West Texas WWII Museums

17/09/2024

17/09/2024

🇺🇲 WWII uncovered: Mildred "Micky" Axton Makes Aviation History: First to Pilot the B-29

Mildred "Micky" Axton, of Coffeyville Kansas, earned her pilot's license in 1940 and was the only woman in her class in the Civilian Pilot Training program at Coffeyville Community College in Kansas.

In 1943 Micky joined the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) 43-W-7 training class. After graduation she was assigned to Pecos Army Airfield Base in Texas. She was one of the first three Women Airforce Service Pilots to be trained as a test pilot as well as a ferry pilot. In 1944 she left the WASP program and went to work at the Boeing Aircraft Plant in Wichita Kansas as a flight test engineer.

According to the Boeing Aircraft Archives: "On May 4, 1944, she was one of the crew of nine aboard "Sweet Sixteen," the 16th of 1,644 B-29s rolled out from the Wichita plant.

"I was back in the aft flight blister when Elton Rowley (chief of engineering flight test) called back over the intercom and said, 'Micky, how'd you like to come and fly this thing?' I was just absolutely in hog heaven!" she recalled.

"So I put my parachute on my back and crawled through the tunnel which was over the bomb bay, to the front. He gave me the left seat and I flew the plane," Axton said. "The problem was, it was all so top secret. I could only tell my husband." Rowley did write a letter, however, verifying her feat. Micky Axton had just made history as the first woman to pilot a B-29" - Boeing Frontiers, May 2006, Volume 5, Issue 1

"On May 21, 1979, that WASP members received retroactive status as military veterans. During their service, they delivered more than 12,000 aircraft and logged more than 60 million miles in more than 70 types of airplanes, including Douglas and Boeing bombers. Eleven were killed during training and 27 more died during active duty."

"The Commemorative Air Force Jayhawk Wing in Wichita restored a Fairchild PT-19 and renamed it "Miss Micky" to honor Axton." Micky passed away on February 6, 2010 at the age of 91. A trailblazer in her own right, Micky will always be remembered as the first woman pilot to fly the B-29. Lest We Forget.




WWII uncovered©️ original description and photo sourced by: US Army, Boeing Frontiers, May 2006, Volume 5, Issue 1, Eisenhower Presidential Library, Ancestry Database and US Department of Defense (Fair Use Photo)

19/04/2024

Today, we share an aerial shot from AirVenture 2017 featuring 11 B-25 Mitchell medium bombers. This gathering of B-25s commemorated the brave men who served in the Doolittle Raid on April 18, 1942, which occurred 82 years ago today.

This raid marked the initial response to the attack on Pearl Harbor and showcased the U.S. military's capability to strike Japan's homeland through air forces.

📷 Chris Miller

01/12/2023

Ola Mildred Rexroat (August 28, 1917 – June 28, 2017) was the only Native American woman to serve in the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP).[1][2]
Rexroat was born in Argonia, Kansas, to a Euro-American father and an Oglala mother. The family moved to South Dakota when she was young, and she spent at least part of her youth on the Pine Ridge Reservation.[3] She attended public school in Wynona, Oklahoma, for a time, and graduated from the St. Mary's Episcopal Indian School in Springfield, South Dakota, in 1932.[4] Rexroat initially enrolled in a teachers college in Chadron, Nebraska, but left before completing her degree to work for what is now the Bureau of Indian Affairs for a year.[5] She earned a bachelor's degree in art from the University of New Mexico in 1939.[4] After college, she again worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Gallup, New Mexico for a year.[5]
Rexroat next worked for engineers building airfields, where she decided to learn how to fly. In order to do so, she would need her own airplane or to join the WASPs. Selecting the latter, she moved to Washington, D.C., with her mother and sisters, and was also employed at the Army War College.[5] Rexroat then went for WASP training in Sweetwater, Texas, and was assigned the dangerous job of towing targets for aerial gunnery students at Eagle Pass Army Airfield after her graduation.[6] She also helped transport cargo and personnel. When the WASPs were disbanded in December 1944, she joined the Air Force, where she served for ten years as an air traffic controller at Kirkland Air Force Base in New Mexico during the Korean War.[2][6][7] She continued to work as an air traffic controller for the Federal Aviation Administration for 33 years after her time in the Air Force Reserves was complete.[5]
In 2007 she was inducted into the South Dakota Aviation Hall of Fame.[8]
Rexroat died in June 2017 at the age of 99.[9] Immediately before her death she was the last surviving WASP in South Dakota and one of 275 living WASPs out of the original 1,074.[10] Several months after her death, the airfield operations building at Ellsworth Air Force Base was named after her.

11/08/2023

The WASPs trained at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, TX. Their story is told at the WASP Museum, Exit 240 of I-20.

It’s time for Tour the Vault Tuesday!
Before his historic flight as pilot of the “Enola Gay,” Lt. Col. Paul W. Tibbets, Jr (center) could not get his
men to willingly fly the B-29. Unlike its predecessors, the Superfortress was hastily taken from the
design to final product and had more than its fair share of issues (including its engines regularly catching fire). So, he recruited elsewhere.
Soon Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) Dorothea Johnson Moorman (left) and Dora Dougherty
Strother (right) were piloting the heavy bomber “Ladybird,” complete with Fifinella, their unit emblem,
painted on the side. The two women performed demonstration tours by ferrying pilots, crew chiefs, and navigators around New Mexico. The experiment got Lt. Col. Tibbets the result he wanted. With their
self-image on the line, the men stepped up in response to the challenge and, with a new eagerness,
discovered the aircraft not a formidable foe but a smooth, almost delicate friend in the air.
August 2023 is the 80th Anniversary of the establishment of Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). The program lasted from August 1943 to December 1944, with more than 1,000 female civilian pilots who flew every aircraft in the US Army Air Forces.

06/08/2023

A new blog post is up now in the Avenger News section of our website in memory of Devyn Reiley. To read this dedication from Margaret DiBenedetto and Nancy Reynolds, daughters of WASP Ruth Reynolds Franckling 43-W-2, visit waspmuseum.org.

15/07/2023

25/06/2023

DIY Ice cream in WW2🍦😋
One squadron commander, J. Hunter Reinburg, figured he could raise morale among his men if he could fix one of his F4U Corsair fighter bombers to become a high-altitude ice cream maker.

His crews cut the ends off a drop tank, created a side access panel, and strung a .50-caliber ammo can in the panel. He put canned milk and cocoa powder into the container.

Reinburg then set off to climb into the freezing sky above 25,000 ft and come back with 5 gallons of ice cream. ❄️

Upon his return, the mixture in the tank was more like thick chocolate milk than ice cream. However, the Marines devoured it anyway!
Source: War History Oline

16/05/2023

Workers attach the mighty R-2800 Double Wasp engine to an F4U Corsair at the Vought factory in Stratford Connecticut, 1943.

The XF4U-1 prototype was the very first aircraft to be designed around the Pratt and Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp engine. This beast of an engine was the heart of the F4U.

With 2,800 cubic inches (46 litres) of displacement and 18 cylinders, this mammoth put down over 1,800 hp. The engine spun a large 13 feet 4 inches (4.06 m) propeller.

On October 1, 1940, the XF4U was the first single-engine US fighter to exceed 400 mph. Not only was she fast in a straight line but also in a dive too, attaining speeds of up to 550 mph. https://planehistoria.com/wwii/f4u/