Beyond the Horizon
Page 29
“You’re not taking me seriously, kiddo.”
“Oh, but I am.”
He reached out, pulling her into a hug.
“I let her go because I always loved you more,” he whispered into her hair.
She closed her eyes at the sound of the words she’d wanted to hear since they flew together, she and Harry.
“I never stopped loving you.” She rested her head on his shoulder.
“It’s time for me to fly back home, for a new start with you.”
Harry pulled her close, and it was as if they were doing some old slow dance, decades too late. Or maybe, just maybe, it was exactly the right time.
AFTERWORD
This story began with a personal family history, then spread to a fascination with the true stories behind the WASP, before finally evolving into this story, with Eva, Nina, Harry, Rita, Bea, Nancy, and Helena taking up the thread in their own ways. I have long been intrigued by airplanes and the air force. My parents were both members of the air force during the Second World War. My father flew for the Royal Air Force in Europe, dropping parachutists over occupied France. I remember him standing in our back garden at home, watching modern air force planes flying overhead for demonstrations in the eighties, and I could sense the World War II flying veteran in him, but he didn’t talk about his time in the war much at all, and I knew only a little more about my mother’s experiences. She joined the Women’s Australian Auxiliary Air Force in 1941 as a teenager fresh from school. She was stationed at a pilot’s training base in remote South Australia for six years (which is flat and hot like Texas), and she told me how formative this was for her in terms of the wonderful friendships she made and in the sense that these women all pulled together, living in tin sheds and running the base while male pilots came to train. Women in Australia were not allowed to fly during the war, and when the war was over, my mother had to forgo the place she’d earned at university because she got married, as so many women did.
I was intrigued and wanted to know and understand more about women in the air force now that she’s gone. I traveled all the way from Australia to Sweetwater, Texas, where I visited the WASP museum and Avenger Field, journeyed through the state by road, and spent time learning about the WASP from the wonderful then president and CEO of the WASP museum, Ann Hobing. Many of the anecdotes in this book are inspired by true stories from the real WASP but adapted by me into fiction—Bea hitting high-tension wires, Frances sitting on the roof and all the girls spending the night up there supporting her, Rita fainting after her vaccinations, the trials of the Link Trainer, and the girls sneaking out to have bathtub gin with the instructors while their bay mates put pillows in each other’s beds to stop them from getting caught. The conditions at Camp Davis and Avenger Field were all researched in depth, and there were similar crashes to those in the novel. Eva and Helena may have had to do a little more training out at Camp Davis before they were authorized to fly, but I allowed a little poetic license for the purpose of moving the story along. As for Eva’s military release, this is inspired by the true story of a WASP who provided her formal release document as evidence that the WASP were regarded as military, and this turned the corner in the fight for military recognition that the WASP carried out in 1977.
As well as traveling to Sweetwater, Texas, and reading WASP diaries and letters home, I went to California and stayed in the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel and discovered old Hollywood with the help of the lovely April Clemmer.
You may be interested in some of the books that I read as part of my research for this novel:
WASPs: Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II by Vera S. Williams
Seized by the Sun: The Life and Disappearance of World War II Pilot Gertrude Tompkins by James W. Ure
Nancy Love and the WASP Ferry Pilots of World War II by Sarah Byrn Rickman
Slacks and Calluses: Our Summer in a Bomber Factory by Constance Bowman Reid
Flying for Her Country: The American and Soviet Women Military Pilots of World War II by Amy Goodpaster Strebe
Helldiver Units of World War 2 by Barrett Tillman
Fly Girls: The Daring American Women Pilots Who Helped Win WWII by P. O’Connell Pearson
A WASP Among Eagles: A Woman Military Test Pilot in World War II by Ann B. Carl
To Live and Die a WASP: 38 Women Pilots Who Died in WWII by William M. Miller
Wings over Sweetwater: The History of Avenger Field, Texas by Major Bennet B. Monde
US Air Force in World War II by Thomas A. Siefring
United States Aircraft by Bill Gunston
The Story of Hollywood: An Illustrated History by Gregory Paul Williams
After a drawn-out fight, the WASP were given military recognition by President Carter in 1977. The WASP had been forgotten for thirty years. Finally, President Barack Obama awarded the WASP the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009 “in recognition of their pioneering military service and exemplary record, which forged revolutionary reform in the Armed Forces of the United States of America.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank my wonderful editor, Jodi Warshaw, for her highly valued guidance and expertise throughout the whole process of writing and editing this book. I am incredibly fortunate to work with Jodi. Thanks to the entire team at Lake Union Publishing, including Danielle Marshall for her support; my adored developmental editor, Tegan Tigani, who worked tirelessly on this story with me; my meticulous copyeditors, Laura Petrella and Erin Cusick; the careful proofreader, Valerie Paquin; cover designer Shasti O’Leary Soudant for her beautiful cover design that I adore; my author relations manager, Gabriella Dumpit, for always being there; and my project manager, Nicole Pomeroy, for overseeing the production of the book. Thank you to my amazing agent, Steven Salpeter, for his much-appreciated guidance and support; to Ann Hobing at the WASP museum, Sweetwater, Texas, for the wonderful conversations we had about the WASP; and to her staff for talking so generously with me. To Tracy Balsz for her help scouting for locations in Burbank, and to pilot Dorothy Shorne for her generous assistance with planning the flight scenes. My heartfelt thanks to the late pilot Tom Lawson, for reading the flight scenes and for helping me further refine them. I will never forget his kindness, and I will always remember him. To Margie Lawson, who inspires me to work hard at my craft. My dearest thanks to Geoff for his constant support. Thanks and love, always, to my children, Ben and Sophie.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2014 Alexandra Grimshaw
Ella Carey is the international bestselling author of The Things We Don’t Say, Secret Shores, From a Paris Balcony, The House by the Lake, and Paris Time Capsule. A Francophile who has long been fascinated by secret histories set in Europe’s entrancing past, Ella has degrees in music, nineteenth-century women’s fiction, and modern European history. She lives in Australia with her two children and two Italian greyhounds.