Yellow Pages
A Congressional Gold Medal for longtime Anacortes resident Lois Auchterlonie and about 300 surviving members of the Women Airforce Service Pilots who served the country during World War II awaits the approval of President Barack Obama.
The measure authorizing the award in recognition of the women’s war service passed by unanimous consent in the U.S. Senate May 20 and by voice vote in the House of Representatives June 16.
U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, said the honor is well-deserved.
“The women of the Women Airforce Service Pilots were not just part of the Greatest Generation, they were trailblazers who had a tremendous impact on the role of women in the military today,” the senator said in a press release. “By honoring these American heroines with the Congressional Gold Medal, we can finally commend and celebrate their courage, loyalty and service to country that brought about a historic change in our armed services and our nation.”
Auchterlonie is one of 1,074 women who served in the Women Airforce Service Pilots during World War II.
About a dozen live in Washington state. Others from the area who share the honor are Mary “Pat” Hiller Call of Mount Vernon and Margaret E. Neyman Martin of Oak Harbor, according to a list provided by Cantwell’s office this spring.
Now in her early 90s, Auchterlonie is in frail health and no longer living in Anacortes. She grew up in Wichita, Kansas, the home of Boeing, Cessna and Beech, and like many residents she dreamed of flying.
“When I had the opportunity, I took it,” she said in a 2006 interview with the Anacortes American.
She took flight training offered by her college and then was invited to apply for the WASP.
She graduated from training in December 1943 and was assigned to Williams Field, Ariz., where she flight tested AT-6 planes after they underwent any mechanical work or engine changes.
“The job was to get the airplane back on the flight line. It was a lot of flights,” she said.
WASP fliers worked hard to free up male pilots to go into combat. The first American women to pilot military aircraft, they flew non-combat missions, racking up more than 60 million miles around the world.
“We’d have to work all weekends. It was six-day weeks, sometimes seven. You’d fly 20 minutes then get out of that plane and get in another,” she said.
The ground-breaking effort of the WASP opened doors to places formerly closed to women. Auchterlonie said she was particularly pleased to see women go into space.
“If we hadn’t broken the ice, it would have been longer before they got to it,” she said.
Following the war, female pilots were ordered to leave the military.
Recognition of their contribution was a long time coming. Women who lost their lives while serving their country were denied military honors, and surviving pilots were denied military benefits until 1977.
