The Film & More
Enhanced Transcript
David McCullough, Series Host: Hello. I'm David McCullough. Welcome to the
American Experience.
They numbered little more than a thousand. And until the emergency they had
been doing mostly what women were expected to do then. They were wives,
mothers, waitresses, secretaries, librarians, dancers, socialites, college
students.
And like their male counterparts they had come of age during the Great
Depression when jobs of almost any kind were few and very hard to get.
But it was the early 1940's , the height of the Second World War, and a call
went out such as had never been made before. They volunteered in an
experimental army air corps program to see if women could serve as pilots for
the military, to release male pilots for combat.
"Fly Girls," our film, is a subject as pertinent today as it was more than 50
years ago.
From the vantage point of the present day, the concerns and biases they had to
overcome seem absurd. But the worry that women might not be physically capable
of flying military aircraft was very real.
With the fiercely determined leadership of Jackie Cochran, one of the most
famous pilots of the time, the experiment succeeded beyond all expectations.
These pioneer aviators proved they could do the job, and then some.
This is a wonderful story, told largely by the women themselves.
One further point: In 1977, thirty-three years after they were disbanded, the
WASPS , the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II, finally achieved
full military recognition, when President Jimmy Carter signed a law making them
officially "veterans."
"Fly Girls," by producer Laurel Ladevich.
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