Ellora Karmarkar
PWR2-28
Art of the Audio Essay
WASPS

Track elements going into this piece: music, study, research, elements,
everything. Quotes, authors, etc. sonic elements. Host intro…setup…
Experimental program for women pilots. Radio diaries. Women airforce service
pilots. Recording an actual pilot getting into the plane and starting it. Interview with
an actual woman pilot, but no interview process, just the woman talking. Research
necessary to find the women.
People don’t know what WASPS are. Pieces of her in the plane mixed with pieces of
her just talking.
Transition with singing of women, airforce song. Another woman pilot.
Widowmaker.
Another woman pilot
One woman after another
Introduction of each of the members of the WASPS.
Focuses on one woman, discusses how she loves the planes. We all loved to fly.
Transition: Speech: 1941-date of infamy . attacked at pearl harbor. Presidential
speech.
Interjection of woman discussing flying out for pearl harbor.
Another woman- telegram in 1942- are we interested in flying aircraft? Open
invitation to women.
Another woman, quit school, build up flight time to qualify.
Back to other woman, 3,000 women with pilot license.
Back to telegram: you will report to this hotel at this time for an interview. Like being
drafted.
Transition with more music. Army music reporting. Girls who give a new angle to an
airport story. Men can go off to fight, while WASPS start them on the road.
Letter back home to parents about wasps—experimental stage, doubtful of women
pilots. Daily life. This is all I know so far. We find out the rest hour by hour.
Transition with wakeup horn
Press release-army release, strictly GI. Go through the same rigorous training. 610pm.
Describing the ugly place they had to train in.
Jazz music transition.
Different places of lines: millionaires, farm girls, shoe shiners…all in the same boat,
same ill fitting clothes.
Flight suits for men. (switches from interview between women, creates a sense of
solidarity)
Back to women singing—transition. March to formation. Silence- reservations. I
thought this was a mistake till I got started in the airplanes.
Flight sounds. Transition: to planes.
Women talking: put parachute on, furlined jackets, furlined boots. Cold, winter time.
“okay honey, I’ll show you how to do a slow roll”.
Press release: show flight student how to fly.
Women: turns you over upside down, everything falls out of the plane, you’re just
hanging there in the seat belt. White thing floating down to the ground. Girl would be
floating down in parachute because she forgot to fasten seatbelt.
First time I flew: I thought I’ll never master this, take me back to the farm.
(research involved, finding this set of women, and all of these old music clips and
press releases)
Press release: smooth and well disciplined defense, now wasps can go to work and
..etc.
Women: odd jobs they didn’t want to waste a man on
Tow target squadron: training boys in anti aircraft
Going to try to shoot enemy plans, they had to have somebody flying targets for them
to shoot at. Women were the targets. Shooting live bullets at the target. Target was
behind us, started getting shot at.
Monotonous: search light missions. Flying patterns, 45 degree to right, etc. for four
dollars.
18-21 men not good at doing repetitive action.
Fun actions was enough to keep us stimulated.
More jazz music from the age
Women: I started getting bored flying around in a rectangular.
2.older men didn’t think we could fly the airplanes.
3. I would have gone into combat any minute. With training, I would have been good.
Press release, about the largest, fastest bomber.
Women: 1944 July. Biggest and best bomber in the world, made for long range. It
would be the aircraft to let us win war into pacific. Engine fires. Problems at training
bases, people reluctant to fly it.
Man named tibbits: tried to get two women to fly this. Could take them to training
bases, and show men that it was so easy to fly that two women could fly it.
Plane noises:
Women: awe inspiring feeling, power in the engines. Flying an apartment house. Big
wingspan. Felt so easy in comparison to what I thought. Easy to turn, fly, stall. Dream
ship. No problem at all. Word spread.
Next woman: my roommate was killed. Flying formation, in back seat, instructor up
front. In the middle of a formation of three airplanes. Fellows behind her, took eyes
off other wing, their wing went through, knocked her on the head, passed out.
Instructor bailed her. I had to tell her parents. I did not like that job.
New woman: 38 killed in training/assignments. Sobering, but didn’t affect anyone’s
desire to keep going out.
3. war not fun. Losing everyone. Want to do everything possible to win the war. In
the meantime, we were enjoying it. We love to fly.
Piano jazz transition:
1. by yourself, be up there flying, just fly around and look around, play hide and
seek in the clouds
2. pretending I was in new york city, going down all the high rises
3. felt we had won a prize to get to fly these airplanes that were off limits for us, to
know that we were contributing to the war effort.
4. had the best airplanes in the world, best instructors.
All of a sudden, army says we don’t need you anymore (music stops during this line)
Letter: we are proud of you women. The time has come when your services are no
longer needed. You would be replacing instead of relieving our young men. WASP
inactivated. Released 20 Dec. HH Arnold, army air force.
Press release: introducing the Arnold
Women:1. primary speech. Wonderful sendoff.
Arnold: 1941 slip of a girl would be at the control of a plane
1944, its on the record that women can fly as well as men.
Women: at end of ceremony, we all marched down, sang the song. Last last class.
Whole day of celebration. Then the next day we all packed up and went home.
Women2. we left. It was really sad. Knew I would never get in those airplanes again.
Women3. resinging the song now.
Girls4: found jobs, dusted crops, taught other people to fly. But there were no jobs for
women as pilot.
5. women that man the factories, built ships, all lost jobs when men came back. (no
music) supposed to be at home taking care of children, weren’t supposed to be
doctors, lawyers, engineers.
6. women sings song. ‘he’ll ferry airplanes like his mommy used to do.’
7. 1,074 graduated.
8. doesn’t seem real that I actually did that. Social conversation: ooh yes I flew for
the airforce , comeon, they didn’t have any women in the airforce.
9. back to the plane, pilot women describing the flight landing. Back home again in
one piece.
10. I have dreams of where I’m flying b25 planes. All beautiful warbirds. Haven’t
flown for so many years. Seems strange to me that at 85, I’m dreaming about
flying airplanes. I don’t want to ride in another one. I want to remember it like it
was when I did it.
11. back to song. End of song. End of piece.

Try to identify transitions. Get a feel for the structure of the piece. When do we
move from one section to another? There is no narrator, so how do we transition?

Where do you get a sense for what the argument of the piece is? What’s the point
of view? What’s the angle on the subject? Which places is it most effective?
I suppose that the angle was that it wasn’t fair. Their general treatment wasn’t very fair.
They were basically used and then told to leave. They enjoyed the using part because it
was something they had never done before. ‘Human impact when they had to leave.’ It
was a very effective but very frustrating piece. You sympathized with the women because
they didn’t complain, but felt that you had deprived a good set of people of something
important. Very subtle, very psychologically effective.