It’s been more than 60 years since the Women Air Force Service Pilots or WASP took the skies by storm as the first women in U.S. history trained to fly American military aircraft, overcoming inequality and changing the face of aviation forever. On July 1, these aviation pioneers were recognized by President Barack Obama, who presented the Congressional Gold Medal as long-overdue recognition of the historical “Fly Girls.”

Here at JBB, a 21st-century “Fly Girl,” Maj. Gina Sabric, an F-16 fighter pilot, couldn’t be more pleased with the recognition.

“I think it is amazing that they were presented [with the Congressional Gold Medal],” said Sabric, currently deployed here as the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing flight safety officer from Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. “It is definitely well-deserved and probably a little overdue, but it is amazing that they are finally being recognized for their service to our country.

“They are definitely pioneers in aviation and an inspiration to those of us that fly now,” she continued. “We would not be here if it wasn’t for the work that they did before us. They paved the way and opened up doors for the rest of us.”

The WASP was established during World War II with the primary mission of flying noncombat military missions in the United States, thus freeing their male counterparts for combat missions overseas. They were the first women ever to fly American military aircraft, and they flew almost every type of aircraft operated by the Army Air Force during World War II — logging more than 60 million miles.

Overall, more than 1,000 women joined the WASP and 38 of them were killed during duty. Following World War II, these women were released from duty and returned home. During their time in the WASP, they held civilian status and were not considered members of the military. Their contributions went largely unrecognized and the women weren’t afforded veteran status until 1977.

Today, female fighter pilots continue adding to the proud WASP legacy — engaged around the world and writing aviation history of their own. Although they did not have to face the same type of discrimination, even in the early 90s when Congress authorized women could be fighter pilots and when Sabric joined the Air Force, the rift between the female and male fighter pilot was still evident.

“When I was a lieutenant, there weren’t a lot of females ahead of us,” said Sabric. “I was told a few times that I didn’t belong and it was a ‘boy’s club’ and girls were not welcome, but you would just shrug it off and go on doing your job. You don’t see that anymore; we are all equal. Gender is no longer an issue thanks to these women.

“Women in aviation has definitely been a stepping-stone progression, one that the WASP started,” said Sabric. “Without them, it would have been a longer, tougher road. They set the stage for the rest of us to be able to continue what they started.”

The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest and most distinguished award Congress can award a civilian. Since the American Revolution, Congress has commissioned gold medals as its highest expression of national appreciation for distinguished achievements and contributions. In 2000 and 2006, Congress awarded the Gold Medal to the Navajo Code Talkers and the Tuskegee Airmen, respectively.

“As a female pilot, the women of the WASP are our heroes,” said Sabric, from Tobyhanna, Pa. “They are who we look up to. They are the pioneers. Looking back on what these women have accomplished, it’s great to see them recognized. We are forever grateful.”

DVIDS
Story by Staff Sgt. Dilia Ayala

On my safari yesterday, I had the pleasant surprise of meeting a World War II vet. My first thoughts were, unfairly, “They don’t allow her kind in the Army.”

She was there at D-Day, in combat. And here she is, over sixty years later, still looking good and serving in her own way. My dad, a vet of the same war, would have been both astonished and pleased to have met her.

This is the first thing I saw. Needless to say, it wasn’t a marking I expected to see. And it wasn’t the wackiest ship in the Army, but a working ship, with an honorable record.

Historic Naval Ships Association

Built to serve during WW II, USAT LT-5 moved military cargo under the Army Transportation Corps. She served in both the Atlantic and Pacific. On February 3, 1944, she sailed for Great Britain to assist in the preparations for Operation Overlord. LT-5 arrived off the Normandy coast on June 7 as part of Operation Mulberry. On June 8th while moored to a sunken LST, LT-5 was subjected to air attacks. Her log book for June 9 records that at 20:30 hours, “planes overhead. Everyone shooting at them. Starboard gunner got an F.W.” (German Luftwaffe fighter, the Focke Wulf.)

While many of the Army’s remaining tugs were decommissioned, sold or scrapped, LT-5 was assigned to the Army Corps of Engineers out of Buffalo serving from 1946 until 1989 as a Great Lakes harbor tug. She is the only known essentially unmodified example of the LT-type left in the US. Her heroics during the Normandy invasion led to the awarding of National Historic Landmark status in 1991.

LT-5 is berthed on the West Pier in the Oswego Harbor where she is made available for public viewing through the H. Lee White Museum. The Museum is open seasonally from May through September.

History of the Motor Transport Corps

A major port was required to land all the equipment needed to win the battle for Normandy and the liberation of France.

At the Roosevelt-Churchill conference in Quebec in August 1943, it was decided that an artificial harbor would be built and towed across from England to France.

In the fall of 1943, General Eisenhower’s planners realized the need for the rapid insertion of combat supplies and soldiers to sustain the fighting in France following the Normandy Invasion.

Ships were the only feasible means to transport the enormous quantities of supplies and equipment needed to defeat the Germans. After months of debate, the planners decided to construct two artificial harbors, code named “OPERATION MULBERRY.”

The construction of harbors was a massive undertaking and required the use of 158 tugboats. The Army Transportation Service (ATS) supplied 74 ST small tugs and 6 LT large tugs.

In preparation for the operation, the Army tugs sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to England. This was no easy task for the small ST-type tug, which only measures 86 feet long. The ATS was also instrumental in recruiting and organizing Merchant Marines and civilians to help man the Army tugboats, and sail the blockships, “Gooseberries,” to their scuttling position.

Two stained glass windows in the church in Sainte Mere Eglise, France, that is dedicated to the paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division who liberated the town, June 6, 1944, the first town in France to be liberated in World War II. Photo by Sgt. Fay Conroy

It was the middle of the night and the town of Sainte Mere Eglise was on fire. Occupied by the Germans since June 18, 1940, the town had survived several allied air raids.

A stray incendiary bomb from one of those raids had set a building near the town square on fire and it was spreading. The townspeople formed a chain to ferry water from the pump in the town square to the fire.

At about 1:30 a.m. that day — June 6, 1944 — the sky filled with hundreds of American paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division. Well lit by the flames beneath them, the paratroopers were easy targets for the startled German soldiers on the ground. One of those paratroopers was Pvt. John Steele of F Company, 3rd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment. Steele was already a combat veteran, with combat jumps into Italy and Sicily under his belt prior to D-Day.

During his landing, Steele’s parachute became caught in the steeple of the church in the middle of the town square. Shot through the foot, Steele hung there for two hours pretending to be dead before the Germans noticed him and cut him down.

“There were some paratroopers who landed nearby, but they didn’t help him because they thought he was dead. The Germans thought he was dead also, but they wanted whatever papers he had on him and that is when they discovered that he was alive,” said Patrick Bunel, a curator at the Airborne Museum here.

The German soldiers took him prisoner, but Steele was able to escape once tanks that had landed at Utah beach arrived. At approximately 4:30 a.m. Sainte Mere Eglise became the first town in France to be liberated. The fighting around the town continued until June 7, when the Germans were finally pushed back. Steele was awarded the Bronze Star for valor and the Purple Heart for his actions during the invasion.

An effigy of John Steele is displayed on the front of the church in Sainte Mere Eglise, France. Steele, among the Soldiers of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, who jumped into the town on D-Day, became famous after his chute caught in the tower of the church as he was landing. Photo by Sgt. Fay Conroy

Today a uniformed mannequin hangs from a parachute and rigging on the steeple, in honor of Steele (who actually landed in back of the church), his fateful jump and the liberation of the town below.

“When I first saw it [the mannequin], I didn’t know that it had actually happened,” said Pfc. Cory Peppeard of the 230th Military Police Company, 18th Military Police Brigade, one of hundreds of U.S. service members here to support this week’s 65th anniversary commemoration of D-Day. “It’s pretty impressive that he was able to survive that.”

Sainte Mere Eglise secured Steele a place in history as a Soldier in the division that helped to liberate the town, but also as the paratrooper who landed on the church. It was a scene that would be recreated 18 years later in the 1962 movie, “The Longest Day,” in which Steele was portrayed by the actor Red Buttons.

Steele regularly visited here before his death in 1969 from cancer. But he was not the only American the town remembers.

Their actions here have also been captured in two stained glass windows in the church. One was designed in 1945 by a local artist named Paul Renaud, who was 14 years old when the paratroopers landed and 16 years old when he drew the sketch for a window made by Gabriel Loire in the village of Chartres.

It depicts the Virgin Mary and child above a burning Sainte Mere Eglise with paratroopers and planes around her. An inscription below the figures reads: “This stained glass was completed with the participation of Paul Renaud and Sainte Mere, for the memory of those who, with their courage and sacrifice, liberated Sainte Mere Eglise and France.”

“My father worked with the parish to come up with an idea to replace the original window, which had been destroyed,” said Henri Jean Renaud, whose father was the mayor of Saint Mere Eglise at the time. Renaud was 10 years old when the paratroopers landed.

A second window depicts Saint Michael, the patron saint of paratroopers. The 82nd Airborne Division, the lion of Normandy, the Sainte Mere Eglise insignia and symbols for each of the combat jumps made by the 82nd Airborne Division during World War II are also represented in the window.

The idea for the window began at the 25th anniversary of the jump and was donated by the veterans of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, in 1972. The same artist that made the first window also made the second. The inscription at the bottom reads: “To the memory of those who through their sacrifice liberated Sainte Mere Eglise.”

While the mannequin and windows are but inanimate objects, Renaud said, they help keep the memory of very real heroes alive.

“We are really very devoted to the veterans,” said Renaud. “For me, when they landed, they were like heroes in a movie. Now they are brothers.”

DVIDS
Story by Sgt. Fay Conroy

Just as the men who fought World War Two are heading home to God in increasing numbers, so too are the women. The Air Force has done a nice thing by seeing that some of these courageous pioneers are recognized and get to fly at least one more time.

Maj. Jennifer King escorts Kay Gott, an original member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots from World War II, during the WASP’s final flight on a C-130 Hercules Sept. 25 at Irving, Texas. Major King is a C-17 Globemaster III pilot with the 315th Airlift Wing from Charleston Air Force Base, S.C. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Dawn Price)

Capt. Roseanne Teckman escorts an original member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots from World War II during the WASP’s final flight on a C-130 Hercules Sept. 25 at Irving, Texas. Captain Teckman is a flight nurse with the 315th Airlift Wing from Charleston Air Force Base, S.C. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Dawn Price)

Wake Island. We’re still looking, a half century later.

A memorial to prisoners of war is seen Jan. 12 on Wake Island. The “98 Rock” is a memorial for the 98 U.S. civilian contract POWs who were forced by their Japanese captors to rebuild the airstrip as slave labor, then blind-folded and killed by machine gun Oct. 5, 1943. An unidentified prisoner escaped, and chiseled “98 US PW 5-10-43″ on a large coral rock near their mass grave, on Wilkes Island at the edge of the lagoon. The prisoner was recaptured and beheaded by the Japanese admiral, who was later convicted and executed for war crimes. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Shane A. Cuomo)

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