In the 1930’s there weren’t many women flyers in the world.  But young Irene Englund couldn’t think of anything else growing up.

When she graduated from Oceanside High School in a small town north of San Diego, Irene earned a pilot’s license - and in 1943 answered the call of a nation at war for women to ferry military aircraft across the country in support of the men in battle.

For eighteen months, young Irene transported military supplies and injured personnel, logging over 1200 hours flying massive B-24 Bombers and other war-weary aircraft as part of the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots– the WASPS, as they were called.

After logging over 60 million miles in support of the war effort, these women pilots were unceremoniously disbanded in December 1944 to make room for male pilots returning from the war.

The WASP flyers didn’t receive military honors or any real recognition at all for over 30 years.  In fact, when they were discharged in 1944, they didn’t even receive bus fare home.

It took 35 years and an Act of Congress for Irene and her fellow Women’s Airforce Service Pilots to formally gain recognition as true veterans of active military service.

While most of us do not know Irene Englund, she and her fellow pilots were pioneers.  They paved the way for so many women to follow careers in flying and other occupations previously uncharted by women. 

When Irene’s daughter flew to New York for a final visit with her ailing mother, she remembered a ritual her mother always observed as a passenger on commercial flights.  Irene would stop at the cockpit door and introduce herself as a veteran pilot of World War II.  So as her daughter entered the plane for that last visit home, she too stopped at the cockpit door to let them know that the daughter of a World War II WASP was on board.  When she looked in, she smiled with a quiet sense of pride in her mother, as she saw that both pilots on the plane were women.