Today is the Day

In 2003 Caro Bayley Bosca and Marty Wyall came to town and I invited them to dinner at my home. I cooked steaks, Caro played with my new puppy, and we talked about life in the years after the war. Caro's good friend (and mine too!) Sherry Ringler was there with us and Caro and Marty got frustrated with our questions. Why hadn't they ever talked about their time in the WASP with their friends and children, we asked. Caro said, "now listen," as she did when she really wanted you to pay attention then told us none of her friends would have cared. Marty scolded us, asking if we'd ever had dinner with four little children. Life was busy and mother's adventures weren't important. I didn't have kids at the time, but I thought I understood. Then I had kids, and I understood why they worked so hard to make me understand. This picture is in my home office at the time with banners WASP Shutsy Reynolds made hanging on the wall behind us. It was a great night.

Today is the day The Women With Silver Wings: The Inspiring True Story of the Women Airforce Service Pilots is being released into the wild. I met my first WASP, Caro Bayley Bosca, on a sunny day in June 1993. I tell the story elsewhere, but I still remember driving home with the wind blowing through the open windows of my old VW Bug and having a little flutter of excitement in my stomach. This was it. This was what I wanted to do. I wanted to learn about and write about these women who had flown in World War II and then went on to do more after the war. I never imagined that nearly 27 years and countless articles, documentaries, and even a Tournament of Roses Parade float later, I’d have a book that followed them from the 1930s through the war and all the way to 2016.

I will use this website and this little blog to share information about the WASP and tell stories about some of the women who didn’t make it into the book. I’ll go a bit further on a few of the stories that are in the book, too. Check in when you can, and I’ll try to have some interesting new tidbits – stories and some new pictures – for you to enjoy.

Thanks for your interest in the WASP!

KSL