A Lady Aviator You Should Know

Cornelia Fort, Pilot, Witness to History (Source)

If you've seen the movie Tora! Tora! Tora!, you might remember the scene in the movie where it's the morning of the 7th of December, and...

Well, why don't we just watch the scene, sorry, I couldn't find it in English...

That scene is based on a true story, the lady instructor pilot, shown in the movie as a middle-aged woman, was actually the lady pictured in the opening photo, Miss Cornelia Fort, 22, of Nashville, Tennessee. The aircraft in the movie is also not quite right. The movie has a Stearman Kaydet, Miss Fort and her student were actually flying one of these -

Interstate Cadet (Source)

I came across Miss Fort's story the other day while reading up on Pearl Harbor. Seems she was quite a woman. Here's part of her story, from a Sunday morning in December of 1941 -

Fort noticed a military aircraft approaching from the sea. At first that didn't strike her as unusual; Army planes were a common sight in the skies above Hawaii. But at the last moment, she realized this aircraft was different and that it had set itself on a collision course with her plane. She wrenched the controls from her student's grasp and managed to pull the plane up just in time to avoid a mid-air crash. As she looked around she saw the red sun symbol on the wings of the disappearing plane and in the distance, probably not more than a quarter mile away, billowing smoke was rising over Pearl Harbor. (Source)

Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Miss Fort was contacted by Jackie Cochrane, another female aviator, asking her to join the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Service. Which she did, going on to serve her country for just a short while until she was involved in a mid-air collision during a ferry mission to Love Field in Dallas.

That's Jackie Cochrane on the right.
Display at the San Diego Air and Space Museum.

In those days women weren't allowed to fly on active duty, of the 38 women flyers who perished in the line of duty while performing duty as ferry pilots during World War II, none received any recognition for their service, the Army wouldn't even pay for their burial costs!

We've come far since those days, female pilots are not rare at all these days. The ladies have shown they can hold their own. In fact, were Miss Fort alive today, no doubt she would be flying fighters. Here's what a nephew remembers of her -

In Dr. Fort’s telling, Aunt Cornelia emerges as a feisty, very modern woman who drank scotch, smoked cigarettes, and fought with Dr. Fort’s father over politics, religion, and whether any member of the Fort family, let alone a woman, should be flying when their father (also a physician) had been so against it. In the 1920s, the first Dr. Fort had summoned his three sons into his study to take an oath that they would never fly. Soon after her father’s death, in 1940, Cornelia announced that, because she had been too young and a girl, she was exempt from the Fort family oath. She then revealed that she’d been taking flying lessons. (Source)

Sounds like a fighter pilot to me!

There are some good articles about or with references to Miss Fort, here, here, here, and here. Cornelia Fort is a lady we should be familiar with and whose memory we should honor.

If the ladies want to fly, they should fly.

Right ladies?

Damn straight!