WWII Women Airforce Service Pilots in Santa Clara Valley

They called those who served in WWII The Greatest Generation, hailed the return of soldiers with parades and The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, also known as the GI Bill, then built memorials and awarded medals, producing inspiring Hollywood movies about U.S. soldiers’ courage under fire.

Unfortunately, some who served and lost their lives during WWII were not recognized, assisted, awarded honors nor provided with GI benefits and military burials, for decades. Some disappeared to new hometowns after the war where little was known about their service. Among those unsung heroes were the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) and some of them lived here in our Valley.

If you dined at The Brave Bull in San Jose many years ago and were served by a straight-talking, tough as nails, almost 6-foot tall waitress named Marge, or took flying lessons from a by-the-book middle-aged woman of the same name at Reid Hill-View Airport (when Amelia Reid was in charge of the aviation school there), you most likely met former WASP, Marge Frenzel. 

According to Robin Reid, Amelia Reid's son, Frenzel was very tough on her student pilots, sitting behind them in the cockpit and telling them to “sit up straight” during lessons, believing their lives depended on comportment which proved they were really paying attention.

Frenzel, born in 1920 as “Anna Logan”, grew up in a small town in Kansas. She worked as an office assistant for a couple who owned a small airport in South Dakota, where she learned to fly during her first aviation job. 

Anna Logan, AKA: Marge Frenzel (above) was trained as a WASP in Sweetwater, Texas, WASP Class 44-1. After the war she moved to San Jose, California.

While in Sweetwater, Logan became friends with fellow WASP Marge Hurlburt, with whom she would later design the Hurlburt Hurricane NX 1223 along with another fellow WASP and co-designer, Duke Caldwell. Their aircraft was also known as the Camburn Special, a midget plane designed for air racing.

Hulburt Hurricane image from Wikipedia Commons

Logan/Frenzel was one of the first women to participate in the Cleveland Air Races of 1948, although women were only allowed to participate in a secondary race sponsored by Hale Department Store, since women were not permitted to fly in the actual 1948 Cleveland Race.  

I was told that Logan/Frenzel flew a North American T-6 (vintage aircraft racing was popular) and had to do a forced landing, telling others that her plane had been sabotaged. Competition was very fierce, so some women slept in the hangar with their planes to prevent tampering.

Crystal Eagle Award
Northern California Aero Club

Frenzel once stated (according to Robin Reid) that as a WASP ferrying planes, “You just figured it out; men (at the factories and bases) did not help us or tell us how to start the planes.” 

This seems to be consistent with what I have read online about the hostility which some WASP met at factories and bases among men who felt that women should not be in service as pilots, taking jobs from men. As you will read below, others felt that engaging women pilots to perform routine aircraft transport work, allowed men to serve in other more vital capacities during the war.

Logan/Frenzel ended both her Brave Bull waitress employment and her Reid Hill-View flight instructor career as she grew older, opting to become a San Jose school crossing guard later in life. 

She and Amelia Reid were never close according to Robin Reid; he states that they repeatedly argued about the layout and tidiness of the Reid Hill-View aviation school office. However, since both women were raised in small towns during the depression, they bonded as divorced women raising children alone. 

Amelia Reid-Image from FindAGrave.com

According to Robin Reid, Amelia Reid co-signed on a real estate contract to help Frenzel purchase a home in East San Jose, so Frenzel would have a safe place to raise her three sons; Cal, Glenn and Steve. As Robin Reid said about his mother, "You just did those kind of things to help people, in those days." 

The Chicago Tribune has a wonderful article about Amelia Reid (1924-2001) and her son, commercial pilot Robin Reid, including their history, backgrounds and flying achievements, at: 
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1993-02-12-9303181838-story.html

Frenzel was mentioned briefly in newsletters posted online by The Ninety-Nines’s, a women’s pilot association with chapters around the United States. Frenzel received a CrystalEagle award (see image above) from the Northern California Aero Club, during a program held at Hiller Aviation Museum. Frenzel passed away in 2005; her family still owns some of her planes.

It was very difficult to locate information about Frenzel in WASP source material, so I am indebted to those who knew her* for their contributions to this article. Many thanks to Robin Reid, who was kind enough to call me with information about his mother and Anna Logan/Marge Frenzel.

A wonderful memoir about Reid Hill-View Airport by Jim Meide, mentions Frenzel:

https://www.wingsofhistory.org/personal-history-of-reid-hillview-airport/

The Wings of History Aviation Museum in San Martin has undoubtedly the best display on the history of women in aviation, found anywhere. Congratulations to their docents and volunteers who spent many hours reproducing photos and adding factual text to the display at their site, for their efforts to remember and honor women pilots, many of whom broke records for speed, altitude and endurance.

Eleanor Thompson Wortz (below) also trained as a WASP in Sweetwater Texas, Class 43-4, just before Logan Frenzel. After the war she had an international career as a linguist and eventually moved to Los Altos with her husband. She worked for a brief time at Moffett Field in Mountain View, before becoming an educator.

If you attended the Los Altos United Methodist Church, took Business courses at the College of San Mateo, or had a swim at the Woodland Vista Swim and Racket Club in Los Altos, you most likely met Eleanor Thompson Wortz (left), who wrote an autobiography about her life and aviation experiences as a WASP, entitled: Fly Gals of World War II: Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). **

Like Logan/Frenzel, Eleanor Wortz is found in the Women Airforce Service Pilot Digital Archive, within the Woman’s Collection online at Texas Woman’s University, with selected biographies, photos and basic data about the WASP program:
https://twudigital.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p214coll2

Wortz's obituary is found at:

https://waspfinalflight.blogspot.com/2013/10/eleanor-thompson-wortz-43-4-aug-18-201.html

WASP Group - Smithsonian Air and Space Museum

This article lists only a few of our local WASP and aviation heroines. If you search the archive of online magazines produced by the Ninety-Nines’s, a national club for women pilots, the local chapter reports may show the names of former local WASP and women pilots once active in air races and local chapter meetings: https://www.ninety-nines.org/

Likewise, the Aero Club of Northern California has honored former WASP for their achievements: https://www.aeroclubnocal.org/

A Northern California Wasp group at one time held annual reunions and posted that information online, yet, as the few remaining local WASP decrease in numbers, sometimes little is known or easily discovered about their lives and roles in the WASP program, if their biographical information has not been published or digitized by those archiving WASP history. TWU (Texas Woman's University) has digitized the publication, WASP NEWS.

History of the WASP

On September 10, 1942, Nancy Harkness Love, under the aegis of the U.S. Air Transport Command, gathered 25 rigidly screened women pilots to create the Women’s Air Ferrying Squadron (WAFS), operating out of New Castle Army Base in Delaware, Maryland. Only 40 women met the qualifications needed to serve. When they were accepted into the program, they had to purchase their own uniforms to ferry planes from aviation factories to military bases. https://www.army.mil/women/history/pilots.html

Similarly, Jackie Cochran, who learned to fly in 1932 while working as a cosmetics salesperson and later won international aviation races, also achieved the first blind instrument landing by a female pilot and set records for altitude and airspeed. She became the first woman to fly a bomber to England during WWII.

https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/research/online-documents/jacqueline-cochran-and-womens-airforce-service-pilots-wasps

Jackie Cochran - Smithsonian Air and Space Museum

More about Jackie Cochran:

https://www.nationalaviation.org/our-enshrinees/cochran-jacqueline/

The British Air Transport Authority were already recruiting women pilots to move military planes during WWII.

https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/online-exhibitions/air-transport-auxiliary.aspx

By 1939 Cochran believed that U.S. women could serve in the same manner as women pilots in the UK. She proposed a similar program to Eleanor Roosevelt, however, General Henry “Hap” Arnold rejected her proposal. Not to be dissuaded, Cochran recruited 25 women pilots from the U.S. to train and serve in the war effort overseas by ferrying military aircraft for England, and in her words, to “free a man to fight”. 

It has been said that on her return from England in 1943, Cochran was irate to learn that Nancy Harkness Love had been given permission to train women pilots to serve in the WAFS. Cochran lobbied the military heavily to adopt her original proposal, which included military classes, training and duties for women pilots far beyond just ferrying new military planes to bases.

Eventually, due to Cochran’s perseverance, the WAFS were absorbed into a new service called the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) under her leadership.

https://www.army.mil/women/history/pilots.html

Although women who flew sometimes died and were injured during their WASP service, the WASP did not gain full military status until 1977, thanks to Public Law 95-202, Section 401 (PDF), signed by President Jimmy Carter. The new law granted WASP retroactive veteran status. By 1984 WASP were finally awarded WWII Victory Medals. Those who had served one year received the American Theater Campaign Medal. In 2010, WASP were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal (see image below).

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124533914

WASP Congressional Gold Medal, March 10, 2010

An excellent slide show, timelines and interviews of then-living WASP may be found on the NPR Web site at: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123773525

The NPR WASP timeline features accounts by WASP Margaret Phelan Taylor (images at left) of Palo Alto, as well as the tragic story of Mabel Rawlinson (see images below) who died at age 26 in 1943, when she may have been  hit by friendly fire while towing a practice target for inexperienced aircraft anti-artillery gunner students. 

Some believe Rawlinson's aircraft fuel was sabotaged with sugar by “angry male pilots who resented the females taking over their stateside jobs”, and that the sabotage was covered up by the military. This prompted Jackie Cochran to fly to the site of Rawlinson's crash to conduct her own investigation, where she determined that sugar in the fuel line and a stuck hatch was the cause of the crash.

Rawlinson’s story is told by her niece (unnamed) at: http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2008/05/still_my_fallen_hero_fly_girl.html

Read Margaret Phelan Taylor's story on Palo Alto Online. Images of Taylor (above) are from that publication. Here is the direct link to the article about Taylor and Rawlinson, plus Taylor's comments about conditions for WASP in service and lack of military funds for burials, etc., from that publication:
https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2009/07/06/palo-altan-to-receive-congressional-gold-medal

This article is dedicated to WASP and the memory of Mabel Rawlinson.
Images of her are below, taken from her obituary,
written by her niece Pam Pohly, at:
http://wingsacrossamerica.us/web/obits/rawlinsom_mabel.htm

To WASP who served without recognition for so many years;
Thank you for your service.

More Resources:

The Ninety Nines history:

https://www.ninety-nines.org/our-history.htm

National WASP WWII Museum in Sweetwater Texas:

https://waspmuseum.org/

Wings Across American by Doreen Parrish:

http://www.wingsacrossamerica.us/wings/

WASPS remembered:

http://wwii-women-pilots.org/

OCLC Resources: 

http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n80146348/

On Eleanor Wortz:

https://www.rp-author.com/wortz/

WWII Roster of Women Pilots:

https://www.wwii-women-pilots.org/rosters.html

Gilroy Dispatch Article on WASP:

https://gilroydispatch.com/honoring-gravity-defying-women-pilots/

---END---

Sources not listed above:

Image of Anna Logan/Marge Frenzel WASP class photo reproduced for educational purposes, from Texas Woman's University online:

https://twudigital.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p214coll2/search/searchterm/44-w-1/page/2 

https://twudigital.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p214coll2/id/4500/rec/35  

Image of Eleanor Thompson Wortz WASP class photo reproduced for educational purposes, from from Texas Woman's University online:

https://twudigital.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p214coll2/id/4192/rec/2

*Many thanks to Mary Hanel, Santa Clara City Library Genealogy and Local History Librarian (retired) for information about Eleanor Thompson Wortz, to Robin Reid, to Jen Watson of Aerodynamic Aviation and to all of the docents at the Wings of History Aviation Museum in San Martin, California, for their assistance and willingness to answer perhaps far too many questions about WASP in Santa Clara County.  ---C. Alexander.

**(Copyright: Eleanor Thompson Wortz, 2011. Robertson Publishing, Los Gatos, California. ISBN 13: 978-1-61170-034-3; ISBN 10: 1-61170-034-5; LOC Number: 2011929982)

Enter your location on WorldCat to find her book at your local library: https://www.worldcat.org/title/fly-gals-of-world-war-ii-women-airforce-service-pilots-wasp/oclc/785831774&referer=brief_results

---C. D. Bright, SiliconValleyLibrarian.org

Horrible Haiyan: We are all Filipino in Silicon Valley

My father was a Navy veteran stationed in East Samar during WWII. He had fond memories of the people he met there, and of their generosity and hospitality.

Philippine Cultural Dancers: Kadena Air Base, Japan.
Photo: Senior Airman Nestor Cruz: Wikipedia Commons.

When he was not censoring mail, my father planted a large vegetable garden near his Quonset hut and shared his produce with the Guiuan Peninsula residents whom he befriended. 

They also shared their native culture and foods with my father, who was a gregarious butcher by trade, and an amateur chef by avocation, when he could pry my mother out of her kitchen back home. 

Many years later, at every holiday family gathering, my father spoke fondly of his time in the Philippines and the wonderful people he met there, entertaining our family with his many stories and memories. 

I became curious about our Filipino heritage here in Silicon Valley, when I realized that Guiuan, where my father was stationed, was hit by the recent Typhoon Haiyan and its destructive storm surge, which caused so much devastation in that region. 

My father would have been so sad to learn that descendants of the families who were so kind to him when he was so far away from home, had been so impacted by this recent natural tragedy. Likewise, the year before my mother died, she was brought bowls of pancit by visiting Filipino members of her former work community in Northern Silicon Valley. It had become one of her favorite foods from their potlucks at work. 

I am dedicating this column to Filipino families in our valley, who are now are suffering such tragic losses and challenges in grieving, locating or aiding their families back home, and who by extension, have been so kind to me and my family, among others they have touched in our community. Their tragedy is our pain, and we will stand by them until their suffering is eased.

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The first permanent settlement of Filipinos in the United States was comprised of escaped sailors who had been pressed into service on Spanish galleons. 

"Manila Village" Barataria Bay, Louisiana:
Wikipedia Commons.

These escapees settled in "Manila Village" (Barataria Bay, Louisiana) around 1763, although Filipinos were said to have arrived earlier in Morro Bay, California, on Spanish galleons, sometime around 1587.

Migration to the United States began after the Spanish-American War, when the Philippines became a territory of the United States and Filipinos were exempt from immigration laws.

Many early Filipino residents of California were agricultural workers, yet some were students (primarily men) sent as “pensionados,” through a Philippine Commission appointed by President McKinley in 1901. The commission scholarship program for student immigration was active between 1903 and WWII. 

Filipino American Veterans at the White House,
May 2003: Wikipedia Commons.

During the war the United States Navy recruited Filipinos, who were by that time subject to an immigration quota of only 50 persons per year, due to the Tydings-McDuffie Act, which named them “aliens.”

After the war, The War Brides Act of 1945 and Alien Fiancées and Fiancés Act of 1946, allowed 16,000 Filipina war brides (and one groom) to come to the United States to be married. 

Many early nuclear families were located near Navy, Army, and Air Force bases, where some Filipino communities still reside today.

The Luce-Celler Act of 1946 allowed 100 Filipinos to immigrate to the United States and petition to become citizens each year, to prevent them from being barred from entry once the Philippines gained their independence from the United States. (The act also allowed 100 Indians to immigrate annually as well.)

For a wonderful online collection with San Francisco photos of Filipino life in the 1950’s, please see The Alvarado Project Exhibit: Through My Father’s Eyes.

John C. Gordon Collection: SJSU Special Collections

From 1965 and into the 1990’s, the Family Reunification portion of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 allowed many highly skilled and educated Philippine natives to enter the United States.

Filipinos provided the US with a high proportion of health care professionals, and Filipino nurses were highly sought after by other countries, since there were nursing shortages both in the US and worldwide.

Like many other cultures, Filipino Americans were subject to early prejudice, which caused them to settle in what were called “Little Manilas,” communities centered around larger urban cities, which would eventually disperse in later years. In California, Filipino Americans intermarried more and clustered less than in other areas of the country, and seemed to own more businesses.

AWOC/ UFW leaders Larry Itliong & Philip Vera Cruz.
Photo by Tim Biley: Wikipedia Commons.

Some Filipino American agricultural workers were very active in the early farm worker movement in Northern California. 

Larry Itliong and Philip Vera Cruz, co-founders of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), which had already mounted a grape strike in Delano, merged with the National Farm Workers Association founded by Cesar Chavez, whose NFWA group walked the picket line in solidarity with AWOC workers.

The merged group became known as the United Farm Workers Association, whose goals were to increase their impact in achieving a shared vision of equity and respect, and to obtain unemployment insurance for farm workers. UFWA later evolved into a farm workers’ union under the AFL-CIO, and was renamed the United Farmworkers Union.

The work of Larry Itliong and Philip Vera Cruz, when allied with Cesar Chavez, benefited all Filipino groups and opened many doors for later generations. Filipino American’s today maintain above average higher education rates, with most students gaining a Bachelor’s degree and advanced degrees in the fields of education and information technology, and in all health-related fields. The American Medical Association reports that Filipino Americans are the second largest group of foreign-trained physicians in the United States.

Likewise, Filipino Americans are the second-largest Asian American group in the United States (after Chinese Americans) and generally enjoy a longer life expectancy than most other Americans.

Bay Area, Señior Sisig Filipino Fusion Truck.
 Esque Magazine: Wikipedia Commons.

In the Silicon Valley region, the 2010 US Census reported 105,403 persons of Filipino descent are among the 1,836,911 residents in this area, or 5.73% of the total valley population.

In contrast, the entire San Francisco Bay area (San Francisco and Oakland, South to Fremont) has 287, 879 Filipino residents among 4,335,391 total residents, or 6.64% of the total population in this region.

According to the 2002 US Economic census, Filipino-owned businesses are primarily in the medical, dental and optical fields, and include Filipino-owned restaurants. In Northern California most of these businesses are located in the Bay Area, with Santa Clara County now home to the largest Filipino community in Northern California. (Los Angeles has the largest population of Filipino Americans in Southern California.)

Lloyd LaCuesta, Image: Courtesy of KTVU

Notable Bay Area Filipinos include:

Lloyd LaCuesta – KTVU television journalist and South Bay bureau chief

Diosdado Banatao – Engineer, philanthropist and businessman

Rob Bonta, ASMDC.org

Jose Esteves, City of Milpitas

Rob Bonta (Left) – The first Filipino American California State Legislator

Jose Esteves (Right) – Mayor of Milpitas and former city councilman

The Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS) Santa Clara Valley Chapter has more information on the history of local Filipino Americans in our valley. 

The Filipino AmericanChamber of Commerce of Santa Clara County also has resources for tapping the wealth of experience in the Filipino community of Silicon Valley.

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To contribute funds to Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) flood relief efforts in the Philippines, please see the list of relief organizations vetted as credible by APALA, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance of the AFL-CIO: http://apalanet.org/apala-blog/yolanda/

---C. D. Bright, SiliconValleyLibrarian.org