Women pilots of WW2 gone missing: ‘They took our records and sealed them.’

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So right after I post that a 3 yr old girl at my daughter’s preschool told a teacher she couldn’t be a pilot but a pilot’s wife, I see on Facebook info about the upcoming documentary “We Served Too: The Story of Women Air Force Pilots of World War II.”  So, of course I watched the trailer. My mouth dropped open.

These women flew over 60 million miles within a 2 year period…However, after a nasty and aggressive campaign by male pilots who wanted the WASPs jobs, they were the only wartime unit that was denied military status by congress…For many years the WASPs kept their achievements quiet. Their service in World War II would only be known by a few. They are not mentioned in our history books, nor is their story taught in schools.Their accomplishments of being the first women to fly in the military would even be forgotten.

 

One pilot says, “Such a shame that when we disbanded, they took all of our records and they sealed them, and they were stamped either classified or secret and filed away in the government archives.”

 

Sealed records. WTF? Male accomplishments are celebrated and honored and women’s are hidden. ARGH. Sexist decisions of the past are affecting our kids TODAY. More stories about women’s real lives, repressed. Thank God for Jill Bond who made this film. Do you see how reality creates fiction creates reality? Do you see why we need women writers, artists, filmmakers, and on and on? Do you see who goes missing and how distorted reality and our perception of reality becomes when, for thousands of years, women have been existing in stories written by men?

Please, show this picture to your kids.

wasp3

I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I hope it’s good for children. Wouldn’t it be great to make a children’s version? A book to go along with it? A computer game? An app? A LEGO set? What do you think the chances are we’ll see any of that? They are low, because still, in 2013, we live in a world where women’s stories go missing.

 

6 thoughts on “Women pilots of WW2 gone missing: ‘They took our records and sealed them.’”

  2. WASPs were great but the women pilots of WWII who were truly baptised in battle were those of the Soviet Air Forces.True warriors .I have many books about them.
    Check
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia_Litvyak
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches

    http://www.amazon.com/Dance-Death-Soviet-Airwomen-World/dp/1585441775/ref=la_B001KJ2H9M_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383833768&sr=1-1

    http://www.amazon.com/Red-Sky-Black-Death-Eastern/dp/0893573558/ref=pd_sim_b_3
    http://www.amazon.com/Wings-Women-War-Airwomen-Studies/dp/0700615547/ref=pd_sim_b_2

    British women also flew.Check for “Spitfire women”
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tw1m1
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spitfire-Women-World-War-II/dp/0007235364

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  3. Lots of women in war have been missing and rarely mentioned in history books, and especially in movies.
    There were women fighting in the USA Civil War
    http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Women-Who-Fought-in-the-Civil-War.html
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2285841/The-women-fought-men-Rare-Civil-War-pictures-female-soldiers-dressed-males-fight.html
    There were samurai women
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onna-bugeisha
    The most powerful pirate of all the times was a woman
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ching_Shih
    and there were female pirates
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_piracy
    Even if they have to dress as a man, take the arms of a fallen soldier in a battle or work as a spy, there were women fighting in every war, because they have to defend themselves, their families and their homes, of course that they are not going to stay at home, just waiting and being killed, but you rarely see that in historical movies.

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