Women Airforce Service Pilots
Sweetwater, Nolan County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Jacqueline Cochran, one to the most famous women pilots of the Twentieth Century, persistently lobbied U.S. Army Airforce General Henry "Hap" Arnold to establish a flight training program for women during World War II. Hard-pressed for pilots by mid-summer of 1942, General Arnold requested that Cochran return from England and put her women airforce pilots (WASP) plan into action. A WASP flight school, opened at Houston's Municipal Airport in late 1942, outgrew its facilities and was relocated to Avenger Field in Sweetwater. The school operated here from February 20, 1943 to December 7, 1944, during which time it became the first and only all-women military flying school in the world. The program successfully trained women to fly every kind of overseas duty. Of the 25,000 women who applied for WASP flight training, only 1,830 were accepted to the program. Of this number 1,074 went on to gain their silver wings and fly over 60 million miles on operational duty; 38 of them lost their lives serving their country. Considered civilian employees during the war, WASP pilots finally gained military benefits after special legislation passed in 1977. (1993)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
It honors the women who proved they could fly every military aircraft the nation built, and whose long fight for recognition reshaped women's place in the armed forces.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When the United States entered the Second World War, the demand for pilots outran the supply of men to fly. Every trained aviator was needed, and the military faced a hard arithmetic: aircraft had to be moved, tested, and towed as targets, and there were not enough hands to do it.
Into that gap stepped a possibility that peacetime America had scarcely entertained — that women could fly the nation's warplanes. It was a radical idea in the 1940s, when a woman in a cockpit was a novelty and the notion of women in uniform doing a pilot's work met deep resistance.
The war changed what was thinkable. On the home front, women were already streaming into factories and offices to do jobs long reserved for men. In the skies over Texas, that same transformation would take a form few had imagined: a flying school with women in every cockpit.
People & events
The idea had a relentless champion in Jacqueline Cochran, one of the most famous women pilots of the twentieth century, who lobbied Army Air Forces General Henry "Hap" Arnold to create a flight training program for women. For a time her persistence met resistance — until the pilot shortage made the case for her.
By the middle of the summer of 1942, hard-pressed for fliers, General Arnold called Cochran back from England and told her to put her plan into action. A flight school opened at Houston's municipal airport late that year, quickly outgrew it, and moved to Avenger Field in Sweetwater.
There, from February 20, 1943 to December 7, 1944, it became the first and only all-women military flying school in the world. The numbers tell the scale of both the ambition and the winnowing: of the 25,000 women who applied, only 1,830 were accepted, and 1,074 went on to earn their silver wings. Together they flew more than 60 million miles on operational duty — and 38 of them lost their lives in service to their country.
Its place in the American story
The Women Airforce Service Pilots proved a point that the country had been slow to concede: that women could master every kind of military aircraft the nation built, and fly the demanding domestic missions that kept the war machine moving. They ferried planes, towed targets, and put aircraft through their paces so that men could be freed for the front.
Yet their status carried a bitter catch. Though they did military work and some gave their lives, they were classed as civilian employees during the war — denied the recognition, and the benefits, that uniformed service brought. When the program ended, they went home without the standing they had earned.
That injustice took decades to right. Not until 1977 did special legislation finally grant these pilots military recognition. Their long fight for that acknowledgment is itself part of the American story — a reminder that the door women pushed open in wartime had to be pushed again, for years, before the nation admitted what they had done.
If you visit
Start with the sky. The flat, wide country around the field is what made it ideal for training — open horizons, long sightlines, room to learn the hard discipline of flight. Stand on that ground and imagine it filled with the sound of engines and young women taking off, hour after hour.
A museum devoted to these pilots sits at the field, and their story rewards the time you give it: the applications by the tens of thousands, the few who made it through, the miles flown, and the thirty-eight who did not come home. Let those numbers settle before you move on.
It fits naturally into a road trip across West Texas, an easy stop along the corridor that carries travelers east and west. Pause here to remember that this unassuming airfield was, for a stretch of the war, the only place on earth where a nation trusted women to fly its warplanes — and to think about how long it took to say thank you.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Jacqueline Cochran
- · Henry "Hap" Arnold
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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.
W.A.S.P. (Women's Airforce Service Pilots) Training Base: Avenger Field
Sweetwater, TX
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.
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
Sweetwater, TX
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.