In just a few days, we mark another Veterans Day, honoring the men and women who served, or still serve, in the country’s military.
Until recently, one group of veterans never got the recognition for what they did in World War II.
After the war, their military records were sealed, classified secret and kept from the public for 35 years.
Of the 1,074 women who volunteered and qualified as U.S.
Army Air Corps pilots during WWII, fewer than 15 are still alive.
When the war began, men often called these women “girls” and didn’t believe this grand experiment would ever work, that the women of America , sisters, daughters and wives , could fly Army airplanes all over the country.
These women asked only for a chance.
Their reason for volunteering for such dangerous duty was almost always the same. “I wanted to do something for my country,” said Dorothy Ann Smith.
For Penny Peirce it was simple: “I wanted to do something patriotic.” Organized as the Womens Airforce Service Pilots, known better as WASP, the women had to complete and match the same training requirements faced by male recruits.
The only difference was the men were regular Army, and the women were classed as Civil Service.
They were promised they would become regular Army officers as soon as Congress approved their commissioning, but it took Congress until 1977 before a vote succeeded.
The women’s primary duty was to fly and deliver new military aircraft to bases across the United States, although other flying missions were soon added.
Of the 15 women volunteers who successfully completed WASP training and considered Oregon their home, three were born in another state and none were born in Southern Oregon.
The two women born closest to Jackson County both began their lives in Bend.
Born in February 1921, Helen Marie Skjersaa was the third child and first daughter born to Love Nilson Skjersaa and his wife, Marte.
Love had come to the United States from Norway in 1907 and, once naturalized as a citizen and having saved enough money, returned to Norway in 1914 to marry Marte and bring her back to Bend.
Helen had a simple childhood surrounded by other Scandinavian families whose fathers and sons all worked in the lumber mills.
As a teenager, she enjoyed dancing and acrobatics and soon was a high school majorette with the girl’s drum and bugle corps.
By graduation in 1938, she received her father’s permission to learn to fly.
The University of Idaho offered pilot training, and Helen enrolled.
In 1943, with three years of college behind her and 200 hours of flight time, she had her pilot license and was accepted into the WASP program.
When the program ended in December 1944, Helen had delivered every type of aircraft the Army and Navy flew.
Her favorites were the B-25 and B-17.
It was the last time she piloted a plane.
She passed away in 2008.
Mary Jean Barnes was born in Bend in September 1921, the only daughter of Deschutes County Judge William Barnes and his wife, Cornelia.
Just a few months after her birth, the family moved to Phoenix.
Her father died when she was 16, leaving the family in poverty. “I didn’t mind only having one pair of shoes, a skirt and a couple of blouses,” she said, “because all my friends were in the same way.” A good student, Mary received a scholarship to Southern Oregon College , today’s Southern Oregon University , where, in 1941, she and two other women enrolled in a pilot training course offered by the college.
She earned her pilot license and soon qualified as a ground flight instructor.
Following graduation, she set up and taught a pre-flight training program at Medford High but, within months, accepted a similar position at two other colleges where she trained male Air Corps trainees to fly.
In spring 1944, she was accepted into the WASP program.
Stationed at Merced Army Airfield in California, she again taught male Army recruits to fly.
After the WASP program ended, she also never again piloted an airplane and died in 2017.
Unlike Helen Skjersaa, Mary lived long enough to hear people say, “Thank you for your service.” Writer Bill Miller is the author of six books, including “To Live and Die a WASP, 38 Women Pilots Who Died in WWII.” Reach him at newsmiller@live.com. © 2022 Mail Tribune source