By Margaret DiBenedetto
The aircraft was headed on a bearing directly into the tallest skyscraper in New York City. The year was not 2001, but 1944. The building was not the North Tower, but the Empire State Building. The plane was not a commercial jetliner, but a P-47 Thunderbolt, flown by WASP Martha Wagenseil Davis.
Five foot two with eyes of blue, Martha Davis was tired of not being taken seriously. A careful and deliberate pilot, she ferried planes from factories to air bases across the US. Attractive and diminutive, she’d learned to advocate for herself, but how much good will arguing do when someone has already made up his mind?
It was an easy route – Pittsburgh to Newark. Piece of cake. You could almost fly it in your sleep. But then the plane drifts a bit and nothing on the ground looks familiar. No worries; Martha switches on the radio beam to get back on track. (Radio beam: a pre-set radio frequency that straight-lines a pilot from Point A to Point B. Then dial in to Point C, and so on, till you reach the destination.)
Martha, a bit north of the beam, re-adjusts. She briefly spies the Hudson River below before clouds obscure the ground. She dials in the Newark frequency, drops enough altitude to clear the cloud cover, and gasps. Immediately in front of her is the Empire State Building! Close enough to see surprised office workers, she jams the stick and peels to the right. Just barely misses the building.
The radio beam is not steady; it wavers and fluctuates. Martha has no option but to stay beneath the cloud cover all the way to Newark. She lands the Thunderbolt and marches straight to the administration building to report the danger so that other pilots are prevented from following the beam.
The Commanding Officer apprises this petit female pilot: probably inexperienced, he thinks. Over-reacting. He arches his eyebrow and dismisses her. Martha is infuriated. She cannot stand to be considered a beauty without brains.
Less than two weeks later, an Army pilot encounters bad weather en route to Newark. The radio beam is wandering, so he drops below the scud to continue visually to the airbase, where he reports the erratic beam. The Newark CO swears that ferry pilots are inept and are just looking for excuses to cover inadequate aviation skills.
Several months go by. The WASP have disbanded. Lt. Col Bill Smith and two crew members of a Mitchell bomber are headed southward along the east coast. Weather is heavy – they’re shrouded in gray clouds and rely solely on the radio beam to guide them to their destination. At 9:40am on July 28th, 1945, the massive B-25 slams into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building. Smith, his crewmen, and 11 office workers are killed.
Byrd Granger, friend and sister WASP of Ruth Franckling and Martha Wagenseil Davis, wrote:
“No one has an answer for how such a thing could happen… Except a military P-47 pilot, a former WASP, and one Operations Officer who did not listen.”
In time, the CO contacted Martha. He apologized and told her that he himself had later on experienced the fluctuating beam. If only he had listened…
Information provided by personal communications with Martha Wagenseil Davis and Ruth Franckling Reynolds, and the wonderful and comprehensive account of the WASP, On Final Approach, by Byrd Howell Granger, Falconer Publishing Company, 1991.
Feature Photo: Four WASP pose with a P-47 Thunderbolt. From the National WASP WWII Museum’s Collection.
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