WAI Invites Members To #HonorTheWASP for Memorial Day 2023
May 11, 2023 – Women in Aviation International (WAI) members and friends will honor the valiant service of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) by visiting their graves and leaving an appropriate decoration in the form of flowers or other remembrances. In its sixth year, the #HonorTheWASP program was established by WAI to take place over the Memorial Day weekend each year.
“Our WAI members across the nation are grateful for the service and sacrifice of the formidable group of WASP who served so honorably during World War II. This group of brave and dedicated women risked their lives to do their part for the war effort and paved the way for so many of us to pursue our personal aviation dreams,” says WAI CEO Allison McKay.
WAI Chapters across the country have organized efforts to #HonorTheWASP near them, but you don’t have to be a WAI member to #HonorTheWASP. A database of WASP gravesites, including Google maps to their locations, may be found HERE. The original database was provided by Texas Woman’s University (TWU), the home of the Women Airforce Service Pilots archives, and is regularly augmented through research efforts of WAI staff. WAI also provides a commemorative tag that may be printed out and used by all. Also, search for your local WAI Chapter here to get involved: https://www.wai.org/chapters.
In each of the previous five years, #HonorTheWASP participants have visited and decorated nearly 100 WASP gravesites annually. WAI and TWU continue to improve the database and add WASP burial sites regularly.
Participants are asked to tweet a photograph of their visit and include who they visited and where they are located using the hashtag #HonorTheWASP. WAI will retweet all posts to its more than 22,000 Twitter followers and other social media outlets.
About the WASP: The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) were inducted into WAI’s International Pioneer Hall of Fame in 1993. The WASP flew for the U.S. Army Airforce from September 1942 to December 1944. Some 1,102 women wore the silver wings flying over 70 million miles and delivering 12,650 airplanes across the country during their time of operation.