NEW RELEASES
“Silver Dollar Girls” is a combination of World War II history and a fictional family narrative, set in a rural valley during the 2020 COVID lockdown. Margaret DiBenedetto worked on the book over the past two years and recently published it through her kitchen-table publishing company Full Court Press. She’d been looking for a way to incorporate her mother’s aviation stories into her writing, which until now, has been comprised of nature essays and children’s stories.
“What a great read! Silver Dollar Girls is filled with grit, warmth, and the beauty of family. DiBenedetto’s sure hand brings her characters to life.”
— Sharon Israel, author of Voice Lesson
“Ebony Bear, A Nurturing Ursine Learns a Lesson” by Margaret DiBenedetto is the first in a series of wildlife books that are based on research gathered from various sources, including scientific papers and websites, and communication with scientists and experts. Ebony Bear is a book for children and parents as well, who might in one night have to read a book five or more times – the book includes little nuggets that maintain everyone’s interest and curiosity.
“Enchanting!” “I love how she tells the story, very engaging, and weaves into it lessons for the bears and for people too. The world needs this series . . .”
— Leslie T. Sharpe, author of Quarry Fox
Silver Dollar Girls by Margaret DiBenedetto, a novel of heritage and women of strength, will be in the Author’s Corner at the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) 2023 Homecoming and Fly-In event held on April 28 – 29 in Sweetwater, Texas
Learn more about this event at https://www.waspmuseum.org/homecoming/
In Honor of Women’s History Month
A Possibly Too-Succinct History of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP)
By Margaret DiBenedetto
The WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) program began with a feud and ended, some might say, in abandonment. The program’s two years of existence was an experiment that yielded overwhelmingly positive and beneficial results, contributed undeniably to the US victory in WWII, and was short-sightedly terminated.
Nancy Love and Jackie Cochran were in competition. Both were pilots, both had ambitions. The attack on Pearl Harbor spurred both to action.
In early 1942, Commanding General Hap Arnold recognized a severe shortage of Army Airforce pilots. Jackie Cochran attempted to convince the Army Air Corps that female pilots could fill the void, but was unsuccessful. In an effort to prove her point and to assist in the war effort, she took a group of female pilots to Britain to join the British Air Transport Auxiliary, a civilian service established in 1940.
Nancy Harkness Love had herself taken female pilots to fly in Canada. She’d married into the military and obtained Army support to establish the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS); she’d already recruited 25 female pilots into the program. When Cochran learned of Love’s impending flying program, she was livid. She did not level the accusation that nepotism played a role in Love’s formation of the WAFS, but was not about to allow someone else to commandeer what she felt was her own, initial idea.
Cochran approached General Arnold. She argued that the WAFS requirements of at least 500 hours of flying experience and a commercial rating were too restrictive to supply enough female pilots; Cochran’s group accepted any women over the age of 18 who had more than 200 hours of flight experience. Her reasoning convinced Hap Arnold, and Cochran’s and Love’s groups merged into the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots. Cochran was the Director of the WASP program and the training division, and Love was in charge of the ferrying division. The long-standing resentment between the two persisted throughout their careers; they never became friends.
In March of 1944, after experiencing the wholly positive effects of the WASP program, Hap Arnold appeared before the House Military Affairs Committee and requested military commission for the WASP. This would have reassigned the civilian program into the military and would have ensured its continued existence. Arnold was highly respected and made an impression wherever he went. Had he remained in Washington to press his case, he may well have succeeded in commissioning the WASP. However, duty required him to leave immediately for Europe. Without a strong advocate or public pressure to support this little-known program, the plan was doomed. Rising costs of the war were cited as the main reason for the defeat of the measure, but resistance from the nearly all-male Congress to females in the military had been loud and continuous and likely was the real cause of its defeat.
The WASP program was disbanded in December of 1944. No closing ceremony, thank you, or goodbyes for the 1,074 women who had flown for the program, nor for the 38 who gave their lives.
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“It isn’t just talent. You have to have something else. You have to have a kind of nerve.”
-Georgia O’Keeffe
Wildlife Stories 