Adeline Wolak Ellison, 43-W-6 | June 10, 2017

“I got checked out as pilot in the C-47 and co-piloted in the B-17, B-25 and got my instrument rating flying a B-24 from California to Florida.  My instructor told me that I flew better than 95 percent of the male pilots he checked out.”   Adeline Ellison, WASP1

WASP Adeline Wolak Ellison took her final flight on June 10, 2017. 

She was born September 26, 1919 in Chicago, Illinois to Polish parents Walter and Anna Wolak.  Addie's father was a civilian pilot and urged his young daughter to take flying lessons.  After only one lesson, she was hooked.  Shortly after earning her license, she and her father joined the Civil Air Patrol and Addie began cross country flying. 

When America joined the Allies in World War II,  Addie saw an ad in the paper seeking women pilots for a  experimental flying program. She applied, passed the tests, an army physical and a personal interview,  and was accepted into the Women Airforce Service Pilots training program.  

In the spring of 1943, Addie, along with 123 other young women pilots from across the country, paid her way to Sweetwater, Texas and arrived at Avenger Field as a member of training class 43-W-6.  Almost seven months later, on October 4, 1943,  Addie and 83 of her classmates graduated from the Army Air Forces flight training program and earned their silver WASP wings.   She later wrote that her mom and dad borrowed on their insurance to make the long train trip to Sweetwater, Texas for the ceremony.  

Following graduation, Addie’s Army orders sent her to Long Beach, California, to fly with the 6th Ferrying Group.  From Long Beach, she delivered aircraft such as the B-17, B-25, B24, and C-47 from factories to bases in the U.S.A.   

While at Long Beach, Addie met her future husband, Robert Ellison who was an Army Air Force pilot. They were married June 24th 1944 and since the WASP were being deactivated, she resigned to go with Robert to Colorado to begin their new life.

Congressional Gold Medal ceremony, 2010

After the war the young couple traveled around the country as their Air Force family grew to include daughter, Andrea and son, Bobby.   Eventually, they settled in San Carlos, Ca.

She joined the Air Force Reserves but was discharged when they found out she had children. In the 1970's the WASP were given Veteran status and in 2010 they were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, highest civilian honor that Congress can bestow. Addie attended the ceremony in D.C. with her family. It was one of the highlights of her life.

In 2012, a Cessna 172 named "ADELINE," was unveiled by owner Ralph Sauceda. It was a special honor given to Addie at the Commemorative Air Force, Modesto, California Airport.  

Addie loved life, family and friends. She was a homemaker, a secretary, opened a Latin Dance Studio and ran for City Clerk of San Carlos, Ca. But most of all she was a great wife, mother and grandmother. In 1983, Addie and Bob moved to Modesto to be close to their grandchildren.

For the next few years, the couple continued their love of adventure by traveling all over the world.  Robert passed away after their 57th year of marriage.  Addie is survived by her daughter Andrea Holmquist (Thom), granddaughters Alyssa Bienvenu (Rich) and Amanda Holmquist and great grandson Lucien Bienvenu. She was preceded in death by her son Bobby, and brother Ed Wolak.

Adeline Wolak Ellison will be interred at San Joaquin National Cemetery next to her husband. She requested this for their grave stone:"Two Hot Pilots Together at Last.”

Franklin & Downs Funeral Home is honored to be serving the Ellison Family. A Visitation will be held on Tuesday, June 20, 2017 from 12:00 – 3:00pm at Franklin & Downs Funeral Home, 1050 McHenry Ave. in Modesto. Burial will follow on June 28, 2017 at 2:00pm at San Joaquin Valley National Cemetery in Santa Nella, CA. A Celebration of Adeline's Life will be held on Thursday, June 29, 2017 at 11:30am at Franklin & Downs Funeral Home.

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Respectfully posted by Wings Across America from the official obituary, with additional WASP information and  photo included.

Our prayers for Addie's family, her friends, and everyone who was touched by this gentle lady pilot.  

1. Quote from WASP Betty Turner's "Out of the Blue and Into History," p. 209.

Captola 'Cappy' Whittaker Johnson, 43-W-6 | March 18, 2016

BY BILL LINDELOF
blindelof@sacbee.com

Captola “Cappy” Johnson, a coal miner’s daughter who went on to fly during World War II as a pioneering aviator, died March 18 at a Folsom hospital after a short illness. She was about a month shy of her 96th birthday.

The longtime Fair Oaks resident was one of the approximate 1,100 women in the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program. In 2010, when she and other WASP pilots received the Congressional Gold Medal in Washington, D.C., an estimated 300 were still living.

Nearly 30,000 women applied for the wartime program. WASPs tested planes, ferried aircraft from factories to military bases, and performed other duties so men could fly combat missions overseas. 

They flew many types of military aircraft, including bombers. In addition to ferrying aircraft, they performed the dangerous stateside duty of towing targets behind their aircraft to give soldiers a chance to fire anti-aircraft guns. 

A total of 38 WASPs died during the short history of the program, which grew from two efforts that started in 1942. Cappy Johnson graduated as a WASP at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas, in 1943. 

Her son said that she spoke often about flying for the government. “She really enjoyed it,” said David Johnson, a Fair Oaks resident. “Mom said she flew the planes to where they were needed.”

Captola Whittaker was born in Raleigh County, W.Va., to Peery and Theodosia Whittaker. Her father, a coal miner, named her Captola, a name derived from the Cherokee language, although the family had no American Indian heritage.  “Grandpa just liked that name,” said David Johnson.

The 5-foot-2-inch Captola Whittaker barely made it into the WASP program because of her height.  “I think she may have been on tippy-toes to get in,” said David Johnson.

When women were dismissed from the service in 1944, their records were classified and sealed. 

The man who gave the go-ahead to create the WASPs, Gen. Hap Arnold, chief of the Army Air Forces, noted upon the disbanding of the group that he initially doubted that women could command big bombers.

“Frankly, I didn’t know in 1941 whether a slip of a young girl could fight the controls of a B-17 in the heavy weather,” he said in a War Department release of his speech to the last graduating WASPs.  In the end, WASPs proved they could “fly wingtip to wingtip with your brothers,” Arnold said.

The Air Force trumpeted in 1976 that the women who were graduating from the first co-ed class of the Air Force Academy would be the first American women to fly military aircraft. That angered the aging WASPs.

They knew of their service flying all manner of military planes even if the nation had largely forgotten. The WASPs spoke up. 

A movement to recognize the blue-uniformed WASPs began, an effort that climaxed with Congressional Gold Medals for Johnson and her fellow pilots in 2010.

Johnson did some flying after the war, sometimes with her fellow pilot and husband, Lyall E. Johnson. The couple met while both were stationed at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

They had twin boys, David and Dennis. The family moved around the country as an Air Force family before settling in the Sacramento area around 1960. The family built a home in Fair Oaks.

She raised her boys and enjoyed golf, bridge, photography, reading and bird watching. She also sold real estate for Bill Withrow Realty for 10 years.

In addition to her sons, she is survived by her brother Wayne Whittaker; two granddaughters and three great-grandchildren.

Johnson will be interred at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, along with her late husband. Lyall Johnson died in 2009.

Bill Lindelof: 916-321-1079, @Lindelofnews
more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/obituaries/article70147922.html#storylink=cpy

Respectfully reposted with additional photos from the Sacramento Bee and Wings Across America

WASP Dorothy P. Hoover, 43-W-6 | March 15, 2015

Buncombe County native Dorothy “Dot” Post Hoover, 98, was buried in Asheville following her death on March 15. She was a genuine American trailblazer and hero. Those are not titles she would have likely embraced or even wanted, but still fitting ones for someone like her all the same. For as a member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, better known by their acronym WASP, she did things that no American woman had ever done before her.

The WASP was a group of bright, ambitious young women who, at the outbreak of the Second World War, were looking for a way to serve their country. In 1941 two of America’s most famous women pilots, Jacqueline Cochran and Nancy Harkess Love, submitted proposals to the U.S. Army Air Forces under the command of Gen. Henry “Hap” Arnold to create an all-female non-combat flying unit, the main task of which would be to ferry aircraft and materials to and from various military bases and other locations, as well as serve in other capacities such as towing military gliders and aerial targets for use in gunnery training. Such a unit would free male pilots to go overseas.

From Cochran’s and Love’s efforts was born the Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD) and the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS); the two groups eventually merged under the single title of the Women Airforce Service Pilots. 25,000 women reportedly applied to become pilots but only 1,830 were accepted and 1,074 graduated. Training was rigorous and long, with demanding in-flight training. Following graduation, the new WASP recruits leaped into their professional roles with full-throttle gusto. By the time the group was disbanded in 1944, it had flown over 60 million operational miles from various locations around the nation and the world. During this time they flew nearly every type of military aircraft in existence, from the big bombers to the slick little fighters. In the end, they more than proved their value, not to mention the faith Gen. Arnold had put in them at the start. “I am very proud of you young women for the outstanding job you have done as members of the Air Forces team,” Arnold told the last graduating WASP class. “When we needed you, you came through and have served most commendably under very difficult circumstances.” Barry Goldwater, who helped oversee WASP operations during the war, later said his involvement with the unit was among his proudest achievements. Recognition otherwise was slow in coming to the pilots. It would take another 33 years for them to finally gain official veteran status. In 2009 the WASP at last received the national recognition long due them when they were awarded the distinguished Congressional Gold Medal by the Congress of the United States and the President.

If the WASP are now celebrated as heroes, it is largely because of women like Dorothy Hoover. Ms. Hoover, like her colleagues, had a mission and a dream. The mission was to serve her nation in its greatest hour of need; the dream was to fulfill that mission through the pursuit of something she loved: flying airplanes. But those things alone were not enough to ensure success. She also had to have the courage, determination and professional competence to achieve her lofty goals. She had all of these in abundance. I believe the legacy of Dorothy Hoover and her sisters in flight is one that will endure and resound down through American history. They serve as a lasting reminder to us all, men and women alike, that amazing things can happen when we have the faith and grit to make our own dreams come true. The WASP taught us something else too: often the most satisfying dreams are not about us alone but the work we do for others. God’s speed, Dorothy.

respectfully reposted:

http://www.citizen-times.com/story/opinion/contributors/2015/03/30/wasp-dorothy-post-hoover-american-trailblazer-hero/70681940/