What We Are Reading Today: The Women with Silver Wings by Katherine Sharp Landdeck

What We Are Reading Today: The Women with Silver Wings by Katherine Sharp Landdeck
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Updated 11 February 2020
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What We Are Reading Today: The Women with Silver Wings by Katherine Sharp Landdeck

What We Are Reading Today: The Women with Silver Wings by Katherine Sharp Landdeck

This is the thrilling true story of the daring female aviators who helped the US win World War II — only to be forgotten by the country they served.

In The Women with Silver Wings, historian Katherine Sharp Landdeck introduces us to these young women as they meet even-tempered, methodical Nancy Love and demanding visionary Jacqueline Cochran, the trailblazing pilots who first envisioned sending American women into the air, and whose rivalry would define the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs), according to review published on goodreads.com.

While not authorized to serve in combat, the WASPs helped train male pilots for service abroad and ferried bombers across the country. Thirty-eight of them would not survive the war. 

But even taking into account these tragic losses, Love and Cochran’s social experiment seemed to be a resounding success —until, with the tides of war turning and fewer male pilots needed in Europe, Congress clipped the women’s wings.