Cynthia Cartier - Wings

My father’s funeral was the day after I arrived home. He knew a lot of people but we were still surprised by the number of folks that came. He was a character, so it was only fitting that the crowd was pretty colorful. I wish you could have met him. He was a flyer. I hope to tell you all about him someday. If you think I’m a challenge, well, I couldn’t hold a candle to Jack Hall.

I leave for Palm Springs in three days. I’m looking forward to getting through the training so I can just fly. There’s so much I’d like to write and will in time. But for now I just want you to know how thankful I am that I was at Avenger and for more reasons than to become a WASP.

Take care of yourself and keep humming,

Liddy

Liddy couldn’t get to town fast enough to post the letter, and she floated for the rest of the week. Crik noticed and was happy for her. Of all the boys Liddy had dated, he had never seen one who made her smile like she was smiling now. Daniel noticed something too but he chalked it up to the fighter planes she was headed off to ride. Flying was the only thing that he had ever known to really wind Liddy up, so it was a natural assumption.

Holly Grove’s first snow of the season drifted in early and dusted the fall leaves, pulling them off the trees sooner than they had planned. It came the day before Liddy was to board a train to California, and it seemed a weighty sign.

At the pursuit training base in Palm Springs, Liddy studied alongside male Army Air Force cadets. When the training was finished, she would be moving the planes from the factory and they would be flying them into battle. It was a class of thirty-two—thirty men and two women. Helen Long was the other female in the group. Liddy hadn’t gotten to know her at Avenger. She was a serious gal, and had a reputation for being somewhat of a loner. Helen came into the program with more hours logged than any of the other women in their class, and she was a by-the-book flyer. Liddy tried to break in with her, but soon accepted their role as classmates, and she missed her sister-friends.

The studying had gotten easier for Liddy and the flying was pure bliss. The planes were always fast and newer than anything she took up in training. She spent her off time writing letters home, and to her classmates who were spread across the country, and to Reid.

Every few days she wrote him a letter and would receive one back. Mail that crossed the ocean was pretty unpredictable, so they didn’t always arrive in the order that they had been written. But when an obvious gap showed itself, they just kept writing and it was all eventually pieced together. Even though he was thousands of miles away, he made her feel safe, safe in a way that no other man had ever made her feel. Not even Jack and Crik. With them she felt safe physically, but her spirit, her heart, it was all so new with Reid.

Liddy knew enough about combat from the war stories she heard growing up that she wasn’t surprised that Reid didn’t write anything about his missions or of the war, even if he could have gotten it by the censors, but he didn’t try. She did learn that he didn’t like the cold, grew up in Florida, and that he loved to fly as much as she did. She thought she could tell him anything and wondered if one day she would have the chance.

News came of the birth of Calli’s baby. She said Betsy Joy Marina Liddy Louise Duncan was born at seven eighteen in the morning and weighed 7lbs 3 ounces and was 21 inches long. His parents had decided to call him James Lee for short.

Bet was doing well and had one story after another about her latest adventures in the sky. Liddy heard from Louise regularly, but Joy Lynn and Marina seemed to be so busy with their love lives that letters from them were few. When one did arrive, the love of their life had a different name each time. Liddy couldn’t figure how they had time to fly.

She heard from lots of other classmates who were overjoyed with the flying, but many were working under attitudes of prejudice. Besides being ignored or berated, some of these women were subjected to checkrides on planes they hadn’t even been allowed to fly or even sit in. And many of the planes the women had to take up were no longer sky-worthy. WASPs were tough, but a few gals decided they were wasting their time or being put at an extreme risk and quit over it.

Liddy knew she was fortunate. The ferry division of the Army Air Force was understaffed, and the ferry command saw early on the benefits of employing pilots that the WASP provided. So, they opened their eyes wide enough to see they were also excellent flyers.

The base at Palm Springs lacked nothing in the social department. Unlike Avenger, women were a scarce commodity and the gals pretty much had their pick of men, and the pool the women had to pick from was mostly officers and flyers that were training to be fighter pilots. These men possessed the self-assuredness needed to do their jobs, an assuredness that brought with it an air that has a strong appeal to most women. And then there was the uniform. But Liddy didn’t have the desire to date any of the men. Not only was she content with her literary courtship, but she was quite a few years older than most of the male cadets and had more of a desire to protect them than to date them.

Cross country runs were part of the training, so she would meet up with her old classmates when she refueled or had a RON at the different bases. It was fun to see how they were getting along and all the many ways WASPs lived out in the military world. Some bases bunked the WASPs with the Women’s Army Core who served as nurses or office staff. Other bases made quarters available away from the men’s barracks, while some of the women had to secure their own housing off base. Regardless of the situation, just like Avenger, the WASP paid for their housing.

Things could get pretty wild with six or more fly girls that had enormous spirits living in two to four bedroom houses. The work they did was difficult and tiring, so they needed to blow off steam every once in a while. And blow off steam they did. Marina dwelled in one of these communes and Liddy could only keep up with this pack for a day or so, before she wanted to crawl into a corner and collapse into a puddle.

Louise was living off base too, but with her kids. She was flying and taking care of her children and Liddy soaked in her happiness. She became Aunt Liddy to Bonnie and Tommy, which, as an only child, she treasured. She never imagined she would have such delicious little people in her life. Good as the times were, they were tough times too, and Louise appreciated the distraction Liddy brought to the little family. Liddy’s visits with the Parkers were quiet, but fun, and she always returned to base relaxed and renewed.

December in Louise’s Colorado could bring snow, or a warm snap, and Liddy and Louise’s daughter Bonnie sat on the porch swing of the little Parker home, enjoying a break in the winter season. Their legs stuck straight out on the upswing and they tucked them under the seat in unison as it sailed back.

“Aunt Liddy, did you know my dad?”

“Not really.”

“But you met him?”

“Once, kind of.”

“Did you like him?”

Liddy stopped the swing and looked down at her little friend. “Why are you asking me this, honey?”

“It makes Mommy sad to talk about him. He wasn’t that nice and I don’t really miss him, but I just want to know why he left us.”

“What’d your mom tell you?”

“She just said she’s sorry for us if we’re sad that he’s gone. She tried to say more, but couldn’t.”

“Well, honey, people do things sometimes they think will make them happy and they hurt other people in the process. You’re dad made choices that were about him. They had nothing to do with you, or Tommy, or your mom.”

“Does it work, those things people sometimes do to be happy?”

“Not usually.”

“Do you think my dad is happy?”

“I don’t know. But I can tell you this, someday you’ll understand it all. It won’t make it easier, though. I just want you to remember that life is good and bad. If you leave the bad alone and keep the good in your heart, you’ll be happy.” Liddy tickled Bonnie’s side and kissed the top of her head. “Think Tommy and your mom have that ice cream churned up?”

“If they do, it’s probably gone.”

“Tommy likes ice cream?”

“Yes, but not like my mom.”

Liddy grabbed Bonnie’s hand and pulled her off the swing. “Let’s stop them before it’s too late.” And they walked into the house.

The weeks of training went by quicker than Liddy was expecting they would, and she was really comfortable and happy to be herself. Exchanging letters with Reid filled her with all kinds of excitement and anticipation. His letters came more and more often and were sometimes pages long and other times quick notes—she could hear his exhaustion in those. Without having to ask all of the questions that lined up in her mind, he answered many of them.

Liddy answered every letter as soon as she could sit and put pen to paper or she started writing in her head, while she was flying. With each letter, she wrote more of the things she’d wished she’d had the nerve to have written in her first letter to Reid, beginning with how glad she was that he chased the cattle car down and that she regretted sending him that sorry first note.

Reid wrote back and teased her that he had laughed out loud, which she believed he really did, when he read it because it wasn’t very bold for an HP like herself. Liddy felt her face flush and redden when she read that, He’s right—it wasn’t, she knew that.

Liddy was glad he didn’t give her a break on that one so they could joke about it, and she wrote back to him, Hey, guy, I said I regretted that first letter. Give a girl a break would ya’? You made me go all red-faced that you thought I had written something so… Not very bold.

Liddy knew he would enjoy the fact that he could make her blush from thousands of miles away. ‘My courage has never been that great, about some things, when my feet are on the ground, but I think you intend to make me all over brave, don’t you?’

They wrote about good things. Liddy didn’t tell him how much she had ached for him when they were at Avenger, and now even more that he was where he was, doing what he had to do. She would someday, but now he needed to hear just good things, to feel good things.

Every letter, both his and hers, had something about Reid’s leave in the spring. Liddy couldn’t wait for that day when she would spend time with him. What would it be like? What would they do? The two of them together, it would be a date wouldn’t it? How strange.

When Liddy graduated from pursuit school, she joined the other WASPs, including Jenna Law-Charles, where they both would serve from New Castle Army base in Delaware. Liddy was suited up for her first hours of paid civilian flying for the Army, and she entered the ready room to check in for her first flight assignment.

Some of the women were reviewing maps while others napped, using their parachute packs for pillows. When Jenna saw her, she hopped up from the floor and crossed the room to greet Liddy, “Glad to see you made it, Hall.”

“Was there any doubt?”

“Didn’t hear about one run-in with you and the powers that be in Palm Springs. Are you losing your edge?”

“Never!”

An assignment officer entered and addressed the WASPs, “Listen up, these planes need to be received by 1900 hours to catch a carrier going overseas. This is a very long flight. For those of you who’ve just come in, it’s highly recommended that you limit your fluid intake. You will have only one refueling stop, each way, so unless you have figured out how to use the tube, I suggest you take this matter seriously. Have a safe trip.”

This would be the longest flight Liddy had ever flown, and the newest plane with the exception of Jerry Bluff’s Fairchild back home. She spun Jack’s watch in her palm before she shoved it deep in her pants pocket, as a rush of adrenaline ran through her and she immediately had to pee.

The day she ferried her first Mustang was one that would stick with Liddy for good, and she couldn’t wait to tell Crik about it. She didn’t write much to Reid about her flying. Her excitement over ferrying fighters seemed so trivial to Reid’s experiences in the same planes. So she wrote about what she saw when she was up and who she met or visited with on the way.