The Glory Game (69 page)

But the Air Transport Auxiliary headquarters in Montreal wasn't as enthusiastic. Their response was, “We'll call you,” and they didn't. Undeterred, she got in touch with one of her British friends, Lord Beaverbrook, who just happened to have recently been appointed minister of procurement, formerly called aircraft production. During the second week of June, Montreal did indeed call and ask her to take a flight test—Jacqueline Cochran, the holder of seventeen aviation records, twice recipient of the Harmon Trophy, and the winner of the 1938 Bendix Race.

After three days of grueling tests that seemed more intent on determining her endurance than her flying skill, Jackie made the mistake of joking that her arm was sore from using the handbrake when she was accustomed to toe brakes. The chief pilot stated in his report that while she was qualified to fly the Hudson bomber, he could not recommend her since he felt she might have a physical incapacity to operate the brakes in an emergency situation.

His objections were deemed petty and overruled by ATA headquarters, and Jacqueline Cochran received orders to ferry a Lockheed Hudson bomber from Montreal to Prestwick, Scotland, with a copilot/navigator and radio operator as her crew. But her troubles weren't over. Vigorous protests were made by the ATA male pilots, who threatened to strike. Their objections ranged from concern that ATA would be blamed if the Germans shot down America's most famous woman pilot to complaint that an unpaid volunteer—and female to boot—flying a bomber across the Atlantic belittled their own jobs. A compromise was ultimately reached whereby Jacqueline Cochran would be pilot-in-command for the Atlantic crossing, but her copilot would make all the takeoffs and landings. On June 18, 1941 Jacqueline Cochran became the first woman to fly a bomber across the Atlantic Ocean.

On July first, she returned from England. In her Manhattan apartment, with its foyer murals showing man's early attempt at flight and a small chandelier designed to resemble an observation balloon hanging from the ceiling, she held a news conference and talked about her trip to Britain. After the reporters had gone, Jackie received a phone call inviting her to lunch with President and Mrs. Roosevelt.

The next day, a police escort drove her to the estate at Crum Elbow, the famous Hyde Park mansion with its majestic columned entrances. She spent two hours with the President. The meeting resulted in a note of introduction to Robert Lovett, Assistant Secretary of War for Air, in which the President stated his desire that Jacqueline Cochran research a plan creating an organization of women pilots for the Army Air Corps.

Her subsequent interview with the Assistant Secretary early in July resulted in Jackie's becoming an unpaid “tactical consultant,” with office space for herself and her staff in the Ferry Command section. Using the Civil Aeronautics Administration's files, she and her researchers found the records of over 2,700 licensed women pilots, 150 of them possessing more than 200 hours of flying experience. When contacted, nearly all were enthusiastic about the possibility of flying for the Army.

Jacqueline Cochran put forward a proposal to her former luncheon partner, Army Air Corps General “Hap” Arnold, to utilize not just the 150 highly qualified women pilots but to give advanced training to the more than two thousand others.
Hers was not the only proposal regarding women pilots the Army received. Nancy Harkness Love, a Vassar graduate and commercial pilot for the aviation company she and her husband owned in Boston called Inter-city Airlines, had also contacted the Ferry Command of the Army Air Corps with a plan to use women pilots to ferry aircraft from the manufacturers to their debarkation points.

But in July 1941 such drastic measures seemed premature to General Arnold. The United States was not at war, and there was an abundance of male pilots. He wasn't sure that it ever would be so dire that they would need women.

Then Pearl Harbor happened. By the spring of 1942, the Army was “combing the woods for pilots,” and the plans of the two women were resurrected. Jacqueline Cochran was in England recruiting women to fly for the British ATA when she learned that Nancy Love was putting together an elite corps of professional women pilots, ranging from barnstormers to flight instructors for the Ferry Command. Jacqueline Cochran raced home to argue with the Army Air Corps commander, General H. H. Arnold, for her training program, offering him more than a few pilots—promising him thousands, and assuring him she'd prove they were every bit as good if not better than men.

The situation
was
dire. The Allies were losing the war on all fronts in September 1942. General Arnold agreed to Jacqueline Cochran's proposal. The following month, she was busy locating a base where she could train her “girls.” Facilities were finally provided for the first two classes of trainees at Howard Hughes Field in Houston, Texas, but it soon became apparent that the Houston base wasn't big enough to hold her plans.

Her girls were learning to fly, and they were doing it “the Army way.”

JANET DAILEY is the author of scores of popular and uniquely American novels, including such bestsellers as
Scrooge Wore Spurs, A Capital Holiday, The Glory Game, The Pride of Hannah Wade,
and the phenomenal Calder saga, including the newest title in the series,
Shifting Calder Wind
. Her romantic fiction has also been featured in a story anthology,
The Only Thing Better Than Chocolate.
Since her first novel was published in 1975, Janet Dailey has become the bestselling female author in America, with more than 300,000,000 copies of her books in print. Her books have been published in seventeen languages and are sold in ninety countries. Janet Dailey's careful research and her intimate knowledge of America have made her one of the best-loved authors in the country and around the world.