With hundreds of hours of flying experience, the Nashville native was one of the most experienced pilots in the country and while two other civilian planes were shot out of the sky she landed her plane and made it through Japanese strafing.
While working as a civilian pilot instructor at Pearl Harbor, Cornelia Fort inadvertently became one of the first witnesses to the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor t
On December 7, 1941, Fort was in the air near Pearl Harbor teaching takeoffs and landings to a student pilot in an Interstate Cadet monoplane.
Fort and her early-bird student, a military worker remembered today only by his last name—Suomala—were practicing touch-and-gos. Less than three miles to the northwest, Pearl Harbor and the U.S. fleet were visible, drowsing in the Sunday morning sunlight.
Hers and a few other civilian aircraft were the only U.S. planes in the air near the harbor at that time.
Fort saw a military airplane flying directly toward her and swiftly grabbed the controls from her student to pull up over the oncoming craft. It was then she saw the rising sun insignia on the wings. Within moments, she saw billows of black smoke coming from Pearl Harbor and bombers flying in.
She quickly landed the plane at John Rodgers civilian airport near the mouth of Pearl Harbor. The pursuing Zero strafed her plane and the runway as she and her student ran for cover. The airport manager was killed and two other civilian planes did not return that morning.
She was the second woman in Tennessee to get her commercial license and the first woman in Tennessee to get her instructors' license. She applied to many flying schools and was accepted as an instructor at a Colorado flight training school. While there, she was offered a position in Hawaii, which she accepted.
Why is this the first I've ever heard of her? Damn, history books either ignore her for being female, or don't research the actual events of the day to include all relevant people and facts.
The Cornelia Fort Airpark in East Nashville is named after her
Now this is history! Thanks so much.
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