Cynthia Cartier - Wings

“You can get all tied up if you want. It’s your choice. You’ve worked hard to be ready for today.”

“It’s not the crash, well not just the crash. I’ve never flown alone,” Bet confessed.

“What?”

“I’ve never actually soloed, no one else in the plane, never just me.”

Liddy shook her head at Bet. “There’s other girls who haven’t soloed.”

“I just can’t do this.”

“Look, Bet, male cadets come into pilot training for the Army without having flown at all. You’ve had the same instruction they get, and then some. You just need to get up there and do what you know how to do.”

“I’m not ready. You don’t understand. It’s like breathing to you. I just feel like there’s something, some mystery that I haven’t figured out yet, that someone forgot to tell me, and if I go up alone, I’m going to realize what it is and it’ll be too late.”

“There’s no mystery, Bet. You can do this. I know you can, but not doing it is an option.”

“But I want to do it.”

“You just said you didn’t want to do it.”

“No, I said I can’t do it.”

“Well you’re wrong there. You can.” Liddy held Bet by the shoulders. “You can, you can, you can!”

Liddy walked with Bet to the bays to grab their gear. She tried to get Bet’s mind off her solo, but her little friend kept asking questions about angles, patterns and speeds like she was in a race for information. Bet didn’t trust herself in the air and Liddy no longer trusted herself on the ground. Both of them needed to get a grip.

The soloing class marched past the wishing well and each of them flipped a coin into the air above the water. As they hit the surface, it looked like it was being pierced with a storm of big fat rain drops.

The troop continued to the flight boards where they lined up in front of the base command. Colonel Wate addressed the class, “Ladies, there was an awful tragedy today. It is a loss for which we are all deeply saddened. But the acceptance of certain risks is a fact of any line of military service. It is necessary that we do not let these events deter us from moving forward with the training for which you have all sacrificed so much.” The Colonel had to take some pauses, but he eventually got through what he had to say. Then he sent the trainees out to the line.

Liddy, Bet, Louise and Carla sat on a bench waiting for Lewis Gant to speak. He ran his hands through his hair and then set them on his hips. Gant was shaken, but he still offered up a gruff and somehow encouraging pep talk to their flight group, minus one, “You will lift, circle the pattern and shoot three landings. Whatever you do, don’t get up there and panic yourself out of landing at all. When I was in the CPT a student did just that. He flew round and round the field until he ran out of gas, stalled and crashed. Get up, get down. Alright who wants to go first?”

Liddy stood up as Gant knew she would. “Okay, Hall, show them how it’s done.”

Liddy walked out to the strip as the others looked on. She took off without hesitation and traveled the pattern. She came in and greased her first landing. Took off again, brought it back down and greased number two. Up again and back in for number three.

“Boy, she makes it look easy,” said Bet.

“It is easy,” said Louise, and she squeezed Bet’s hand. “You’re gonna do great.”

Louise and Carla went up and sailed in smoothly.

Bet slowly rose from the bench, walked over to Liddy and rubbed the top of her head.

“Maybe you’d better try Louie this time,” Liddy scrunched up her face to lighten Bet’s mood.

Bet decided she’d take no chances. “Give it up, HPs.”

The three women tilted their heads forward and Bet proceeded to rub, for luck, down the line.

Bet was in the cockpit and ran through her check. As she scooted down the runway, she ran everything she knew about flying through her mind like a scroll. She made it into the air just fine but with so much to do and see, Bet was at a loss with only one pair of eyes. She kept reading the scroll as she circled and approached for her first landing.

The waiting audience hummed a mantra, “She can do it. She can do it.”

Carla couldn’t stand the suspense and covered her eyes. Liddy and Louise looked on with faith.

Bet lined up and brought it down slowly. “You can, you can, you can,” Bet repeated Liddy’s words to herself. When the wheels hit, she timed the touch-down until she knew she had to pull up and sail around again. And off she went for her second pattern.

Liddy and Louise smiled big and Carla peaked up through her fingers and asked, “Did she do it?”

“One landing down, two to go,” said Liddy.

Carla sat up and watched the rest of Bet’s flight.

The crotch of the trainees’ zoot suits were hanging around their knees from the weight of the soaked fabric. Liddy and Joy Lynn grabbed Bet and tossed her in. When the soggy redhead got back to her feet, her eyes lit with triumph. She threw her arms up and waved them wildly as she kicked the water into the air before she fished on the bottom to find a coin. She found one and held it to the sky and the trainees all jumped in. They dosey doed each other until they spotted Lewis Gant in the distance. They knew what they must do. Hurdling out of the pool, they made a run for the little guy, carried him to the well and threw him in.

Death, then victory, then celebration, it felt strange, but necessary. Liddy thought about the men she knew that came back from the war and never danced or laughed again and the men that came back and did. That’s what living is, she thought, to just keep living.

After what happened to Ruby the very day their class was to solo, Liddy really wasn’t sure if Bet could pull herself together. But she never let on. Bet had to dig deep for what she needed to get through; Liddy knew that. When she did, no one was more pleased or impressed than Liddy.

Losing a friend, a classmate, ‘soldiering’ on, soloing, it was a huge day for everyone. Training solo became the norm, and buddy rides followed—two trainees, no instructor, no Army pilot, just gals. Bet didn’t starve herself before every flight after solo day. Her confidence grew and so did her nails.

After their first solos they went directly to ground school. The trainees stood at the window of the classroom and watched as two coffins, one a pine box, were being loaded into a truck.

“A pine box?” Bet was appalled.

“Guess which one Ruby’s in?” said Joy Lynn.

“That’s what non-military get. No death benefits, no transport, escort or military burial, not even a flag,” said Louise.

“There’s a collection being taken to pay expenses for Ruby’s body to be shipped home and for Carla to travel as the escort.” Marina pressed her finger across her eyelids and wiped away the moisture.

“Sweetwater’s planning a memorial,” Liddy watched the tears stream down Bet’s face and she reached over and squeezed her hand. “Some of the gals were saying they always make sure it’s real nice.”

Captain Charles entered the room and coaxed the trainees to their desks, “Class, please, take your seats.”

The trainees settled in, but their minds wandered and thought of Ruby. One more classmate gone, how they wished it was because she had washed-out. And they wanted to know why she had crashed. It was somehow easier when you knew why, though they never did.

The next few weeks were sheeted with a sadness that took some of the snap out of the marching and some of the joy out of the flying. It was also a time of heightened awareness that this was risky business. Still the pace of checkrides, drilling and ground school didn’t leave room for much reflection. A craving for distraction ran through the base like spring fever, and this was the day.

The air control tower was shuffling its usual overload of traffic. Three civilian controllers, two men and a woman, sat at the radios communicating with the menagerie of planes in the sky.

“PT-13, hold your pattern.”

“All clear AT-6, bring her in.”

“BT-14, pull up and go around.”

The verbal dance was layered like a well made bed. One of the controllers leaned back in his chair and turned up his radio. He waved for the attention of his coworkers and called into his mike, “Repeat USAF40.”

A voice crackled from the speaker, “Army Air Force Pilot requesting permission for emergency landing for USAF Squadron 347…”

The controller shot a wink to his fellow bird wranglers.

The pilot continued, “… executing a cross country formation and have a rough engine. Need to check it out.”

The controllers grinned at one another and one of them asked, “Rough as in cutting out, or is it a steady bumping?”

“Confirming a combination of that description, sir.”

One of the controllers signaled to the other to keep up the stall. “Any smoke or flames USAF40?”

“Negative, but it’s a definite possibility.”

“We’ve got a lot of action down here officer. Are you aware that this is a training base for the Women Airforce Service Pilots?”

“Is that right, sir?”

“This base has one of the busiest air pockets in the country. There are female pilots everywhere. You say you just want to quick, check it out?”

“Yes, sir.”

The controller covered the mike with his hand and said, “I bet he wants to check it out.”

Eight Army Air Force Pilots landed and hopped out of their planes, collected their equipment and headed in from the flight line. It was unexpected landings like these that led Jackie Cochran to eventually close down the base to outside traffic. The success and reputation of her girls was nothing she was willing to gamble with. In the wake of her decision, Avenger Field took on the alternate name of Cochran’s Convent.