Syracuse (WSYR-TV) - Three Central New York aviation pioneers were honored Wednesday for their service in World War Two. They were among the first women in the Air Force, and they were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal more than 65 years after their unit was dismantled.
About 200 Women's Airforce Service Pilots made it to Capitol Hill for the ceremony. Only about 100 other's are still alive, including Syracuse resident Virginia Meloney. "We never thought of ourselves as making history," she said about her service. "We knew it was experimental, and later they called us pioneering."
Meloney spent just under two years as a WASP, and was one or over 1000 women who ferried fighter planes from U.S. Factories to military bases all across the county, freeing up male pilots for duty overseas. Virginia and the others were never considered military, they served as civilians, and it took 30 years for them to get veteran's benefits. "We didn't have uniforms, the early ones. We had to get men's pants made over. We had to carry a parachute, 40 pounds, a brief case to carry our papers," she said.
The WASP's were paid $250 a month, about two-thirds what men made for the same job. Meloney says that inequity still smarts, as does the way they were disbanded in 1942 when male instructors fought for and took their jobs. Still, of all the adventures Virginia's had in her 90 years, as a journalist, a commercial pilot, a dispatcher for a bush outfit in Alaska, she says nothing tops her time as a WASP.
Health issues kept Virginia Meloney from the ceremony. A cousin went to Washington to pick up her medal. Two other WASP's from Central New York, Ann Elizabeth O'Connor and Aleta Johnson, were honored posthumously.
