W.A.S.P. (Women's Airforce Service Pilots) Training Base: Avenger Field
Sweetwater, Nolan County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Site of World War II drama. Here girls, like male cadets, learned to fly United States Army Air Forces planes. WASPs had civil service status rather than military. Of the 25,000 applicants, 1,830 were accepted; 1,074 won wings and flew 60 million miles for the U.S. Army Air Forces, receiving high praise for their record. At the request of the Air Forces' Commanding General H.H. ("Hap") Arnold, Jacqueline Cochran became director of women pilots. On November 17, 1942, when the first 28 trainees entered the women's flying training detachment at Houston Municipal Airport, the program began. On February 21, 1943, it was relocated at Avenger Field, 3 miles west of Sweetwater. The last class of WASP's graduated on December 7, 1944. British Royal Air Force cadets trained at Avenger Field June 22-August 1, 1942. U.S. Army Air Forces April of 1943. Arrival of WASP trainees made Avenger the only military coeducational flying field in United States history. WASP's came from varied backgrounds. Many were wives, sisters, or sweethearts of servicemen, hoping to hasten war's end. Women staff advisors supervised the nonflying activities of WASP trainees, who lived under military discipline: In army barracks. Trainees flew in "zoot suits" (ill-fitting GI coveralls), and had tan slacks and shirts for dress wear. After the santiago blue uniform was officially adopted, it was worn by graduates. Originally, the seven months course included 180 hours of ground school, 115 hours of flight training. From light planes, WASPs advanced to fly every air corps craft in use at the time. WASPs ferried planes; towed targets; flew tracking, smoke-laying, searchlight, strafing, and simulated bombing missions; did radio control flying, tested aircraft, gave instrument instruction; performed many other duties. Thirty-seven WASPs gave their lives serving their country. Ethel A. Sheehy was WASP staff field executive; Nancy Harkness Love, WASP staff executive-ferrying division; Leoti Clark Deaton, WASP staff executive-training bases. WASP wings, with diamond lozenge, signify women's pioneering wartime flight achievements. (1972)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
At Avenger Field near Sweetwater, the Women's Airforce Service Pilots trained during World War II — the only coeducational military flying field in U.S. history. From 25,000 applicants, 1,830 were accepted and 1,074 earned their wings, flying 60 million miles for the Army Air Forces under director Jacqueline Cochran. Living under military discipline yet holding only civil-service status, WASPs ferried planes, towed gunnery targets, tested aircraft, and flew countless support missions; thirty-seven died in service.
Why it matters
The WASPs proved women could fly every aircraft the Army possessed, a pioneering wartime achievement that helped open military aviation to women in the generations that followed.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When the United States entered World War II, the demand for pilots was staggering and immediate. Every man who could fly a combat mission was needed overseas, which left a mountain of essential flying work at home — moving new aircraft from factories to bases, towing targets for gunnery practice, testing repaired planes — going undone. The country needed more pilots than its men alone could supply.
The answer was radical for its time: train women to fly the Army's aircraft. On the wide, dry plains of West Texas, Avenger Field near Sweetwater became the center of that experiment. The flat terrain and clear skies made it ideal for flight training, and the isolation suited a program that was, by the standards of 1943, genuinely unprecedented.
This was a moment when a woman flying a military airplane was still a startling idea to much of the public. The women who came to Sweetwater were volunteering into that novelty, stepping into cockpits the nation had always reserved for men, at a time when the war made the country willing to try almost anything that worked.
People & events
The program began late in 1942, when the first small class of women trainees reported to an airfield near Houston, and in early 1943 it moved to Avenger Field. At the request of the Army Air Forces' commanding general, H. H. "Hap" Arnold, the celebrated aviator Jacqueline Cochran became director of the women pilots, while the ferrying operation grew from the work championed by Nancy Harkness Love. A dedicated staff — including executives such as Ethel A. Sheehy, Leoti Clark Deaton, and Love herself — organized their flying and their daily lives.
The numbers tell the story of how selective and how serious it was. Of some 25,000 who applied, 1,830 were accepted and 1,074 earned their wings. They trained for months in ground school and the air, starting in light planes and working up until they could handle every type of aircraft the Army then flew. They lived under military discipline in barracks, drilled in ill-fitting coveralls they nicknamed "zoot suits," and later took pride in a trim blue uniform.
Once trained, they did nearly everything but combat: ferrying planes across the country, towing targets, flying tracking, searchlight, and simulated bombing missions, testing aircraft, and instructing on instruments. The presence of women trainees alongside earlier male cadets made Avenger, by the marker's account, the only coeducational military flying field in the nation's history — and thirty-seven of these fliers gave their lives in service.
Its place in the American story
The women who trained at Avenger Field proved a point that had been widely doubted: that women could fly every aircraft the Army possessed, and fly them well enough to free thousands of men for combat. Between them they logged tens of millions of miles for the Army Air Forces and earned high praise for their record — an achievement measured not in headlines but in the enormous volume of demanding, often dangerous flying they simply got done.
Their status was as remarkable as their skill, and not in a good way. They flew as civilians rather than as commissioned military members, which meant that despite living under military discipline and taking military risks, they lacked the recognition and benefits their male counterparts received. That gap would take decades to close, with formal recognition of their service coming only years after the war.
Their legacy reached far beyond 1944. By demonstrating that the barrier between women and military aviation was one of policy, not ability, the graduates of Avenger Field helped open a door that later generations of women in uniform would walk through. The distinctive wings they earned stand as an emblem of that pioneering wartime achievement.
If you visit
Avenger Field lies just west of Sweetwater, out on the open West Texas plains, and the setting itself explains a great deal: the huge sky and level land that made this a training field are still the first things you notice. It is a place that feels built for flight.
Come prepared to reckon with real sacrifice. The marker records that thirty-seven of these women died serving their country, and reading their achievement in that light — young volunteers mastering high-performance aircraft under wartime pressure — turns a roadside stop into something moving. Let the numbers on the marker sink in before you move on.
The site preserves the memory of the WASP program, so treat any chance to learn more about these fliers as the reason to stop. This is a natural anchor for a West Texas history road trip: read the marker slowly, imagine the trainees in their coveralls climbing into the cockpit here, and carry their story with you down the highway.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Jacqueline Cochran
- · Nancy Harkness Love
- · H.H. "Hap" Arnold
- · Leoti Clark Deaton
- · Ethel A. Sheehy
Related events
- · World War II
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Women Airforce Service Pilots
Sweetwater, TX
Pressed for pilots in World War II, the Army Air Forces embraced aviator Jacqueline Cochran's plan to train women fliers, and in 1943 the program settled at Avenger Field in Sweetwater—the first and only all-female military flying school in the world. Of 25,000 applicants, only 1,830 were accepted and 1,074 earned their silver wings, going on to ferry aircraft and fly non-combat missions for more than 60 million miles; thirty-eight died in service. Classed as civilians during the war, the WASP did not win military recognition until special legislation passed in 1977.
W.A.S.P. Training Base: Avenger Field
Sweetwater, TX
From February 1943 to December 1944, Avenger Field trained the Women's Airforce Service Pilots, the first women to fly American military aircraft, freeing male pilots for combat overseas. Under director Jacqueline Cochran and General 'Hap' Arnold's program, more than a thousand of the 25,000 applicants earned their silver wings and went on to fly some sixty million miles of noncombat missions; thirty-seven died in service. Though they flew as civilians, the WASPs were later made eligible for reserve commissions—and the field itself finished its service as a missile base.
Cornelia Clark Fort
Merkel, TX
Cornelia Fort, born into an affluent Nashville family in 1919, discovered flying at twenty-one and within a week had logged over 2,000 miles; by 1941 she was an instructor. She was aloft with a student over Hawaii when Japanese planes struck Pearl Harbor, landing safely under fire, and soon joined Nancy Harkness Love's Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron. On March 21, 1943, ferrying a BT-13 in formation toward Dallas, her plane was struck and went down in Mulberry Canyon — making her, records indicate, the first American woman pilot to die on active military duty.
Site of U. S. Army Air Corps Plane Crash
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At dawn on April 20, 1945, a C-47 transport carrying 25 Army Air Corps officers and enlisted men left Midland Army Air Field bound for Nashville, Tennessee. Sweetwater cab drivers spotted the plane afire in mid-air, and it disintegrated and crashed 0.6 miles east of this spot, scattering wreckage along a two-mile line and killing all aboard — men aged 20 to 37 from across the nation. Investigators concluded the aircraft, worn from 4,000 hours of glider-towing duty, had broken apart in a thunderstorm's severe turbulence while flying on a single engine.