Dorothy H. Davis; Pilot in WW II
Dorothy H. Davis, one of the first women to fly military combat aircraft overseas during World War II, has died at age 77 in San Francisco.
Friends said the veteran of the Women Air Force Service Pilots had suffered from Parkinson’s disease and cancer. She died Wednesday.
Miss Davis was among about 1,000 who earned wings to fly with WASP, a special unit activated to allow more men to fly in combat. WASPs flew trackings and searchlight missions, towed targets for male pilots and ferried planes.
Miss Davis, a retired Veterans Administration official, was born in Illinois, reared in North Carolina and moved to San Francisco after her tour of duty, which lasted from 1942 to 1944.
“We were the first,” Miss Davis recalled in a 1993 interview, commenting on reports that the Air Force was poised to train American women to fly military combat aircraft. “We were flying combat planes and just about every other plane they had back then.”
The WASPs were disbanded as World War II wound down, but the nation refused to recognize them as veterans for the purpose of disability and other benefits.
In the late 1970s, Miss Davis led a successful campaign to have the government recognize WASP fliers as military service veterans.
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