Elaine D. Harmon, a former pilot of the Women Airforce Service Pilots program, walks through the “Fly Girls of World War II” exhibit in 2008 at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial in Arlington, Va. Harmon was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday. But when Ms. Harmon passed away a year ago, her family was surprised to find that a rule had been passed prohibiting WASPs from being interred there.
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Waiting to fulfill the dying wish of Harmon, one of a dwindling number of Women Airforce Service Pilots – WASPs – who flew military planes during World War II.
Her inurnment at the nation’s top military cemetery came after a battle, led by her granddaughter Erin Miller and others, to reverse an inexplicable decision made in 2015 by then-Secretary of the Army John McHugh, who determined that WASPs should not have been allowed in 2002 to have their ashes interred in Arlington. Harmon’s family fought the rule.
“So today is about honoring my grandmother and the legacy of the WASP here at Arlington National Cemetery”, she said.
After Harmon saw the first such funeral, The Washington Post reports, she knew that’s what she wanted.
Altogether about one thousand American women served as WASPs between 1942 and 1944.
“I said, ‘Carlos, I’m so happy you care about this issue but only one person can take the lead – do you have wings and ovaries?'” she said, referring to a conversation she had on the House floor with fellow Republican, Florida Rep. Carlos Curbelo. They received support from around the country.
Then, she showed Congress that women should be treated as proper veterans when she testified for the recognition of the WASPs and finally got what she was seeking in 1977.
“Please know how much she helped change the world”, Maj.
The legislation was sponsored by Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., herself a retired Air Force pilot who was the first female fighter pilot in US history to fly in combat.
There are fewer than 100 surviving WASPs, but all will now be able to apply to have their ashes inurned at Arlington. The times she told them she was fed up with the Air Force and wanted to quit, they yelled at her. “The men would sit in the seat and not be able to see outside the airplane, so they had to learn to fly the plane without being able to see outside, just relying on their instruments – and she told me her job was to make sure they didn’t crash into Mount Charleston”.
Harmon is finally at rest in her rightful burial place. “These were feisty, brave, adventurous, patriotic women, ” she says.
Elaine Harmon, her cremains in a carved wooden box, was honored with a three-volley salute, a color guard and the playing of Taps, while World War II-era warplanes flown by volunteers flew overhead. The family had kept her ashes in a bedroom closet while they worked to get Arlington’s exclusionary policy overturned.
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And the Chick Fighter Pilots (a real association) were there to tell them how much she meant to them, too.
