"Only the margin left to write on now. I love you, I love you, I love you."
(published 1949)
I love
the classics and plan to share more "CLOSING lines" over the
coming months. Comment if you wish, or read for inspiration. Writing
styles were different then, or were they really?
Sharon M. Himsl
Writer/Author. Blogging since 2011. Published with Evernight Teen: ~~The Shells of Mersing
"Lieutenant Berrendo, watching the trail, came riding up, his thin face serious and grave. His submachine gun lay across his saddle in the crook of his left arm. Robert Jordan lay behind the tree, holding onto himself very carefully and delicately to keep his hands steady. He was waiting until the officer reached the sunlit place where the first trees of the pine forest joined the green slope of the meadow. He could feel his heart beating against the pine needle floor of the forest." (Published 1940) I love the classics and plan to alternately share more "CLOSING lines" over the coming months. Comment if you wish, or read for inspiration. Writing styles were different then, or were they really?
Berta Zeron was the first woman in Mexico to earn a commercial pilot's license and the first woman to pilot a jet airplane. She logged over 10,000 hours flight time. You might say she was Mexico's Amelia Earhart.
Berta Zeron was born in Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico, but learned to speak English at the age of eleven in Hawaii where her father had enrolled her in school for two years. On the return voyage home by ship, she discovered an airplane on board that had been flown by Amelia Earhart. The memory stuck with her and later became her inspiration to fly.
Berta finished high school in Mexico, and being bilingual, found jobs with different companies, one at the Benito Juarez International Airport. An airline pilot offered her a ride but she turned the offer down, a choice that bothered her a lot later. More jobs would follow and several years would pass before she could seriously consider becoming a pilot. In 1947 she applied for a permit to fly and had her first official flight, but it would be 1964 before soloing in a Cessna 170. With the owner Capitan Francisco Lopez's support, lessons were 100 pesos an hour and apparently, affordable. (Cost is a common drawback to getting a pilot's license, even today). Berta received her private pilot's license in 1965 and logged 200 hours in Lopez's plane that same year.
Berta and the Cessna 170
She went on to learn night and instrument flying skills and how to fly twin engine planes. Logging 282 flying hours in a Beechcraft Baron 55 and a PT-17 Stearman for aerobatics, she earned her commercial aviator license in 1966. She then taught others how to fly in Cessna 150s. Berta also took up parachute jumping and entered an air race in a Cessna 150, taking third place. More races followed, the largest being the (women's only) Powder Puff Derby in the U.S. (1969), where she flew a Mooney.
A Beechcraft Baron 55
A PT-17 Stearman
The Cessna 150 - Berta taught others how to fly.
The Mooney. Plane flown in Powder Puff Derby
Berta went on to fly several more planes, working for Commander Mexicana as the executive pilot and flight instructor. She flew a Commander Lark, the Commander Shrike twins, Douglas DC-3 and Beechcraft Twin Bonanza.
The Commander Lark
The Commander Shrike Twins
The Douglas DC-3
The Beechcraft Twin Bonanza
Berta continued her training, obtaining an Unlimited Public Transport Pilot License next, the first of its kind given to a woman in Mexico, and was awarded the 'Emilio Carranza' medal. This allowed her to fly executive jets at Commander Mexicana: the Rockwell Sabreliners and the Sabre 40 (XA-APD (as first officer). She became the first woman to achieve this rank flying an executive jet. Some planes flown during this period:
Turbo Commander 680 (and Turbo Commander 681)
Rockwell Sabreliner
Sabre 40
Berta really wanted to work for a commercial airline. She quit Commander Mexicana, and believing she had the right credentials, applied to a commercial airline, but was rejected based on her age. Had she been hired, she would have been the first woman pilot in Mexico to fly for a commercial airline. Undaunted by it all, it would seem, she received more training in 1982, flew a C-182, and won first place in a Mexican air race. By then she was 58. Over her lifetime Berta piloted 46 airplanes and jets, participated in 8 air races, and jumped in 2 parachute championships. If ever there was a Mexican Amelia Earhart, it had to be Berta Zeron.
As this is my final post in the series, I want to say THANK YOU TO EVERYONE from the bottom of my heart for stopping by to read Pioneer Women in Aviation, even if you could only read one or two posts (I know that most were l-o-n-g).
I leave you with a song by Eizaveta Icarus from the Miss Todd film soundtrack (a story based on the life of E. Lillian Todd). If you missed Miss Todd, you can click on "T for E. Lillian Todd" to watch (13min). The film is delightful and won the 2013 Academy Awards Gold Medal for best foreign film.
Hazel Ying Lee grew up in a large family with seven brothers and sisters in Portland, Oregon. As the daughter of Chinese immigrants, to dream of flying an airplane was an unrealistic goal. For one, she was Chinese-American, and two, she was a girl. But dream she did, and when a friend treated her at 19 to a ride at an airshow, it seemed she might fly after all.
Saving her money for flight lessons, Hazel started training at an airfield on nearby Swan Island and joined the Portland Flying Club (one of two girls). Her mother was opposed to the lessons, but according to a sister, Hazel "enjoyed the danger and doing something that was new to Chinese girls." One year later (1932), Hazel became one of the first Chinese-American women to earn a pilot's license and was eager to put her flying skills to work. With the Japanese invasion of northern China (1932-1933), Hazel joined other Chinese-Americans in the fight. Thinking she would join the Chinese Air Force, she was promptly turned down (twice) in 1933. Female pilots were not allowed. Instead, she accepted an office job with the military and briefly flew for a private airline. [An interesting aside is Korean Kwon Ki-ok's experience in 1925 as China's first female pilot; see K post]. In 1938, the Japanese launched a full scale attack, and after witnessing the deaths of hundreds of civilians, Hazel was forced to return to the United States.
World War II and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor changed the playing field for female pilots in the U.S. The demand for male pilots was impossible to meet, and although support by the military command and the media was mixed (opposition was high), the Women Airforce Service Pilots (known as WASP) was formed in 1943. Hazel was among the recruits accepted and became the first Chinese-American woman to fly for the U.S. military. More than one-thousand women would join the WASP. Although under military command in every way, the WASP were classified as civilians and did not receive military benefits. That said, military assignments were less than desirable. Their missions as transport pilots often meant flying in open cockpits in bad weather.
Hazel (on rt) with other WASP receiving training. She flew P-51s, P-47s and P-39s, one of 132 female pilots, selected to "fly pursuit."
Hazel was assigned to the third Ferrying Group at Romulus, Michigan. Automobile factories had been converted into full scale aircraft factories and it was her group's job to deliver new aircraft to designated sites for shipping to war fronts in Europe and the Pacific. Work schedules were full, a "7-day workweek, with little time off," Hazel's sister later described in an interview.
Lifelong friendships were forged. Hazel was known for her sense of humor.
Proud to serve. Fellow pilots described her as "calm and fearless." One story told was of Hazel's forced landing in a Kansas wheat field. A farmer was certain the Japanese had landed. Frightened, he held a pitchfork in hand and yelled for his neighbors. Hazel calmly convinced him she was not the enemy.
Older than most of the WASP, Hazel was considered a leader
Unfortunately, a second forced landing November 1944 in Great Falls, Montana took Hazel's life. More than 5000 fighters had been delivered to the Great Falls airfield at that juncture in time. It was not an unfamiliar setting. Hazel was in the process of delivering a P-63 (a large group had also arrived to land), but due to radio failure in a second P-63, the control tower directed both planes to land on the same runway simultaneously. The planes collided and Hazel died from burns in the collision two days later.
Thirty-eight women would die before
the disbanding of WASP in December 1944.
Hazel, the first Chinese-American woman
to fly for the U.S. military, was the last to die.
The 588th Night Bomber Regiment: The Night Witches
They flew at night. A soft swooshing noise in the air that sounded like a witch's broomstick signaled their arrival. The Nazis feared them, called them Nachthexen --the Night Witches, and any pilot able to shoot one down was honored with Nazi Germany's coveted Iron Cross.
The Night Witches were Russia's all female 588th Night Bomber Regiment of the Soviet Air Force during World War II. They were the world's first female fighter pilots.
In 1941, Nadia Popova experienced the death of her brother and witnessed women and children fleeing in the streets during the German invasion. Her home became a Gestapo station. Leningrad was soon under siege and three million of her people were taken as prisoners. Now the German troops were 19 miles away from Moscow and the Soviet Air Force was powerless. Marina Raskova, Russia's record-breaking female aviator, began recruiting women pilots in 1942 to fly bombing missions. Nadia didn't hesitate to volunteer. She had been a member of a flying club since the age of 15 and was a flight instructor. She was 21. Three Bomber Regiments were formed: the 586th (Yak-1 fighters), the 587th (twin engine dive bombers), and the 588th (night bombers--the Night Witches). Only the 588th would remain an all female regiment, which meant they were the pilots, navigators, and maintenance and ground crews. The new recruits ranged from age 17 to 26. Their hair was cut short and they were issued ill-fitting uniforms meant for the men. The men insulted them, calling them "a bunch of girlies" instead of soldiers, which they very much were. One young woman later recalled, "We didn't recognize ourselves in the mirror---we saw boys there." So they painted flowers on the sides of their planes and used navigation pencils to color their lips.
Nadia Popova, Deputy Commander. In 2010, she said:
““I sometimes stare into the blackness and close my eyes. I can still imagine myself as a young girl, up there in my little bomber. I ask myself, ‘Nadia, how did you do it?’”
Nadia Popova later said it was a miracle any of them survived. Their planes were the slowest in the Air Forceand they came back "riddled in bullets." They flew in Polikarpov Po2 biplanes, planes more suited for crop dusting and training, than bombing. Made with plywood and canvas, tracer bullets (the kind that exploded) could easily ignite a plane. But the Po2 had some advantages. It could take off and land just about anywhere, and being slow meant it could make tighter turns, below the stall speed of a German fighter (which had to make wider turns and circle back). The Po2 could travel low to the ground too, unlike the German fighters. Some German pilots were said to have given up out of frustration. The Night Witches thought smart. Another tactic was to fly in close to the target, cut the engine, glide in real slow (that broom stick swooshing noise), drop their bombs (six per plane), and then restart the engine.
The Polikarpov Po2 biplane
Nevertheless, danger was always at their door. Because they flew low, parachutes were not carried on board. Cockpits were wide open, which meant freezing conditions, frostbite, and zero protection from stray bullets. They had no radar and could only rely on maps and compasses. Missions were long and tedious---two pilots to a plane, eight flight missions a night (as many as 18), which meant traveling back and forth to rearm with bombs. Commenting on the German's claim that the Soviets must have given the women pills, because of their night ("cat") vision, she said:
"This was nonsense, of course. What we did have were
clever, educated, very talented girls."
Each pilot in the 588th Night Bomber Regiment flew over 800 missions by the end of the war, flying thousands of missions overall, as many as 18 missions a night for four years. In the end they had helped chased the Germans back to Berlin, but 30would die in combat. Twenty-three would live to tell their stories and receive the Hero of the Soviet Union title, their nation's highest honor.
You could call me an eternal optimist, but I'm really just a dreamer. l believe in dream fulfillment, because 'sometimes' dreams come true. This is a blog about my journey as a writer and things that inspire and motivate me.
"Lieutenant Berrendo, watching the trail, came riding up, his thin face serious and grave. His submachine gun lay across his saddle in the crook of his left arm. Robert Jordan lay behind the tree, holding onto himself very carefully and delicately to keep his hands steady. He was waiting until the officer reached the sunlit place where the first trees of the pine forest joined the green slope of the meadow. He could feel his heart beating against the pine needle floor of the forest." (Published 1940)
