Family members and friends shared their fond memories of Elaine Harmon Wednesday morning, while acknowledging the long fight it took for the World War II Women Airforce Service Pilots veteran to finally be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.
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On Wednesday, Harmon’s ashes were laid to rest after a funeral service with military honors.
Thirty eight of the WASP pilots were killed before the programme was ended.
Harmon, who died past year at age 95, was one of the Women Airforce Service Pilots who flew military aircraft during World War II so that men were freed up for combat missions.
The women did not have military status at the time but were retroactively designated veterans in 1977.
But in 2015, the 2002 ruling that allowed for the interment of former WASPs in Arlington National Cemetery was overturned with no fanfare and little warning by then-Secretary of the Army John McHugh.
It was a struggle that began a year ago when the stewards of Arlington, concerned about dwindling space, said they would no longer be receiving urns of ashes from WASPs.
And on Wednesday, Harmon’s wish was fulfilled – thanks to a dedicated effort by her family and a law passed by Congress. In December, an Associated Press article about the family’s campaign prompted widespread criticism of the Army for excluding WASPs. McSally was the first female USA fighter pilot to fly in combat.
Her support system during her flying days, when she was often the only female pilot anywhere, was a group of three WASPs she met at a luncheon.
“These were feisty, brave, adventurous, patriotic women”, she said, recalling that some of the WASPs gave her pep talks when she considered leaving the Air Force early on.
“It feels ironically exciting”, said Erin Miller, Harmon’s granddaughter. “We understand that”, she said.
“I was mostly confused at first”.
“Please know how much she helped change the world”, Maj.
Harmon learned to fly while an undergraduate at the University of Maryland, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in bacteriology in 1940.
“Every kid in the neighborhood was petrified to trick-or-treat at her house, but the homemade caramel apples made it worth the risk”, she said.
It is hard to be granted in-ground burial at Arlington because of space limitations, but ashes and above-ground inurnment is easier.
But eligibility for above-ground placement of ashes is not quite as strict.
More than 1,000 women served as WASPs from 1942 until 1944, according to the WASP museum.
Fewer than 100 are still alive, Landdeck said. The youngest is 93.
The women, who test-flew repaired military aircraft, trained combat pilots and towed airborne targets that other pilots fired at with live ammunition, received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009, but the campaign to get them into Arlington exposed even more people to WASPs’ role in history. They were acknowledged as veterans in 1977.
“No one knew who these women were in the 1990s”, Landdeck said.
“I remember from what her daughter and her granddaughters have told me, she [Harmon] was so patriotically stirred by the fact that these women that she had served with were being honored at Arlington, were having their ashes or remains laid there, that she decided she wanted to be buried at Arlington, and left a written request for her daughter”, says Ms. Rickman.
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“When the Army needed them, these women stepped up, they did something extraordinary that will always be memorialized”, Terry Harmon said.
