Shirley Slade

[FATincule 52]

The serious lack of pilots, during the Second World war, it brought, in the United States, to the recruitment in the aeronautics Military, many women to the flight. Involving some women, the Air Force could maintain the delivery of airplanes, restocking, set and other operations of not fight to help the war efforts. The group, composed by some hundred girls, became known as WASP: Women Airforce Service Pilots. With the end of the war the body was loose and the girls sent to house without any ceremony of thanks. SHIRLEY SLADE (1921 - 2000), that will see in the photos, it was one of them. She was trained with the purpose to fly with the Bell P-39 Airacobra and with the bombardier Martin B-26 Marauders. Both the P-39 that the B-26 are notoriously airplanes very difficult to manage, both in flight and to earth. The group counted 38 falls in mission, but the military honors were denied. Only in 2010, after a long civil battle in court, the WASP has gotten, but collectively, the gold Medal of the Congress. To the ceremony less than 200 were the present ladies, remained still in life. Also in USSR, and in the Slavic world generally, the women were hocked, and not few, in fight, both to earth and in sky. They remembers, for instance, the famous Russian fighting pilots “Witches of the Night.”