Little is known of the none- military group known as the WASP. During World War II, the demand for civilian jobs was on the rise, as most men were fighting overseas. Two pilots, Jacqueline Cochran and Nancy Harkness Love, saw the need to create more jobs within the United States, so they approached the Armed Forces and the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, with the idea of putting female pilots in the skies, in order to free male pilots for military combat.

On September 14, 1942, due to the efforts of the two pilots, Cochran and Love, General Henry Arnold, Commanding General of the Army Air Force, approved the establishment of a female Air Force, which was named the Army Air Force Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD). Jacqueline Cochran became director of the program.  August 5, 1943, the WAFS (Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron) and WFTD (Women’s Flying Training Detachment) were joined together to form The Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASP). Applications poured in and, of the 25,000 of the women who applied, only 1900 were accepted. Those womenspent four months flight training, and 1,074 of the women earned their wings, becoming the first women to fly American military aircrafts.  The women were required to have the same requirements in their training courses as male Army Air Corp pilots, although they were not trained for combat and received no gun training.  Once their training was complete, WASP graduates were stationed within the 120 air bases across the United States. Their duties included towing targets for the combat pilots of anti-aircraft artillery practices, stimulated strafing mission and transporting cargo; by 1944 WASP pilots flew every type of aircraft flown by the USAAF during World War II.

During the War, 38 WASP pilots lost their lives. However, due to their none military status, fallen WASP pilots did not receive traditional military honors. Flags were not placed on their coffins, and their bodies had to be sent home at the families’ cost.

 

Since the time they founded WASP, Love and Cochran had tried to make WASP a military entity. On September 30, 1943, the first militarization bill was introduced in the United States House of Representatives. And on June 21, 1944, the House bill to give WASP pilots military status was denied.  

 

After World War II, all WASP files were sealed and classified. Nothing was known of this civilian group until 35 year later, when in 1977, after much debate in Congress, WASP members were finally recognized as veterans of World War II.  In 1984, they were given the Victory Medal of Honor, and in 2010 at the United States Capital, 300 surviving WASP members were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi.

Decades after their service in World War II, the members of WASP were finally given the proper appreciation and recognition, which they so deserved for their service during the war. General Arnold stated, in a speech given on December 7, 1944 at the Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas:

"The WASP has completed its mission. Their job has been successful. But as is usual in war, the cost has been heavy. Thirty-eight WASP have died while helping their country move toward the moment of final victory. The Air Forces will long remember their service and their final sacrifice."

It was due to the efforts of these female pilots and their bravery that the American Air Force was supplied with ammunition and planes, which aided the United States in winning the War.

 

References:

TWU Librarues- Gateway to Women’s History. Women Air Force Service Pilots Digital Archive. Texas Woman’s University, 2014

 http://twudigital.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p214coll2 (accessed February 19, 2014).

 

NPR: Female WWII Pilots: The Original Fly Girls. Carpien, Cindy, March 10, 2010.

http://www.npr.org/2010/03/09/123773525/female-wwii-pilots-the-original-fly-girls(accessed February 19, 2014).

 

 PBS. American Experience. Fly Girls. WGBH Educational Foundation, 1999.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/flygirls/filmmore/description.html (accessed February 19, 2014).

 

 

Book Recommendation:

Carl, Ann B. A WASP Among Eagles: A Woman Military Test Pilot in World War II. Smithsonian Institution Press, June 22, 2010.

Games,  Ben , R. WASP WWII. Fideli. Publishing Inc, January 31, 2011.

Games,  Ben , R. WASP WWII. Fideli. Publishing Inc, January 31, 2011.

Stephanie von Hohenlohe was born on September 16, 1891 in Vienna, Austria to the daughter of a Jewish ancestor. Stephanie was noted for her beauty and charm even from a young age. She became a political figure in Hitler’s circle and was best known for her tile as the Nazi Princess during World War II. She was known as a socialite, spy, gold-digger and close confident to Adolf Hitler, which to some made her the most dangerous woman at that time. It is known that Hitler bestowed gifts upon her, including the Schloss Leopoldskron Palace.

Stephanie was known for the lovers she would take; in 1913, she began an affair with a married man  named Franz Salcator and she soon found herself pregnant with her first child. Although it was reported that the child belonged to Franz Salcator, she was able to convince another man of high statue,  Prince Friedrich Franz von Holenloche-Waldenburg-Schilingsfurst that the child was his and on May 2, 1914 Prince Friedrich Franz and Stephanie were married. Stephanie found herself in high society where she felt like she had always belonged.  Along with her marriage to Franz Schillingsfurst, she was bestowed with the title of Princess which she still used after the dissolve of her marriage in 1920. During that period she volunteered as a nurse of the First World War, but even in war she still upheld the lifestyle to which she was accustomed to. Her service as a nurse was a short lived occupation due to the lady maid and butler she would keep.

In 1927, while living in London, she began an affair with a journalist named Lord Rothemere, a Nazi sympathizer; he was the key person that introduced Princess Stephanie to Adolf Hitler in 1933. Soon after meeting Hitler, Stephanie used her contacts in London to pass correspondence and arrange meetings with high-ranking Nazi figures. One particular meeting Stephanie arranged with was Duke of Windsor and the Fuhrer. It was after this meeting that Princess Stephanie’s reputation as a spy increased.  After the dissolve of her relationship with Lord Rothermere, Princess Stephanie began another affair with Hitler’s top aid Fritz Wiedemann throughout the 1930s. Time Magazine reported that:

           "Titian haired, 40 year old Stephanie Juliana Princess Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfurst, confidante of the Führer and friend of half of Europe's great is scheduled to sail from England to the US this week. Since the fall of Austria, Princess Stephanie, once the toast of Vienna, has lent her charms to advancing the Nazi cause in circles where it would do the most good. As a reward the Nazi government permitted her to take a lease on the sumptuous Schloss Leopoldskron near Salzburg, taken over from Jewish Max Reinhardt after Anschluss. During the Czecho-Slovak crisis she did yeoman service for the Nazi campaign. When Mr. Chamberlain sent Lord Runciman to gather impressions of conditions in Czechoslovakia Princess Stephanie hurried to the Sudetenland castle of Prince Max Hohenlohe where the British mediator was entertained."

Towards the end of 1938, Hitler and Princess Stephanie’s relationship began to change; once Hitler found out about his aid Wiedemann and the Princess relationship. Some say it was due to Hitler’s knowledge that Stephanie was half Jewish; however, Hitler had known of her Jewish ancestry since 1934. So after their falling out Wiedemann left for the United States and Princess Stephanie would later follow him to San Francisco, traveling back and forth for London and the U.S, until the outbreak of World War II.  Roosevelt and the FBI did not like Stephanie and her occasions in the U.S. Roosevelt is quoted saying that Princess Stephanie’s activities made her “worse than 10,000 men.”  She was detained in 1941 by the U.S and sent to a detainment camp in Texas until she was paroled in 1945. After the end of the war she returned to Germany and the lifestyle, men and social life to which she was accustomed. Nothing for Princess Stephanie changed during or after the war; she lived until the age of 81.

 

 

 

Recommended Books:

Schad, Martha. Hitler’s spy Princess: The Extraordinary Life of Princes Stephanie von Hohenlohe. Sutton Publishing , 2004.  

Wilson, Jim. Nazi Princess: Hitler, Lord Rothermere and Princess Stpehanie von Hohenlohe.  The History Press, 2011.  

 

References:

Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum ; safe files- box 3 folder titles list Hohenlohe, Stefanie von Index October 28,1941. http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/psf/box3/folo31.html  (accessed February 13, 2014).

 

Girl Spy, Stephanie von Hohenlohe. February 4, 2011. http://girlspy.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/stephanie-von-hohenlohe/ (assessed February 13, 2014).

 

Stephanie von Hohenlohe, Spartacus Educational. Simkin, John, September 1197-October 2013. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Stephanie_von_Hohenlohe.htm (accessed February 13, 2014).