Clipped Wings

by Molly Merryman

In Clipped Wings, Molly Merryman draws upon military documents, many of which were declassified only in the 1980s, congressional records, and numerous interviews with former WASPs to trace the history of the hundreds of pilots who served their country as the first women to fly military planes. Importantly, Merryman examines the social pressures that culminated in their disbandment in 1944, even though a wartime need for their services still existed, and documents their struggles and eventual success - in 1977 - to gain military status and receive veterans' benefits. Clipped Wings recovers the history of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II while shedding light on larger questions of women's participation in the military and the ways in which social upheavals such as war affect the social construction of gender.