D. Clarke Evans Photographer

Maxine Edmondson Flournoy

Pilot, Women’s Airforce Service Pilot
1943-1944

Maxine Flournoy
Hondo Field. Texas 1943

As WASPs, we did everything our male partners did except combat training.

I was born in Wheaton, Missouri on March 30, 1921. I obtained my pilot’s license in 1941 through the Civil Pilot Training program at Joplin Junior College when the program offered 10% of its training slots to women.

I was working at a defense plant in 1943, making dies for bullet shell casings, when I was contacted by a WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) recruiter to join the group. I volunteered and completed flight training in 1943 at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas as part of class 43-W-8. I flew a variety of aircraft, including the PT-19, BT-15, and the AT-6 in a six-month training program. As WASPs, we did everything our male partners did except combat training.

After graduation I was assigned to the navigation school at Hondo Army Air Field in Texas where I lived in the barracks with the other women pilots. I trained cadet navigators in the Beechcraft C-45, also known by its military designation as the AT-7. I flew on long distance graduation flights, often to Los Angeles, and helped trainees hone their navigation skills before flying under combat conditions. I also flew missions testing aircraft engines and delivering aircraft across the country. We were the first women to fly U.S. military aircraft. Thirty-eight of my fellow pilots were killed, 11 in training accidents and 27 in the line of duty.

Some of us were sent to an officer training school in Orlando, Florida where we were issued the first Santiago blue uniforms along with the shoulder bag. The WASPs were deactivated in December, 1944. We served in a civil service capacity without official military benefits.

After the war I was hired as a company pilot in Alice, Texas, where I met Lucien Flournoy, a petroleum engineer. After a year of dating, we were married. When I had my first child, I didn’t fly again for 20 years. In the 1960s I rediscovered my passion for aviation and flew a family-owned Cessna 337 across the country to WASP reunions. I did that up into the 1980s.

I was a Texas historical commissioner, and was appointed to the World USO board by former President Jimmy Carter and attended meetings in many different countries. The Naval base in Ingleside has named a USO room the Maxine Flournoy USO. I also served as the president of the WASP Association, The Order of Fifinella, for two years from 2000-2002.

Lucien and I donated an airplane hangar to the Third Coast Squadron Commemorative Air Force and they renamed it after me. The hangar houses aircraft that fly in several shows as well as a military museum which holds an induction ceremony each year. I was also awarded a baton from the U.S. Army parachute team, the Golden Knights.

In March 2010, I traveled to Washington, D.C. as part of the WASP group to accept the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation’s highest civilian award, in recognition for our role in breaking flying and gender barriers. The medal is in the Smithsonian and we each received a bronze replica.

Lucien and I were married for 56 years until his death in 2003. I have three daughters and 11 grandchildren. {07-16-2019 • Corpus Christi, TX}