: Thank you so much for this interview. You are very knowledgeable and helpful. It was a pleasure talking with you. Also, thank you for making the interview with Iris Critchell possible.
Mrs. Rickman: You are very welcome.