Long-remembered flights

Jennifer K Mahal

COSTA MESA -- Violet “Vi” Thurn Cowden remembers attending a recent

Women’s Club meeting and thinking “I haven’t done anything yet.”

After all, she was surrounded by doctors and lawyers and teachers.

Women who worked and fought for social justice, while raising children.

Amazing women.

But Cowden, who will speak today at the 98th annual California

Federation of Women’s Clubs convention in Costa Mesa, is an amazing woman

herself. A woman who flew military aircraft in service of her country

during World War II. One of only 1,099 females to be part of the Women

Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs.

“I’m really excited about her speaking,” said Mary Ann Villegas, coast

district vice president for the statewide group. “Women in my generation,

we remember World War II very vividly. So it was very appropriate as far

as we were concerned, because I had no idea. I didn’t know about them.”

Cowden, a Huntington Beach resident, was a 26-year-old first-grade

teacher in Spearfish, S.D., when she received a telegram from famed

aviator Jacqueline Cochran asking her to tryout for the newly formed WASP

program.

“I think Jackie Cochran checked all of the people who had their

private pilot’s licenses,” Cowden said.

About 25,000 women applied for the program, which was designed to free

male pilots for service overseas. Only 1,830 were accepted into training

(1,074 would graduate the program, 25 had joined an earlier version).

Cowden was in California, visiting her sister, when she found out she had

been accepted into class No. 43-4.

She took her physical in Long Beach and shipped out by train to

Sweetwater, Texas.

“My instructors in Sweetwater were expecting to teach male pilots and

in came a group of women,” said the 84-year-old grandmother of three. “I

think that their adjustment was that they had to teach women to fly when

they expected [us] to be in the kitchen -- I think it was easier for us

to accept than it was for them.”

Cowden flew a PT-19 primary trainer and then trained to fly pursuit

planes, the lean fighters of World War II.

“I would say there is no comparison [between] flying private and

flying the Army way, the military way, because you are flying

sophisticated airplanes,” Cowden said.

After training, Cowden was stationed at Love Field in Dallas as part

of Air Transport Command.

“My mission was to pick up planes at the factory and take them to

training fields and points of demarcation on the East or West Coast,”

Cowden said.

She would also fly planes from Great Plains, N.Y. to Montana. Cowden

flew 19 types of aircraft, but her favorite was the P-51 Mustang.

“It was the fastest plane made at the time,” she said.

She estimates that if she were to add up all of the mileage from her

flights, she would have flown around the world 55 times.

When the WASPs were disbanded in 1944, the aviators were given no

veterans benefits or status, even though 38 women had died in service to

their country.

“The sad part was that there was no one to fly the airplanes at home,”

Cowden said. “B-17 and B-24 pilots weren’t qualified to fly pursuit

planes.”

At the time, there were no commercial pilot jobs available for women,

so Cowden headed back to California, where she started a ceramics

business.

The history of the WASPs was forgotten by most until 1977, when a

movement was started to give the women veteran status.

A mother by then, Cowden was working at the teacher resource center in

Huntington Beach when she received a red alert petition asking WASPs to

contact their representatives in Congress.

“I thought that being a veteran would not make any difference, because

for 30 years I hadn’t been,” Cowden said.

A bill was passed and 35 years after disbanding, WASPs were recognized

for their war effort.

Cowden was at a 1977 conference in Cleveland, Ohio, watching an air

show when the importance of what had happened hit her. Two small planes

flew smoke rings around the airport, and then the Golden Knights, the

Army’s parachute team, jumped through the rings.

“The last one had a flag, and they played an air corps song,” Cowden

said. “And I thought, ‘You know what? I’m a veteran.’ It did make a

difference. It was like we had arrived.”

The California Federation of Women’s Clubs plans to make a donation to

the WASP archive at Texas Woman’s University to help preserve the history

of WASPs for all time.

“Our history is valuable as an inspiration that women can do anything

that men can do,” Cowden said.

FYI

What: Violet “Vi” Cowden will speak at the 98th annual California

Federation of Women’s Clubs convention

When: 7 p.m. Friday

Where: Hilton, 3050 Bristol St., Costa Mesa

Cost: Free. Speech is part of the regular meeting.

Call: (714) 540-7000