Local WASPs finally get their due
| Tuesday, Mar 16 2010 07:46 PM
Last Updated Tuesday, Mar 16 2010 07:50 PM
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Longtime Kern County resident Betty Thompson Sharr flew military aircraft in the Women Airforce Service Pilots in 1944. She died in 1984. Sharr and more than 1,100 other WASPs were honored last week at a ceremony in Washington, D.C.
Evelyn Sharp, a member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, was killed in April 1944 when a twin-engine fighter plane she was flying crashed near Middletown, Pa.
One gave flying lessons in Bakersfield before she donned a uniform and began piloting military aircraft during World War II.
The other came to live in Kern County after similarly serving her country -- by transporting fighter planes and bombers to where they were needed most.
Evelyn Sharp and Betty Thompson, later Betty Thompson Sharr, both volunteered to fly for the Women Airforce Service Pilots, known as WASP.
Sharp, Sharr and nearly three-quarters of the more than 1,100 WASPs who served proudly during World War II are no longer living. But they along with all of their comrades, living or dead, were honored last week in the nation's capital, an honor that many believe was long overdue.
About 175 of the fewer than 300 living WASP members attended the touching ceremony -- many in wheelchairs. Congressional Gold Medals were bestowed on all the pilots and their families, said Nancy Parrish, executive director of Texas-based Wings Across America, an organization dedicated to honoring the female pilots of World War II and the contributions they made to the history of military aviation.
"I think Abraham Lincoln said any nation that does not honor its heroes will not last," she said. "This is an important, inspiring story. This is the kind of message that should ring loud and clear."
The women pilots paid their own way home after they were abruptly disbanded in late 1944. But they didn't serve for the money, Parrish said. They served because their country needed them.
Unlike their male counterparts in uniform, the WASPs were given no military benefits. But their service freed up male pilots to go directly to combat areas where they were desperately needed.
EVELYN SHARP
More than 30 WASPs died in aviation related accidents. One of them was Sharp.
On April 3, 1944, Sharp was to fly a Lockheed P-38 from an airstrip in Pennsylvania to Newark, N.J., when her plane lost power during takeoff, according to a story published the following day in The Californian. The young aviatrix was killed in the resulting crash. She was only 24.
Sharp grew up in Nebraska where she developed an early love of flying. She was in her mid-teens when she earned her pilot's license. For a time, Sharp was a flight instructor at what was then known as Kern County Airport.
BETTY THOMPSON SHARR
Sharr was born in 1917 in Orange, N.J. Like Sharp, she was bitten by the aviation bug early in life. While working as a secretary for the owner of the Haven Flying School in Schenectady, N.Y., she obtained her private pilot's license. In 1944, she was accepted as a WASP trainee, according to her family.
Kern River Valley residents Weldon and Laurie Sharr were in the nation's capital last week to receive the Gold Medal on behalf of Weldon's mother, Betty Thompson Sharr.
"The ceremony was absolutely thrilling," Mrs. Sharr said. "Most of those women are now in their 80s and 90s. To see the look on their faces ..."
Speakers included U.S. senators, members of the House and Tom Brokaw, author of "The Greatest Generation."
The former pilots who attended were brought in with their own personal military escort.
"Many recognized each other from so many years ago, and launched into war stories of the past," Mrs. Sharr said. "One that stood out for us was four ladies in wheelchairs who immediately recognized each other, circled their chairs and were oblivious to anybody else while they told stories of the past and caught up."
After the war, Betty obtained her teaching credential, worked for a while as a traffic controller and taught aviation ground school at Meadows Field.
Later she married a rancher, Weldon L. Sharr, and lived out the rest of her life in the mountain valleys of Kern.
She died in 1984, long before she could bask in the honor so belatedly afforded her and her comrades for the unique and selfless service they provided.
When a WASP was killed on duty, "they had to pass the hat to get the money to send the bodies of their fallen comrades home for burial," Mrs. Sharr said. "And when their service ended they were told to find their own way home.
"But I noticed at the ceremonies not one of those wonderful ladies was made bitter by their treatment," she said. "They were just proud to serve their country."
