What planted the seed for a project on World War II women aviators?
Richman: It’s always strange how stories begin. Usually we go out looking for stories, but sometimes the stories come looking for you. That was the case with the WASPs. Teal Krech, who I work with at Radio Diaries, came to work one day with a page from her high school alumni magazine. She had ripped out a small profile of a woman who had graduated from this high school 60 years earlier. There was a photo from 1943 that showed a tough and beautiful woman in a leather bomber jacket leaning against a huge plane — it was a B-25 — and there was a look in her eyes. The photo told all you needed to know about the WASPs. How many of these WASPs were there at the height of their service, about how many of them are still alive today — and how did you go about finding them? The Air Force was looking for pilots to do some of the domestic jobs — ferrying airplanes, testing airplanes, towing targets for anti-aircraft practice — and to take the place of men who were going to combat. In 1941 there wer
