By Fred Hazen

Mildred “Millie” Dalrymple was one of the first women to ever fly an American military aircraft — spurred to action after her first husband, a B-17 pilot was shot down over the North Sea in 1943.

The World War II veteran will speak at 11 a.m. Nov. 11 at the Lakeway Veterans’ Day Ceremony at the Spirit of Freedom Monument located at Heritage Park on the corner of Lohman’s Crossing Road and Hurst Creek Road. The event, sponsored jointly by the Heritage Commission and the Lohman’s Ford Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, will also feature a collection of her service medals, photos, and other articles.

The Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASPs) were a unique corps of young women pilots, trained to fly “the Army way” by the U.S. Army Air Force at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas. After completing months of military flight training, 1,074 of them earned their wings and became the first women in history to fly American military aircraft. Their jobs were diverse and included ferrying aircraft from factories to ports of embarkation and military training bases, towing targets for live anti-aircraft artillery practice and live air-to-air gunnery practice, instructing male pilots, flight testing aircraft, flying night tracking missions and simulated straffing missions and transporting cargo. 

They flew every type of mission and every type of aircraft flown by the male pilots of the Army Air Force.

Dalrymple became a WASP after her first husband, Bill Davidson, was lost  in the spring of 1943. After her training at Sweetwater, she was stationed at Maxwell Field in Montgomery, Alabama, with the Eastern Training Command during the war. She logged nearly 1,000 flying hours during her service from 1943 to 1944. Her experience included flying the B-24 “Liberator” and the B-17 “Flying Fortress” bombers. 

“The B-24 was a very, very heavy plane. I didn’t weigh much at the time; it was all I could do to take off, raise the gear and trim the plane for level flight,” Dalrymple said. 

She also flew the twin engine Cessna UC-78 “Bobcat,” the Beech AT-11 “Kansan,” the Douglas C-45 “Skytrain,” and several single-engine aircraft.

Born in Llano, Texas, Dalrymple’s first flying experience was when her grandfather rented a plane and flew his grandchildren over his ranch near Llano. As it turned out, all four grandchildren became pilots. 

Inks Lake and Dam were named after Millie’s father, Roy Banford Inks. During the Depression, when he was mayor of Llano, Inks was on the Colorado River Committee, which had been formed to lobby the federal government for funding to finish Hamilton Dam. The committee was the precursor to the Lower Colorado River Authority.

Millie graduated from the University of Texas in 1940. She was a member of their women’s tennis team and played competitive tennis locally for more than 25 years. She also played in the National Senior Women’s matches. She taught all of her children and grandchildren how to play.

There will be limited parking at the event. The ceremony will close with Kalie Naftzger, a sixth-grader at Lake Travis Middle school, singing God Bless America followed by a fly over of a 1943 Piper L-4B replica airplane piloted by Hills resident Rick Winter. 

For more information on the WASPs, visit wingsacrossamerica.us.