presents

airing nationally in primetime at 9pm on PBS May 24, 1999
check your local PBS Station for local airtime

In the midst of World War II, the call went out: women with flight experience were needed to fly for the military. All over the country, young women postponed their weddings, put their educations on hold, and quit their jobs to respond. From 1942 to 1944, more than 1,000 women were trained to ferry aircraft, test pilot planes, instruct male pilots, even tow targets for anti-aircraft artillery practice. They logged sixty million miles in the air, and thirty-eight died in service. Their opportunity to play a critical role in the war effort was abruptly cancelled by politics and resentment, however, and it would be thirty years before women would again break the sex barrier in the skies.

Featured in this hour long documentary are WASP Ann Carl, WASP Dora Strother, WASP Madge Minton, WASP Marty Weil, WAF Teresa James, WAF Barbara Erickson London, Col. Paul Tibblitts, BGen. Chuck Yeager, and Robert Arnold, Hap Arnold's grandson.  

The FLY GIRLS Website will debut May 21. 
(you will be able to link on that date)
Visit this site to:• hear from the women who took to the skies• explore the planes they flew• learn about the changing role of women in the US military

For more information, please contact

Lisa Cerqueira
WGBH, Boston
617-492-2777 x5334
lisa_cerqueira@wgbh.org