Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), U.S. Army Air Forces program that tasked some 1,100 civilian women with noncombat military flight duties during World War II. The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) were the first women to fly U.S. military aircraft. WASP had its origins with a pair of exceptionally skilled and ambitious female flyers. Prior to the U.S. entry into World War II, Nancy Harkness Love, the youngest American woman to have earned her private pilot’s license until that time, had lobbied for the creation of a program that would allow female pilots to ferry warplanes from factories to air
When World War II broke out, hundreds of women took to the skies in support of the war effort. Many contributed as Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). However, women like Willa Brown who were barred from becoming a military pilot by both her race and gender, found other ways to contribute. These are the stories of five women who contributed to the war effort by flying.
Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, Hazel Ying Lee became the first Chinese American woman to earn a pilot's license and fly for the U.S. military under.