Swimming with the WASPs
Jun 12, 2015
By Elizabeth Borja
As summer heats up in Washington, DC, swimming pool attendance skyrockets. For Women Air Service Pilots (WASPs) training to fly military aircraft during World War II at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas, a dip in the pool was more than fun and games. For any pilot, there exists the possibility of an aircraft going down over water. To prepare, WASPs without any swimming abilities were enrolled in a regular swimming class.
Women Air Service Pilots (WASPs) training to fly military aircraft during World War II at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas, attend regular swimming classes. For any pilot, there exists the possibility of an aircraft going down over water. To prepare, WASPs without any swimming abilities were enrolled in swimming class.
The reality of a water landing or parachute jump is that a pilot will still be wearing all of her clothes. WASPs trained for that scenario by jumping into the pool fully clothed.
Women Air Service Pilots (WASPs) training to fly military aircraft during World War II at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas, a dip in the pool was more than fun and games. For any pilot, there exists the possibility of an aircraft going down over water. To prepare, WASPs without any swimming abilities were enrolled in a regular swimming class.
Women Air Service Pilots (WASPs) training to fly military aircraft during World War II at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas, attend regular swimming classes. For any pilot, there exists the possibility of an aircraft going down over water. To prepare, WASPs without any swimming abilities were enrolled in swimming class.
Training time in the pool was commemorated in a poem in Bernice Falk Haydu’s 318th WASP Yearbook, a rhyming laundry list of common experiences and slang:
“Zoot suits
Parachutes
Turbans white
It ain’t right
Flight Line
Mess Time…
Ground School
Swimming pool
Just can’t think
In stinky Link
Hairnets too
Glamour’s few…
Dirt on floor
Sweep some more
Shots and such
Don’t help much
BUT DAMN IT ALL WE GRADUATE—”
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