WASHINGTON - It was 1943 and the country was in the midst of World War II when Jean Springer, then 22, heard about a new corps of female pilots.
Springer, who grew up on Long Island, N.Y., had taken flying lessons at a local seaplane base during a long summer when when she had nothing else to do. She was studying at Adelphi University in New York when she heard about the newly formed Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASP program.
"It was all kind of a lark," said the 89-year-old Springer, who has lived in Hyde Park for the last 60 years. "It was patriotic. And boring at home. I loved flying."
So off she went. By September 1943, Springer had joined more than 1,100 other women pilots in the WASP program.
Prohibited from flying in combat - and technically not even considered part of the U.S. Army - Springer and the other female pilots transported military personnel, towed targets for gunnery practice and shuttled planes from factories to the bases where they were needed.
Springer, who was stationed at Romulus Army Air Base near Detroit, would often be sent to a military aircraft factory Buffalo, N.Y., to pick up a plane and fly it to where it was needed, in some cases as far away as Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
In those days, the planes - PT-19s and DCCs - had no radios and featured open-air cockpits. The missions were solo flights that required many refueling stops and often took several days to a week to complete - or longer, if a pilot got lost.
"Sometimes the guys who gave us the weather predictions in the morning when we left weren't particularly accurate," Springer said. "In snowstorms, it was scary."
After dropping off the plane, the women found their own way back to their base, on their own dime, Springer said.
The female pilots freed up male pilots so they could go off to war.
The corps was disbanded in December 1944. The women were denied veterans' benefits - or even status - until 1977.
On Wednesday, the 300 or so surviving members of the WASP service will be awarded the highest honor a civilian can earn, the Congressional Gold Medal.
Springer will be among more than 150 former WASP pilots who are expected at the ceremony - such a large number of attendees that the ceremony had to be moved from the Capitol Rotunda to a larger venue in the new U.S. Capitol Visitor Center.
"It's nice to be recognized," Springer said, explaining that she never held it against the government for failing to honor her service earlier - or for canceling the program.
"They suddenly said: 'We don't need you any more. Girls, you can go home,'" she said. "It was sort of a letdown, but we understood."
When the WASP program ended, Springer went to work at the U.S. consulate in Nassau, Bahamas. She was working for the New York Times when she met her husband, Elliott Pogue, a Cincinnati native attending Columbia University in New York.
Springer later divorced, remarried and served as the director of the Young Men's Mercantile Library Association in Cincinnati. She also raised three children, two of whom still live in the Cincinnati area - one in Mount Lookout, and the other in Mount Washington.
All three of her children and three of her four grandchildren will be at Wednesday's ceremony in Washington
"Growing up, I was more excited about it than she seemed to be," Robert Pogue said of his mother's aviation background. "She was so humble. She always said there was a job to be done and someone had to do it."
