[WASP Clippings Scrapbook] Page: 3 of 78
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Second
windDUN LIIkHROCK
Former WASP takes wing again
as flight instructor
By Mary Uhrbrockomen should be allowed to
fly any military plane,
according to Lois Hollings-
worth Ziler, a WASP (member of the
Women's Airforce Service Pilots)
during WWII. "Women make as good
pilots as men, or better," she asserts.
Should women take on combat
duty? Ziler pauses, remembering
back 50 years. "At that point, if some-
one had given me a P-51 and told me
to shoot down the enemy, I would
have had at it. Now, I realize a woman
has better things to do than kill people
and break things."
Today, the grandmother of four
thinks raising a family is the most
important thing a person can do-but
she's also back to her first passion.
She teaches at her own Holly Flying
School in Dell City, 80 miles east of
El Paso, Texas. Once a month she
flies with the Civil Air Patrol.
At a recent WASP 50-year reunion
in Sweetwater, Texas-site of the
group's 1943-44 training-various
Regionalvintage aircraft were on display. Ziler,
wearing her dress blues, strode across
the familiar airfield to scrutinize a
restored BT- 13. It sparked memories
of a lifetime of flying.
Ziler began building model air-
planes at age seven, about a year after
Lindbergh's historic Atlantic hop. She
soloed at age 16 in an open-cockpit
biplane -a Fleet with a Kinner
engine-and the following year
acquired her private pilot's license.
While still in high school she met
Amelia Earhart, who encouraged her
to study engineering at Purdue, where
Earhart was counselor in careers for
women and adviser in aeronautics.
Ziler enthusiastically enrolled for the
fall term-but before she got there,
Earhart left on what was to be her
final flight. Despite her disappoint-
ment, Ziler stayed on at Purdue to
earn a degree in mechanical engineer-
ing with an aeronautics option.
By fall 1942 the Army Air Forces
allowed women pilots to ferry planes,releasing male pilots for combat duty.
Under the leadership of famed avia-
tor Jacqueline Cochran, the group
gained recognition as the WASPs, and
Ziler joined their ranks in January
1943. Her class was the first to
demonstrate that women pilots could
handle tasks other than ferrying
planes. After training in Sweetwater,
Camp Davis in North Carolina and
Liberty Field in Georgia, Ziler moved
to Biggs Field at Fort Bliss near El
Paso, where she towed targets for
anti-aircraft weapons practice and
helped train radar and searchlight
crews (". . . night flying was terribly
demanding," she recalls).
On December 20, 1944, the
WASPs were disbanded: "We were
told we were no longer needed," Ziler
recalls. "The U.S. wasn't losing pilots
at the same rate as in earlier years."
She went on to earn her instructor's
license and teach flying in El Paso.
After falling in love with one of her
students, and marrying him in 1946,
she put her flying career on hold to
raise three children. Now she's picked
up where she left off: behind the con-
trols high in the West Texas sky.
As for her time spent as a WASP:
"They let me fly those airplanes and
they paid me $250 a month. What
more could I ask?" 0MM February-March 1994
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[WASP Clippings Scrapbook], book, Date Unknown; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1009786/m1/3/?q=Lamar+University: accessed June 8, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting National WASP WWII Museum.