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Nancy Love
Born February 14, 1914
Houghton, Michigan
Died October 22, 1976
Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts
Aviator
N
ancy Love was director of the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying
Squadron, or WAFS. The WAFS was a division within the
Air Transport Command of the U.S. Army. WAFS were the first
women to fly for the U.S. military, serving from 1942 until
1945. By flying home front missions, Love and the WAFS were
in a unique position to advance the American cause in World
War II (1939–45). Her highly experienced pilots made it possible to free active-duty male pilots for combat. The WAFS were
charged with transporting military aircraft between factories,
modification centers, depots, and operational units.
Nancy Love was one of the most accomplished women
flyers of her time. She was the first woman in U.S. military history to fly the B-25 Mitchell, the P-51 Mustang, and the
Douglas C-54 Skymaster. Love was the first woman to deliver
a C-47 Skytrain and one of the first two women to check out
in the B-17 Flying Fortress. She was also proficient in A-36es
and fourteen other types of military aircraft. Love accomplished all of this as a civil servant in the Air Transport
Command because women pilots were never officially members of the U.S. military during World War II.
“Don’t present us as a
glamour outfit, we’re
not. There’s no room or
time for glamour in the
W.A.F.S., we’ve got a
serious job to do.”
Nancy Love.
AP/Wide World Photos.
Reproduced by permission.
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In 1943 several army programs were combined to form
the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs). Love retained
command of her original group of WAFS and continued flying
military planes until Congress canceled the organization in
December 1944.
Making history
Nancy Harkness was born on February 14, 1914, in
Houghton, Michigan. The daughter of a wealthy physician,
she attended prestigious Milton Academy in Massachusetts
and Vassar College in New York. While in high school at
Milton, Nancy experienced her first plane ride. Inspired, she
immediately took flying lessons and within weeks received her
license. At the age of sixteen, she was the youngest woman in
the United States to earn a private pilot’s license.
Always restless and adventurous, Nancy carried her
love of flying with her to Vassar. She started a flying school and
earned extra money taking students for rides in a plane she
rented from a nearby airport. In 1933 she became the youngest
woman to qualify for a commercial pilot’s license. Nancy was
an early pioneer in the development of student flying clubs in
U.S. colleges and a charter member of the Ninety-Nines. The
organization got its name because 99 women pilots, out of a
total of 126 who were licensed at the time, joined together to
form the group. The first president was well-known aviator
Amelia Earhart (1897–1937).
Nancy left Vassar following her sophomore year and
found a job selling airplanes on a commission basis out of the
East Boston Airport in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1935 she and
four other women pilots were hired by the federal government’s Bureau of Air Commerce to “air-mark” the principal
cities of the United States. Their job was to fly over the nation
searching for landmarks such as water towers, barns, and
rooftops that were visible from the air. The landmarks were
then marked with city names and compass headings as aids to
air navigation. It was her first regular paycheck from flying.
Love for life
Nancy Harkness met Robert Maclure Love at the East
Boston Airport hangars when she first arrived in town. He was
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from a prominent East Coast family and had recently purchased the Curtis-Wright Air Terminal to begin his own business, Inter City Aviation. The couple married in 1936 and took
off on a flying honeymoon. The union made all the Boston
newspapers because women flyers were rare, and the handsome couple caught the public’s interest.
After the honeymoon, Nancy returned to complete the
air-marking program. In 1937 she went to work as a test pilot
for the Gwinn Aircar Company in Buffalo, New York. She performed safety tests on various aircraft modifications and innovations. In one project for the Bureau of Air Commerce she
tested three-wheeled landing gear, which became standard on
most planes. For fun she occasionally entered the popular air
races of the day. By 1938 Nancy was working full-time with her
husband at Inter City Aviation. Nancy and Bob ran flying
classes and charters, and they also demonstrated and sold
several types of airplanes.
A changing world
When American factories began turning out warplanes
for Great Britain in 1940, Nancy Love was one of several
Massachusetts women who ferried light warplanes to the
Canadian border. She felt it was a meaningful assignment that
other experienced women pilots could do and began promoting a women’s ferrying group to the army. The Loves had
known many senior military officers for years through the Air
Corps Reserves and Nancy was respected for her flying ability.
In May 1940 she approached an old friend, Colonel Robert
Olds of the Army Air Corps Planning Division, with the idea of
employing women pilots to help transport planes from factories to bases. Love included a list of forty-nine women pilots
she believed were well qualified. Most had flown more than a
thousand hours in many kinds of aircraft. She received encouragement, but women flying airplanes and wearing pants were
seen as too risqué (challenging social traditions) in America at
that time.
By 1942 Love had logged more than twelve hundred
flight hours. She held a Civil Aeronautics Administration
(CAA) instrument card, a CAA commercial license, as well as
both seaplane and high-horsepower ratings. America was
Nancy Love
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Jacqueline Cochran
When World War II (1939–45)
began in 1939, the United States began a
special Lend-Lease program with Great
Britain. Supplies and equipment, including
airplanes, were transported by way of
Canada to England. In order to free male
pilots for combat, the Royal Air Force (RAF)
began using women pilots to fly the arriving planes to airports near their fighting
units.
In July 1941 Jacqueline Cochran
(1906–1980) presented General H. “Hap”
Arnold, commander of the Army Air Corps,
with a plan for the Army Air Corps Ferry
Command to use women pilots in the
United States. At the time, Arnold was of the
opinion that the United States was not
ready for, nor did it need, women pilots. He
suggested that Cochran take a group to
England for duty and by August 1942
Cochran and twenty-four other American
women pilots joined the RAF Air Transport
Auxiliary.
Upon her return to the United
States, Cochran met with Arnold and outlined a training program to augment the
Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS)
in the expanding war. The new group
would be called the 319th Women’s Flying
Training Detachment (WFTD) and would
be stationed at the Municipal Airport in
Houston, Texas. Jacqueline Cochran was
director of this training group. She soon
transferred her program to Avenger Field in
Sweetwater, Texas.
More than 25,000 women applied
to the program; 1,830 were accepted for
training and 1,074 would eventually win
their wings. They followed the Air Corps
cadet program of primary, basic, and
advanced flight training and ground school.
now officially involved in World War II and Robert Love, a
reserve major in the Army Air Corps, received his call to active
duty in Washington, D.C. Nancy Love landed a civilian post
with the Air Transport Command (ATC) in Baltimore,
Maryland. She commuted daily by plane from their home in
Washington. The news of her employment with ATC reached
Colonel William Tunner, who was head of the Ferrying
Division of the ATC. At the time, new plane production was
backing up at the factories and he had been searching the
country for skilled pilots to ferry the planes to their final destinations. Tunner asked Love to submit a proposal for a
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Upon graduation the pilots were sent for
active duty on one of the four Ferry
Command bases. They were to not only
ferry planes from factories to the airfields
but also test-fly repaired aircraft and even
tow gunnery targets for artillery practice.
They performed many other noncombat
flying duties on the home front in order to
release male pilots for the overseas war
effort.
Jacqueline Cochran. AP/Wide World Photos.
Reproduced by permission.
By July 1943 the training program
was a proven success. The WFTD and the
WAFS were combined so that all women
pilots were under the jurisdiction of the director of women pilots, Jacqueline Cochran.
They were renamed WASPs (Women’s
Airforce Service Pilots) and worked together
until Congress canceled the organization in
December 1944. They would be the last
women to fly for the U.S. military for more
than thirty years.
women’s ferrying group that would meet the approval of
General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold (1886–1950), commander of
the Army Air Corps.
The WAFS
Within months, the twenty-eight-year-old Love
became the director of the newly created Women’s Auxiliary
Ferrying Squadron, or WAFS. She soon had twenty-eight
experienced female pilots under her command. Each woman
Nancy Love
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had an average of eleven hundred flying hours to her credit,
as well as a high-horsepower rating and a commercial flying
license. Each was required to be a U.S. citizen, present two letters of recommendation, and pass the physical. The women
were to remain civil servants in the Air Corps because the
Ferry Division needed pilots immediately, and it would take
a great deal of time to get an amendment through Congress
to legally commission women pilots in the military. The
WAFS were established in September 1942 and began operations at New Castle Army Airfield, Wilmington, Delaware,
under ATC’s 2nd Ferrying Group. The first recruits were called
the Originals.
Getting the media to take the new division seriously
proved difficult. Life magazine drew attention not to Love’s
flying skills, but to her beautiful legs. The War Department
tried to tone down the publicity and Love herself cautioned
her recruits that their personal conduct must be above
reproach in order for the WAFS to succeed. Love held the allegiance of the Originals because of the opportunity she had provided them. They were not about to let her down. Hers was an
elite group of pilots and Love worked hard to ensure that they
flew better and faster aircraft.
On February 27, 1943, while stationed in Dallas, Texas,
Love checked out in a North American P-51 Mustang, the
Army Air Force’s hottest fighter plane. She moved on to Long
Beach, California, in order to fly some fourteen other aircraft,
most of which were manufactured in the area. That same
summer Love and her close friend and copilot, Betty Gillies,
prepared to ferry a B-17, called the Queen Bee, across the
Atlantic Ocean to Britain. The British had requested the delivery of one hundred of the planes for a major offensive into
Europe. Colonel Tunner was faced with a big order and a lack
of qualified pilots to deliver the planes. Love and Gillies had
been to B-17 school and were the first women to be checked
out in the Flying Fortress. They had already made three domestic deliveries to date. Tunner had been ordered to advance the
WAFS to their capabilities so he cleared the two women for the
delivery and assigned his personal navigator to the flight. The
crew picked up the Queen Bee in Cincinnati, Ohio, and flew it
to Goose Bay, Labrador, in Canada. While awaiting clearance
to fly the final leg of their journey to Prestwick, Scotland, an
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