Sweetwater, Texas -
National WASP Museum and Site

National WASP Museum and Site

The National WASP Museum is part of Texas State Technical College. [David Meznarich, 07/25/2010]

National WASP Museum and Site

As more men joined the war effort, more women took Home Front jobs once considered for males only. In 1942, that trend took to the air when the U.S. Army Air Forces launched the civilian Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program. From 1942 to 1944, these first women to fly U.S. military planes logged 60 million miles, ferrying military aircraft to bases nationwide. They also opened the way for women in the Air Force. WASP pilots trained at Sweetwater Army Air Field (Avenger Field).

Today, Avenger Field is a municipal airfield and campus of Texas State Technical College. A monument on the campus bears the names of 1,074 women pilots who received their WASP silver wings here. A low-relief memorial sculpture honors the 38 women pilots who died in service. A 1929 hangar near the campus is the home of the National WASP WWII Museum, where exhibits tell the pioneer pilots' stories. [James Farquhar, 11/06/2006]

[RA: The WASP Museum opened in May 2005, an expansion and improvement over the modest facility we visited in 2002, pictured here.]