in 1993, Katherine Landdeck, who was teaching history and government in exchange for free flying time at Tulsa’s Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology, went to the air show and met a living legend. WASP veteran Caro Bosca and Curtis Pitts, the famed aircraft designer of the Pitts Special. Bosca, a celebrated stunt pilot, flew B-25 Mitchell bombers during World War II.

 More than 25 years later, Landdeck, a history professor and director of the Pioneers Oral History Project at Texas Woman’s University, has augmented the record with her nonfiction book, “The Women With Silver Wings: The Inspiring True Story of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II.”

While none of the women fliers were permitted to fly overseas or in combat, they performed a number of missions on the home front, from ferrying new factory planes to shipping ports to participating in live target practice drills.

The surviving WASP members fought for and achieved belated military veteran status in 1977, but their story remained grounded in the footnotes of history. “These women realized they’d been forgotten,” Landdeck says.

“The Women With Silver Wings: The Inspiring True Story of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II”  448 pages

https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/books/book-salutes-the-all-female-squad-of-wwii-pilots-that-history-forgot

“Landdeck’s profiles of these daring World War II heroines are so brilliantly and vividly drawn that I felt as if I working alongside them—ferrying bombers, towing flying shooting targets (a potentially deadly exercise), and piloting difficult aircraft that the men were too terrified to attempt. The Women with Silver Wings is not just an important slice of history, it’s a thrilling page-turner that explores the patriotism, sexism, and camaraderie of the WASPs’ world.”—Karen Abbott, New York Times bestselling author of The Ghosts of Eden Park

“Every now and again a truly path-breaking book comes along that completely revises our understanding of the American experience in World War II. This is definitely one of those books! Landdeck has produced a well written, richly researched tour de force about a remarkable group of aviation pioneers. The Women With Silver Wings is bound to become a classic and it will stand the test of time as the best history of the WASPs. I highly recommend it.”—John C. McManus, Ph.D., Curators’ Distinguished Professor, Missouri University of Science and Technology and author of Fire and Fortitude: The U.S. Army in the Pacific War, 1941-1943