Cornelia Clark Fort - W.A.S.P.

[Phil Perry]

Cornelia Clark Fort was a flight instructor on Oahu who was conducting flight training with a student in an Interstate Cadet aircraft on December 7, 1941, when Fort saw a military airplane on a collision course and swiftly grabbed the controls from her student to pull up over the oncoming aircraft. It was then she saw the rising sun insignia on the wings.

 

She quickly landed at John Rodgers airport near the mouth of Pearl Harbour. A pursuing Zero strafed her plane and the runway as she and her student ran for cover.

The experience changed her forever, later becoming the second member of what was to be the Women Airforce Service Pilots or WASP.

Today marks the #80thAnniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, a sobering reminder of the devastation of war that led to the formal entry of the United States into #WorldWarII.

 

Fort remarked of her service,

 

"I, for one, am profoundly grateful that my one talent, my only knowledge, flying, happens to be of use to my country when it is needed. That’s all the luck I ever hope to have."