FINDING DOROTHY SCOTT Letters of a WASP Pilot

Books are hardcover and autographed by author Sarah Byrn Rickman.

“Oh, Pop, we made a nighttime formation take off between smudge pots lining the runways,” Dorothy wrote. “I’ll never in all my life forget that ride! We were nearly touching the other plane – guided only by small lights and the flare of the exhaust. The rapidly fading field looked like a million small fires.”

More than eleven hundred women pilots flew military aircraft for the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. These pioneering female aviators were known first as WAFS (Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron) and eventually as WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots). Thirty-eight of them died while serving their country. Dorothy Scott was one of the thirty-eight. She died in a mid-air crash at the age of twenty-three. Born in 1920, Scott was a member of the first group of women selected to fly as ferry pilots for the Army Air Forces. Her story would have been lost had her twin brother not donated her wartime letters home to the WASP Archives. Dorothy's extraordinary voice, as heard through her lively letters, tells of her initial decision to serve, and then of her training and service, first as a part of the WAFS and then the WASP. The letters offer a window into the mind of a young, patriotic, funny, and ambitious young woman who was determined to use her piloting skills to help the US war effort. The letters also offer archival records of the day-to-day barracks life for the first women to fly military aircraft.