The WASPs and Ms. Pauline (nee Cutler) White
The Women’s AirForce Service Pilots (WASPs) was a WW2 civil service organization, consisting of approximately 1,037 women from across the nation who volunteered to pilot open-cockpit planes for various military duties. These duties included teaching men to fly, transporting new aircraft from the factories, hauling supplies and personnel, and towing targets behind their plane for live-fire target
practice from the ground.
In taking up the war effort, they were expected to finance themselves in previous pilot training and air time requirements, and pay for their own transport to and from camp. And, they had to receive and graduate in ground school training in code, map reading and engine maintenance, and pass rigorous military training and course exercises.
But since the WASPs were civil service, the women were not recognized as military or even paramilitary — so they received no recognition or medals from the military they served until 35 years later in1979, when it was declared by the Secretary of the Air Force, that the service of the Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASPs) and the predecessor organizations of the group — the 25 pilots of the Women’s Air Force Ferrying Squadron (WAF), which services encompassed from the period of Sept. 10, 1942 to Dec. 20, 1944, shall be considered active military service in the Armed Forces of the United States for purposes of all laws administered by the Veterans Administration…and have gained full active military benefits. Too little to collect, too late for the majority. Because Congressional legislation would have been required and because it takes a long time to get the legislation of military status, the WASPs were denied it all the years they waited for it, even though Polly had inferred in an interview, that they were told they would be militarized upon entry into the WASP program. When they were young, active and needed it, they didn’t have it. After these many years they get some militarized monetary benefits and recognition but long after most of the women have passed from their lifetime. Among other lacks in recognition were, that if they died in their duties, they were not allowed a flag across their casket and by extension therefore, were not allowed to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Thirty-eight women died in service. Their families had to pay for the funeral elsewhere.
Nell Bright, a WASP aviator, watched one of her comrades crash one day. “We were all at the field to support her with our fingers crossed as she took the plane up – only to watch it dive tragically towards the ground. It was very traumatic.” When these women died, Bright recalls the government being officious, which is to say, not kind. “One of the girls’ families got a telegram saying that ‘Your daughter was killed today. Where do you want us to send the body? ” So all the military supplied for the dead was a pine box and the trip home. The last of the three obstacles was overcome by Senate and House votes on Tuesday, May 11 2016 — after action by a galvanized public. This allows the surviving female aviators to have their ashes placed at Arlington – even if they had no other military connection (i.e., marriage) allowing them space. With about 100 women survivors left, most do not chose to be buried there now, but they want the right to do so. But this “right” did not happen without their reaction against the usual insidiousness of the male military complex for not taking care of women in civil service serving exactly the male military. The prohibition of an Arlington burial for the women aviators was instigated by the Secretary of the Army, John McHugh, who overturned a 2002 Army ruling that had de facto allowed inurement honors at the cemetery for the women.
Consequently, the Arlington officials noted in a January 5 post on their website that, “While certainly worthy of recognition, the WASP’s service does not, in itself, reach the level of active duty service required for inurement there,” adding, “the eligibility criteria are more stringent due to space limitations.” This has been a decades-long campaign by the aviators, the public lobbyists, and website techies like Change.org,, who provided stats and successful petitions. Congressional Representative Martha McSally, of Arizona, the first woman to fly in combat for the U.S., sponsored the legislation. It awaits an expected signature by President Obama. Even later recognized for their bravery in service, the women were awarded Congressional Medals by President Obama. Service as a WASP aviator has everything to do with former Old Lawyers Hill Road resident, Pauline “Polly” S. Cutler White. Born in 1919, she is a vigorous 97 at the time of this writing and retired to Charlestown after the death of her husband, John. Polly died at age 100.
Her story:
Before marriage to Dr. John White, Polly Cutler was a secretary in Washington, D.C.
According to previous news interviews, she said,
“My brothers and sisters were in the service. In fact, everyone I knew was touched
in some way by the war and I guess I didn’t want to look back and feel I had done
nothing.”
Becoming a pilot was something she was sure she could do
“…because my mother was the second woman in the country to fly in a seaplane.”
Her cousin, Jack Vilas, had a pilots license (No.6) and was one of the earliest to order
a seaplane from the Wright Brothers.
“It was delivered to Alexandria Bay on the St. Lawrence River, I guess about
- The pontoons were too heavy and Jack couldn’t get it off the river. So he had to
lighten the pontoons and when it was ready, and on a dare, Mother took off and flew
with him. I’d heard that story all my life while I was growing up and it was sort of an
inspiration to me when I thought of joining the WASP.”
The other reason was that Polly’s two brothers were in the Army, as well as her “to-
be” husband. Then her friends were involved in the war effort too.
“Why should I not be involved?”
In Washington, Polly was told by Jacqueline Cochran (one of two foremost aviators
in the country), that she was required to have 35 hours of previous flying time in
order to apply for the course. The first requirements of application was a strict
physical, ration cards for gasoline and an official letter from Cochrane stating Polly’s
intention to join. Polly also needed a loan to pay for flying lessons. All this was to be
undertaken with no guarantee of acceptance into the WASP program.
In August of 1943, at the Laconia Airport in New Hampshire, she decided to become
a WASP after three minutes of air time, and got her required 35 hours air time in a
month, got a loan, and went on her way to Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas in
December of 1943.
Stating in more detail here than at the beginning of this article, she had a six-month
training course in flying instruction and ground school training in code, weather,
instrument training, engine maintenance, navigation and map reading at Avenger
Field. Also there was a rigorous physical education program.
“You had to be in darn good shape to be able to maintain the schedule they set up
for us, from daybreak until lights out at 10 p.m. And, we had 30 lb. chutes to carry.
Because I was short, I had numerous cushions to carry as well — to sit on and to reach
the pedals. I just made the height requirements of 5 ft., 4 in. Some [women] actually
had to undertake stretching exercises to help them qualify.”
The women pilots had the same courses men did, except for gunnery practice and
celestial navigation. At Avenger Field, the women were taught by civilian instructors.
“We wore white shirts and khaki trousers and shoes that had to tie. When we
started doing acrobatics, the instructors flipped the plane over and did barrel rolls and
other stunts. A couple [of the women] didn’t have their safety belts fastened properly
and they fell out of the planes.
We always had to wear chutes, so fortunately they came down okay, but they
[without tied shoes] lost their shoes on the way down. Well, in the Panhandle of Texas,
it’s all mesquite, briars and sand and walking back to the base left badly scarred feet.
So orders came down that everyone had to wear shoes that tied.”
After 20 hours of schooling, an Air Force pilot gave a flight check.
“If you didn’t pass, you had a second chance,” Polly remembers. “But that was
all. If you didn’t make it [then], you washed out and were sent home at your own
expense, of course.”
According to Polly’s account, originally there were 25,000 girls who applied for the
course, and 1830 were accepted, and only 1,074 who went through the course
graduated. According to another account, Polly was one of the 75 women out of 150
who began the program to pass the test.
At Avenger Field, she flew a PT 19, a single-engine primary trainer with an open
cockpit. She later flew an AT6, an advanced training monoplane; a BT 13, a basic
trainer used for instrument training; and the AT 6 again for cross-country flight
instruction.
With more than 210 hour of instruction, Polly earned a commercial pilot’s license,
and instrument rating, and a Link trainer certificate.
After graduation and receiving her wings, she served at a training base for Air Force
Pilots at Foster Field in Victoria, Texas. Among other duties, such as towing targets
for aerial gunnery practice and ferrying VIP’s around, she instructed men in
instrument flying.
“One guy I instructed, got very upset with me. I guess he still had some hang-up
about flying with a girl…he turned off the gas. Fortunately I could hear him
laughing…and guessed he was up to something. I found out what was wrong almost
immediately. I was so mad I was red hot, so I pink-slipped him – that meant that I
reported he had done an unsatisfactory job. I don’t think he gave anyone else any
trouble.”
Another good duty was ferrying planes. But Polly remembers flying planes that were
going into storage. “That meant the government didn’t want to spend much time or
money on them and many of them were in pretty bad shape.”
The WASP program came to an abrupt and unexpected end in 1944, five days before
Christmas. There was no severance pay nor military benefits.
Forgetting for a moment that the military still has a gender problem:
“The Air Force didn’t have the high number of casualties they had anticipated,”
Polly explained. “The boys coming home were given desk jobs and they were very
annoyed at the girls still flying. So, we were told that the need for us was not as crucial
and we were let go. As a WASP, I did not feel that I was infringing on a man’s rights.
We were needed. Trained personnel were required to fill that need.”
What do men do to pay equally hard-working women? Give them gifts of fashion, of
course. For the departing pilots, tailors from Nieman-Marcus in Texas were sent to
Avenger Field to custom-fit summer and winter uniforms. And Walt Disney created
an emblem – a female gremlin with flight goggles, all in bright blue, red and yellow.
“With the emblem, they became known as the Order of Fifinella.”
“You know,
” says Polly, “it’s really irritating when you read about the new
frontiers available for women today. So many young girls think they ware the only
females who have gotten out of the kitchen. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that
makes a former WASP angrier than to have the Air Force intimate that its current pilot
program for females is the first.
At the time of this bio, Polly quipped, “We did it all 72 years ago!”
We urge readers of this article to Google “WWII Women’s Air Force Service Pilots” on
YouTube.com to see the various documentary films for a better background of the organization.
For even further information search for books on the subject at AbeBooks.com and
Amazon.com/books:
Turner, Betty “Out of the Blue and Into History” Aviatrix Publ. 2001, page 400.
Keil, Sally “Those Wonderful Women in The Flying Machines.”
Credits to and contributions for this article:
- Gateway to Women’s History at Texas Women’s University
(twudigital.admhost.com) - csmonitor.com
- Fulton, Norman, reporter for The Times/1979
- White, Polly interview
- Mary Bahr, curator / archivist / the Elkridge Heritage Society
The Times May 23, 1979
“We wore white shirts and khaki trousers and shoes that had to tie,” say Pauline ‘Polly’ Sewall Cutler White.
“When we started doing aerobatics, the instructors flipped the plane over and did barrel rolls and other stunts. A couple of the girls didn’t have their safety belts fastened properly and they fell out of the planes – there were open cockpits in those days. We always had to wear chutes, so fortunately they came down okay, but they lost their shoes on the way down.
Well, in the Panhandle of Texas, it’s all mesquite, briars and sand, and walking back to the base left those girls with badly scarred feet. So orders came down that everyone had to wear shoes that tied.”
Polly White enjoys talking about her experiences in the Women’s Air Force Service Pilots (WASP) organization during WW2. She is pleased too, that after more than 35 years, her contribution and those of more than 1,000 young women have been recognized by the government.
“The Secretary of the Air Force declared March 8, that “the service of the Women’s Air Force Service Pilots (WASP) and the predecessor organizations of the group, whose service encompassed the period of September 10, 1942 to December 20, 1944, shall be considered active military service in the Armed Forces of the United States for purposes of all laws administered by the Veterans’ Administration.”
The Order of the Fifinella has gained full active military benefits. The long wait for recognition came in part because the women pilots were employed by the Civil Service instead of the military.
Originally known as the Women’s Air Force Ferrying Squadron (WAFS), the first group of 25 female pilodts were the forerunners of WASP, the brainstorm of Gen. H.H. ‘Hap’ Arnold. Gen. Arnold, commander of the Army Air Forces during WW2, and Jacqueline Cochran and Nancy Harkness Love (two outstanding pilots), considered having women pilots fly stateside missions to allow more male pilots to serve overseas. The WASPs waived full military status since Congressional legislation, always time-consuming, would have been required. And as a result, the women flyers received no veteran’s benefits, military hospitalization insurance or burial benefits.
(At the time of this article) Polly White lives in Elkridge on Old Lawyers Hill Road. But [back then] when she heard about the WASPs over lunch with friends from flying magazines, she was Polly (Cutler), a “Washington DC secretary.”
“I was interested immediately,” she says.”My brothers were in the service. In fact, everyone I new was touched in some way by the war, and I guess I didn’t want to look back and feel I had done nothing.”
She went to see Cochran the next day and was told to get the required 35 hours of flying time and come back to sign up for the course. First though, there was some required red tape: an official letter from Cochran stating her intention to join; a strict physical; and ration cards for gasoline. White also needed a loan to pay for the flying lessons.
All this was undertaken with no guarantee that she would be accepted. But after only three minutes of air time:
“Remember the signs you used to see at small airfields? Three minutes for $1?” She said she decided she would become a WASP.
“I was sure I could do it,” she says, “because my mother was the second woman in this country to fly in a seaplane.”
Her cousin, Jack Vilas, who had a pilot license no. 6 and was one of the “Early Birds” ordered a seaplane from the Wright Brothers.
“It was delivered to Alexandria Bay on the St. Lawrence River, I guess about 1910. The pontoons were too heavy and Jack couldn’t get it off the water,” White says. “So he had to lighten the pontoons and when it was ready, on a dare, Mother took off and flew with him. I’d heard that story all my life while I was growing up and it was sort of an inspiration to me when I thought of joining the WASP.”
In a month’s time, White had her required 35 hours and was on her way to Avenger Field in Sweetwater, TX, in the panhandle region. The 6-month course included flying instruction and ground school training in code, weather, engine maintenance, navigation and map reading. The women pilots had the same courses as the men did, except for gunnery practice and celestial navigation.
The WASP’s also had a stringent physical education program.
“You had to be in darn good shape to be able to maintain the schedule they set up for us, from daybreak until lights out at 10 pm.,” she says. “And we had 30-lb chutes to carry. Not only that, but because I was so short, I had numerous cushions to carry as well. These I sat on and also put behind me so I could reach the pedals. I just made the height requirement of 5 feet, 4 inches. Some of the girls actually took stretching exercises to help them qualify.”
At Avenger Field, the women were taught by civilian instructors. After 20 hours of schooling, an Air Force pilot gave a check flight.
“If you didn’t pass, you had a second chance, but that was all. If you didn’t make it, you washed out and were sent home. At your own expense, of course.”
She was one of the 75 women out of 150 who began the program to pass the test.
At Avenger Field, she flew a PT 19, a single-engine primary trainer with an open cockpit. She later flew an AT6, an advanced training monoplane, a BT13, a basic trainer used for instrument training, and the AT 6 again for cross-country flight instruction. With more than 210 hours of instruction, White earned a commercial pilot’s license, an instrument rating, and a Link trainer certificate.
After graduation, White served at a training base for Air Force pilots at Victoria, TX. Women pilots there helped instruct men in instrument flying and towed targets for gunnery practice for fighter pilots and ferried planes from one state side base to another.
She has a story about instrument flying:
“One guy I had got very upset with me,” she says. “I guess he still had some hangup about flying with a girl. He turned off the gas. Fortunately, I could hear him laughing back there and guessed he was up to something. I found out what was wrong almost immediately. I was so mad I was red hot, so I ‘pink-slipped’ him. That meant he had done an unsatisfactory job and I don’t think he gave anyone else any trouble,” she recalls.
Although ferrying was considered good duty, White remembers flying planes that were going into storage.
“That meant the government didn’t want to spend either much time or money on them and many of the ships were in pretty bad shape.”
The WASP program came to an unexpected end five days before Christmas in 1944. White says,
“The Air Force didn’t have that high number of casualties they had anticipated, and for this we were all grateful. The boys coming home were being given desk jobs and they were more than a little annoyed at the girls still flying. The need for us was not so crucial as it had been and so we were let go.”
When they returned home, the women pilots did receive a gift from the government – a set of summer and winter uniforms. Nieman Marcus, a department store based in Dallas, TX, sent tailors to Avenger Field to custom-fit the uniforms. [And] Walt Disney designed the emblem for the departing pilots – a female gremlin with flight goggles, all in bright blues, reds and yellows.
“With the emblem, they became known as The Order of the Fifinella, White says.
Polly White’s sense of adventure is as great as it was when she entered the WASPs. She and her husband, Dr. John I. White, who retired last year as Physiology department chairman at the University of Maryland Dental School, are avid sailors. This spring the two plan to take their boat, Aquila, on a year-long trip up the Hudson River to the St. Lawrence River, through the Great Lakes, and then down the Missouri, Illinois and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans. They plan to spend the winter around Key West and the Bahamas and sail home next spring.
“You know,” White says, “it’s really irritating when you read about the ‘new frontiers’ available for women today. So many young girls think they are the only females who have gotten out of the house and kitchen. Obviously I am not for women’s lib. I feel that women have their place and men theirs. As a WASP, I did not feel that I was infringing on a man’s rights. We were needed. Many, many more casualties had been anticipated and trained personnel were required to fill that need.”
For most of the remaining WASPs, the true value of their tardy recognition from the government is not monetary.
“And there is nothing, absolutely nothing that makes a former WASP angrier then to have the Air Force intimate that its current pilot training program for females is a first,” says Polly White, her blue eyes flashing.
“We did it all 35 years ago.”
[Update: John White died in 2009. Polly died Dec. 20, 2020 at age 101. See Findagrave.com Mem. # 220133505]