08/20/2025
This National Aviation Day, we remember the nearly 1,100 women who volunteered as pilots with the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) during World War II. ✈️ Among them was Jackson, Michigan, resident Ruth Westheimer.
Accepted for WASP training in April 1943, Westheimer initially failed the required physical exam due to insufficient lung capacity. Determined to fly, she recognized what was holding her back and brazenly demanded to be tested again after removing her brassiere. She passed and became part of Class 43-6.
WASP assignments included ferrying planes from factories to airbases, “test-hopping” planes that other pilots had flagged as unreliable, and even towing targets used to train anti-aircraft gunners. Although they risked their lives flying military aircraft for military purposes, the WASP remained classified as civilian aviators and received no military status, benefits or recognition until decades later. After being disbanded at the end of 1944, the WASP were finally recognized for their service and granted veteran status in 1977.
Westheimer was one of 200 (of 300 surviving) WASP present to receive her Congressional Gold Medal at a 2010 U.S. Capitol ceremony. She passed away in 2016 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery — a right she would not have been afforded during the war.
🎖️ See photos of and artifacts from Westheimer, including her “Santiago Blue” uniform, in “Our War Too: Women in Service,” a temporary exhibition open at Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation through Sept. 7. Learn more: https://links.thf.org/45HEg4m.
➡️ Read more about the history of the WASP in a special guest blog written by the The National WWII Museum's Kimberly Guise, curator of “Our War Too”: https://links.thf.org/4mTjmVu.
Image: Ruth Westheimer steps out of a Fairchild PT-19A primary trainer aircraft at Avenger Field on May 6, 1943. Courtesy of The National WWII Museum.
