By Margaret DiBenedetto
The Texan AT-6 was one of North American Aviation’s most successful training aircraft. Modified designs of the craft were used to train aerial combat pilots from World War II through the 1970’s. Equipped with a nose-mounted .30 caliber machine gun that fired through the propeller, the Basic Combat model, the BC-1, also had a second .30 caliber machine gun on a flexible mount in the rear cockpit.
In 1943, one-hundred eighty of the BC-1 were ordered by the US Army Air Forces. The planes were delivered to air bases by Women Airforce Service Pilots based in Palm Springs, California.
I only recently became aware of these photos of my mother and her best friend, Martha Wagenseil arriving with two of the trainers at the Army Air Forces Training Command radio school in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Note Mom’s sporty bomber jacket and parachute; ever-fashionable Martha slipped into her dress uniform before exiting her plane.
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