In The Desert Cities of Coachella Valley
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If you were born before 1950, you would probably not ask the question, but sadly, few of today's baby boomers or the generations following them know the answer. This remarkable woman, who had a home in the Coachella Valley for almost 50 years, and who participated in this community in many ways, should certainly be recognized locally.
The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) Newsletter of June 1981 gave this summary of Jacqueline Cochran's life. She was, incidentally, the founder of WASP during WWII.
"Jacqueline Cochran combined driving ambition and a flair for being in the right place at the right time with her formidable native abilities to take her from an impoverished childhood to the peak of attainments in aviation and a successful business career."
"Orphaned at an early age and raised by a foster family in the lumbermill towns of Florida and Georgia, she left school at the age of eight and went to work in a cotton mill on 12-hour shifts. A few years later she managed to enroll in a course at a beautician's school and later parlayed her skills and contacts with wealthy clients into a nationally known cosmetics firm which bore her name."
" 'I might have been born in a hovel,' she wrote later in her autobiography, 'but I was determined to travel with the wind and the stars'."
"Cochran, whose birth year is given variously as 1906 and 1910, spent her 1932 summer vacation at Roosevelt Field on Long Island (she was now employed by Antoine of Saks Fifth Avenue) and won her flying license less than three weeks after her first lesson. Then she quit her job and headed for San Diego, where she persuaded a Navy pilot (Ted Marshall) to give her what amounted to the entire Navy flight training course."
"In 1934 Cochran was the only American woman to enter the air race from London to Melbourne, Austrailia. She flew in the Bendix (air race) in 1935 but had to turn back when the tail of her Northrop Gamma threatened to shake itself off. In 1937 she placed third in the Bendix, first in the women's division. In 1938 she won over the other nine entrants, all men. And she flew it non-stop, a first, in a P-35 to which its designer, Russian World War I ace Alexander de Seversky, had added extra wing tanks for that purpose. As he had foreseen, her stunning success gained him the attention of the Army Air Corps, and the P-35 was developed to become the P-47 of World War II."
"Cochran married Floyd Odlum in 1936. The foyer of their Manhattan apartment filled up with her trophies and awards. She set records for speed, altitude and distance. She tested oxygen masks, spark plugs, superchargers, fuels, wing designs - for Seversky, for the Mayo Clinic, for many others. Her aviation career spanned more than 30 years and 15,000 hours in the air."
Alexander de Seversky - designer of the
P-35 flown by Jacqueline Cochran in 1938, where she won over the other 9 entrants; all men.
"Yet, when Cochran spoke to the last class of WASPs to be graduated, she said, 'My greatest accomplishment in aviation has been the small part I have played in helping make possible the results you have shown'."
"Cochran foresaw, years before the U.S. military, that the approaching war would demand more American pilots than could be had if women were left out. From 1939 she carried on an unceasing campaign for a government training program for women pilots. She gained the ear of Franklin D. Roosevelt through Eleanor Roosevelt, who had twice presented to her the coveted Harmon Trophy. He (Roosevelt) sent her to Secretary of War for Air, Robert M. Lovett, instructing that she research a program under which women pilots would serve with the U.S. Army Air Corps. Within a month, July 1941, she and her staff found the records of the 2,733 licensed women pilots, sent them a confidential questionnaire on their flying qualifications and willingness to serve. 130 of the 150 who were commercially licensed replied enthusiastically within two weeks. The report was submitted to General H. H. 'Hap' Arnold, Chief of the U.S. Army Air Corps."
"The story of how Cochran met every rejection and at last succeeded in gaining her objective while Nancy Love attacked a similar goal along quite different lines, is a drama of human achievement. Love's superbly qualified women took off in military planes in October 1942. Cochran's followed barely a month later. In the next two years some 1,100 women flew every type of military aircraft the nation had, on every kind of non-combat mission in the United States. In every way they matched the service performed by men in the same jobs. In addition, they won a reputation for willingness to take on any flying jobs, dangerous, boring or difficult."
General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold presented one of several Harmon Trophies won by Jacqueline Cochran. General Arnold had been taught to fly by Wilbur and Orville Wright in 1911 and he was one of the first Army aviators. When an Army Air Force was created in June 1941, he became its first commander. In spite of a shortage of pilots for the coming war, he was the one Jackie had to convince that women pilots could fill the void. Arnold suggested her trip to Britain to see how the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) was working there and President Roosevelt asked her to research a plan to train and use women pilots. The WASPs were the result of this assignment.
Photo from The Periscope 2004
"Double-standard politics frustrated Cochran's drive to achieve full military status for the WASP under her own leadership. But she created the largest women's air force in history and lived to see its members recognized as veterans of World War II."
"After the war, Cochran continued to make and break aviation records. She served on the general staff of the USAF as a special consultant until 1945. From 1948 she held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the USAF Reserves and received citations for her recruiting services. She covered the Japanese surrender for Liberty Magazine and was at Nurenberg to report on the war crimes trials. She was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal in 1945 and the Gold Medal of the Federation Aeronautique Internationale in 1953."
"Jacqueline Cochran died August 9, 1980 at her Indio home. She is buried in Coachella Valley Cemetery - her grave marked by a simple headstone which says, 'First woman in the world to break the sound barrier'."
A WASP memorial service was held at Patrick Air Force Base on September 19, 1980. The United States Air Force paid its tribute in a ceremony at the USAF Academy, Colorado Springs, on November 6, 1980.
Jacqueline Cochran organized and directed the Women Airforce Service Pilots, known as WASPs, in World War II, leading one thousand women pilots who flew military planes across the Atlantic and on many other flying missions in the United States. She fought for recognition of these women pilots as part of the military establishment with its tough requirements and military benefits. It was an ongoing struggle. The WASPs were deactivated in 1944 but Cochran stayed on as a special consultant to the Army Air Force. She continued to prove that women were fully capagle of flying any assignment that a man could handle.
Photo from The Periscope 2004
Jacqueline Cochran and General Charles (Chuck) Yeager
Photo from The Periscope 2004
General Charles (Chuck) Yeager and his wife, Glennis, were close friends of Jackie and Floyd. Yeager met Jackie in 1947 in the office of Secretary of the Air Force, Stuart Symington. "Great job, Capt. Yeager," she said, referring to his recent feat of breaking the sound barrier. She invited him to lunch and pumped him for details of his X-1 flights. As Yeager says in the book bearing his name, "Already she had her sights on becoming the first woman to fly faster than the speed of sound." Yeager said, "We liked each other right off the bat. She knew airplanes and said flat out that flying was the most important thing in her life. When we parted that day she said, 'Let's stay in touch'." So began a friendship that lasted more than 25 years. Yeager mentored her, helping her achieve her goal.
Yeager and his wife, Glennis, considered the Cochran-Odlum ranch their second home and spent vacations and other time there. They called the ranch the garden spot of the world. Grapefruit and tangerine trees lined the driveway. There were date-bearing trees, oleander and jacaranda, the nine-hole golf course, tennis courts, stables for Arabian horses, a skeet range and an Olympic-size pool. After playing all day, they would dress for a dinner party which might include Bob Hope, Dr. Edward Teller, African big-game hunters and a duke or duchess. Jackie seemed to collect interesting people.
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