by Ella Carey
Eva tightened her grasp on her flight gloves in her lap.
Bea let out a groan next to her. “Oh great. Well, I’ll either be flying around in circles or hopping up in the sky and testin’, then going straight back down to the ground again. At least she’s told us.”
At lunch after Deedee’s talk, the girls filled their tin plates at the cafeteria in the familiar great long line that snaked around the mess hall. Rain pelted in sheets on the roof. Once they were at a table, their plates filled with corned beef and white sauce, Helena pulled her books out of her backpack. No matter that this was the last week before graduation, none of them were going to take any unnecessary chances.
“You’re doing well, girls.” Reg stood at the head of the room.
They all put down their forks.
“I’m impressed with your attitude, performance, and diligence. All of you are doing solidly. You’ve not had an easy run.” His eyes searched the room and lingered on their table.
Bob Sutton came up behind Reg, his sharp eyes flicking around.
“One of our most promising graduating classes,” Reg said, his tone mild but laced with something firm.
Bob sent Reg a quick, pointed look. “Is it? Really?”
“Indeed, Bob.” Reg kept his voice measured.
“Well then,” Bob said. “I guess it’s not over yet.”
Eva stared at her food, her appetite suddenly dulled.
A week later, the winter sun shone in a cerulean sky. Jacqueline Cochran stood on a raised platform in the freezing air. Henry H. Arnold, the chief of the air force, was by her side. She spoke for several minutes, and the girls stood and saluted them both, military style.
Eva had no idea how she had made it through; her final check was a heck of a nightmare—she’d messed up her landing, then taxied into the strip with her flaps down. She was certain she’d fail, but somehow, she’d passed, even though Bob Sutton had come through with his machete and washed out another two girls.
Now she felt a surge of pride when her name was called out, and she marched up to the platform to receive her very own pair of silver wings. Out of the corner of her eye, Eva saw her mom next to Nina’s ma. Nina’s ma clapped and clapped as if Eva had been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor itself.
When Nina went up, her mom let out a whoop.
“Home to LA for two weeks!” Nina’s face shone afterward at the dinner in the mess hall, which had been decorated with streamers for their class.
“You’d hardly know there was a war on with the spread of food you girls are getting out here.” Eva’s mom shook her head at all the food.
“We have to keep our military flying on full stomachs, Mrs. Scott,” Nina said.
“Will you end up together, girls, do you think?” Helena’s mother asked. The tall, elegant woman in her red outfit with a string of pearls around her slender neck ate delicately. Her class and beautiful manners had Eva intrigued.
“We can only hope that some of us will go to the same bases, Mother,” Helena said. “I admit, I don’t want to be separated from these girls.”
“It’s driving us all barkin’ crazy not knowing,” Nina said. “I’m half panicking with anxiety about being separated from Evie. I don’t know what I’d do without my other half.”
“We do know that most of us will be test-flying airplanes that have been repaired,” Bea said.
Eva sensed her mom bristling at Bea’s words.
“The task sounds extremely dangerous and risky,” her mom said.
Eva bit her lip and willed her mom to keep her opinions quiet.
“Every time a plane goes in for repairs, Mrs. Scott, it has to be tested before it goes into military combat. The smallest flaw in a plane can be devastatingly serious if you’re flying at four hundred miles per hour in combat.” Bea looked at Eva’s mom with genuine concern in her brown eyes.
Eva’s mother sniffed. “Eva is trained as a mechanic. I’ve always said she would be better served going back to her job at Lockheed if all these planes need fixing for combat. She could do that there, if that is the need.”
Eva held back her gasp. Honestly? Even after she’d just graduated?
“Are you saying that as test pilots, you will be taking up planes that no military pilot in their right mind would be flying?” Her mom was on a roll. “Surely, they do not expect a group of young girls to test planes that the military won’t touch?”
“I am certain Jacqueline Cochran will ensure that our daughters are not put at any untoward risk.” Helena’s mother’s tone was calm and rational.
Eva wanted the ground to swallow her whole at her own mother’s lack of tact.
“The air force has to find out whether or not seemingly minor damage is reason to ground a plane,” Helena said.
“To put it simply, they don’t want to risk their highly skilled military pilots, because they are being used overseas taking abominable risks every day for our country. We girls might be taking up a risky role here, but the job has to be done, and trained pilots have to do it.” Bea was at her most matter of fact.
“Maintenance test flights are routine procedure. They have been since airplanes started flying in the sky.” Eva tried to smile at her mom.
“Yes, although . . .” Bea was frowning now. “The idea that the country’s girls are expendable, and that male pilots are too valuable to fly planes that might be unsafe, is a good point. Especially when we are all trained.”
“That was not my point at all,” Eva’s mom said. “My point was that you girls are not experienced enough to be sent up to test planes that men should and will be flying in combat. The country has gone insane sending our young girls up to do that.”
“Maybe it has, Ruth.” Nina’s ma had been unusually quiet. Perhaps it was because she’d spent three days in a train with Eva’s mom. “But given the choice between test-flying airplanes for the United States and fixing rivets on the factory floor, I know which my little girl would prefer to do. And I don’t see why she can’t fly any plane as well as a man. And, Ruth, didn’t we raise our girls to have strong judgment? They’re going to keep using that every day, no matter what their job.”
Helena looked at Nina’s mom, Jean, with new respect. “We are all, boys and girls, just doing whatever we can to further the effort for peace and for our country to win the war.”
Finally, Eva’s mom opened her mouth and closed it, and then to Eva’s astonishment, she tucked in to her food.
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE COMMITTEE: If you needed access to the records in order to understand the full nature of your accident, why did you not apply to see the records back in 1944?
EVA FORREST: I did not want to be seen as complaining by requesting the records, because the WASP were already under enough pressure in 1944. The publicity surrounding us became extremely unfavorable as the year wore on. Mrs. Cochran fought for WASP militarization, but public opinion; the Veterans Administration; the American Legion; and civilian pilots, who feared for their jobs, were all strong in their opinions against us. By June 1944, when the House of Representatives was to vote on WASP militarization, Drew Pearson for the Washington Times-Herald wrote insulting and patronizing articles about Jacqueline Cochran. He said that we were just glamour girls, costing the government too much money. It was reported in Time that the WASP program had been expensive and that men pilots could have been trained more quickly and cheaply than women. We were a small group and a unique organization. I did not want to draw any further disapproval toward us.
None of us wanted to make any waves, so we accepted the dangerous assignments, flew the old planes that men would not fly, and did not complain. By October 1944, the WASP were finally told they were going to be completely disbanded after Jacqueline Cochran wrote a long, last-ditch report, wanting the program to be militarized or scrapped. Because of the work of the WASP, the pilot shortage was not critical anymore, and Henry Arnold took up Jacqueline Cochran’s ultimatum. The WASP were told they were goin
g to be disbanded on December 20, 1944. The last class of WASP who trained were sent home without having flown one military plane. Jacqueline Cochran had fought for us and lost. If she could not win, how could a woman like me hope to get heard among all the hullabaloo?
Everything looked strange and different in the bedroom Eva had known all her life. It was as if the room had shrunk. Everything in it, from her student desk to her single bed to the busy pattern on her floral carpet, swirled in time with the throbbing tiredness in her head after the journey home to California that had taken her halfway across the United States.
And an envelope was propped on the pillow on her bed. Heart in her mouth, she went straight toward it, took it to her small desk under the window, and slit the envelope open. She scanned the letter twice. The winter sun beamed into the room, but Eva stood quite still.
Camp Davis, North Carolina. The assignment nobody wanted, on the base that all the girls dreaded. At the tough, bleak-sounding training ground for pilots to learn to use antiaircraft guns, Eva would be towing targets around in circles over the base while male trainees shot at her plane using live ammunition. So. She was one of Jacqueline Cochran’s “select few.” It was hard to know whether that was a compliment or not.
Eva moved around the room, bustling about to get her cardigan. She would have to keep stories of Camp Davis to herself when it came to her mom. She tried to push aside the rumors she’d heard that the base was surrounded by swamplands; huge tracts of unnavigable, thick marsh filled with quicksand; impenetrable waterways framed by thick forests; and lagoons. From what she’d heard, it was desolate, lonely, a landscape inhabited by strange marsh folk.
But what was worse, everyone said that for women at Camp Davis, unwanted attention of a more dubious kind from human pests was even more of a problem than the insects that swarmed up from the vast swamplands.
Eva walked out of her small bedroom, the envelope clutched in her hand. Her mother was resting in her room after the long journey home, having a nap before she had to cook dinner for the family.
Eva moved slowly down the narrow hallway. Once she was out in the blinding sunshine, the letter trailing behind her like a child’s kite, Eva ran down the street toward Nina’s house.
The small factory-issued houses with their faint smell of cabbages and wartime cooking floating out into the street seemed to fly by her as she ran past, trying to block out the pictures in her head of Camp Davis. She would have to keep her imagination in check.
The young vivid-green trees back here closed in on her after the vast brownness of the Texan plains. Everything seemed small and safe here, her house, her room, the streets.
Eva trudged up the short driveway to Nina’s house. The gate swung on its rusted hinges, squeaking in the breeze. Eva hurried around back. Nina’s mom came to the kitchen door, lugging a basket of washing on her hip. Eva ducked under the clothesline and leaned forward to kiss Jean on her cheek.
“Nina and Rita have just gone into her room, Evie. Surely they’ve missed you these past three minutes, honey!”
“Thank you.” Eva’s heart was half full of anticipation and half full of dread. Fact was, she had to prepare herself for the next jolt.
What if she’d been sent to North Carolina alone?
“Evie, that you?” Nina called from her room.
Eva’s shoes clacked against the same patterned linoleum that lined the hallway of Eva’s house. Nina appeared at her doorway, her cardigan wrapped tight around her small frame. Her eyes traveled down to the envelope in Eva’s hand.
Rita was spread out on Nina’s bed, facedown. She groaned a hello to Eva and lifted a hand in the air. “I’m beat, you girls!”
“Camp Davis,” Nina said, her eyes darting to Rita. “Please, tell me I’m not going out there without you.”
“You’re not.” Eva almost slumped with relief. “I was going to be strong if I was going alone, but thank goodness.” She pulled Nina into a hug.
“Well, that’s a good thing, now isn’t it, Evie? We’ll be together. That’s something to be thankful for. I’m sure, together, we’ll do just fine out there. Maybe the girls’ rumors were too harsh about the place, eh?”
Eva let out a sigh. “Let’s bank on that thought, Nina. We’ll do just fine, I’m sure. And Rita?” she asked.
Rita lifted her head. “B-25 school. I had my assignment posted here to Nina’s house. Flying the big bombers with the men at Mather Field, Sacramento. Apparently the school there is doing some experimenting with the bombers. I’ll miss you gals, but the job don’t bother me. I like having a lot of metal around me, and I suspect it’s because of my height and my experience with instrument flying that I got chosen to fly the big planes. I like a lot of gauges and dials in an aircraft.” Rita buried her head in the pillow again.
“She was told they’re only sending twenty WASP to B-25 school. So Rita’s also been chosen for a special assignment,” Nina said. The sounds of Rita’s soft groans of tiredness washed through the bedroom. “Apparently, they’re sending two squadrons of white men, one of black men, and one squadron of girls.”
“Well, that will be a gas, honey.” Eva looked down at Rita. The sounds of her breathing steadied. She’d gone and fallen fast asleep.
“And Helena and Bea?” Eva asked.
“Helena was on the phone the moment we walked in the door. She’s coming with us to Camp Davis. She nearly shrieked with relief to find out I was going too. And Bea’s got what she hoped for: ferry command in Long Beach, California. She’s in the best spot there is. So close to all the factories, she’ll have access to every sort of airplane.”
“Bea can fly anything if she puts her mind to it. I’m not surprised she was chosen to do that. I’ve heard of girls reading instruction manuals on their laps while they fly new planes. I can just imagine Bea doing that. Staying calm.”
Nina glanced at the sleeping Rita. “Bea will be grand. She’s just the girl to deal with that. Meanwhile, our challenges will be different. We’re going to be eating mosquitoes, but you know what Jacqueline Cochran says. Don’t say no to any job, and never complain, because if we do, military men will think it was only because we’re women.” Nina held up her chin, her blue eyes wide.
“Well, I’m not going to tell my mom about Camp Davis’s reputation,” Eva said. “I hope she doesn’t hear anything from other sources.”
Nina sighed. “Well, we’d best start getting ready for this party of Harry’s now. Let’s make the most of this vacation.”
“Hollywood!” Rita murmured, half-asleep. “I’ve dreamed of that place since I was a little girl. Wake me so I have enough time to doll up!”
“I say we try and make the most of it, Evie.” Nina held her eye.
“North Carolina, or Lucille’s ritzy party tonight?”
Nina didn’t miss a beat. “Both.”
Back in her own bedroom, after a heavenly shower in the family bathroom, Eva slipped into a butter-yellow dress with a velvet belt and a tight-fitted bodice. She twirled in front of the old chipped mirror in her bedroom, her body taut under the chiffon. Months of daily calisthenics and handling heavy airplanes had her in tip-top condition. She applied a little powder and rouge, pulling her hair half up.
From time to time, she wondered whether Harry might decide Lucille was not right for him after all, with her glamorous ways. Right now, she still wished he might be of a mind to think about falling in love with a girl who cared about the things he cared about, who could pull her weight and had her own convictions.
Nina and Rita appeared at her bedroom door just as Eva was slipping on her patent-leather dancing shoes.
“Wow-wee, you look swell, Evie!” Nina whistled. “Harry won’t be able to take his eyes off of you.”
Nina’s red dress clung equally well to her toned frame. Her blue eyes shone and were enhanced with a little mascara while her usually straight hair hung in loose waves that she’d conjured up.
Rita was just as stunning in pale pink, her blond
hair swept up on her head. Her face was still a little pale with grief, but it was a good thing to see her dressed up and ready to go out.
“Harry?” Rita asked. She closed Eva’s door behind her. And made a great show of lowering her voice. “Spill, honey. So he’s the one you got that letter from. The boy you had your eye on back home. You sure didn’t join in with any of the conversations about the instructors at Sweetwater, and you showed no interest in any of them local cowboys like some of ’em girls did.”
Eva picked up her handbag. “Nothing to talk about. Honest, Rita. He’s just a friend. More to the point, I’m his friend. End of story.”
Rita folded her arms. “Nope. Spill. Goodness knows I need somethin’ cheery to distract me, and a little happiness for one of my best girlfriends, why, what could be better than that?”
Nina sat down on the edge of Eva’s bed, perching there in her red dress instead of throwing herself back on the pillows like she usually did. “Harry,” she said, “is the local dish. Eva is the local beauty. You can go figure the rest.”
“I am not the local beauty.”
“You are,” Nina said. “No one has such thick, lustrous hair and big brown eyes as you. And Harry, he’s a green-eyed blond and a handsome flyboy! You’d be perfect for one another, except, our Harry’s gone soft for this Hollywood girl, you see, Rita. Silly Harry.”
“He was studying aeronautical engineering and working at Lockheed to fund himself through college,” Eva told Rita. “But he’s a fully trained bomber pilot. He’s between assignments right now.”
Rita whistled. “Brains and hardworking! He sounds worthy of our lovely Eva, then.”
“Precisely,” Nina said. “He is. But he just can’t see beyond the glamour of Hollywood right now. We’re stuck.”
Eva folded her arms. “It isn’t gonna happen.”
“Anything I can do?” Rita asked. “Distract the Hollywood princess? Convince Harry he’s an idiot for not noticing you?”