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More than 60 years after the end of World War II, American lawmakers paid tribute Wednesday to the pioneering but long-overlooked role played by women pilots in the US Air Force.
About 1,000 women piloted fighter planes in the United States from 1942 to 1944 when they joined the Women Airforce Service Pilots, dubbed the WASPs.
Their mission was not to go into combat zones, but to move aircraft between bases, test fly planes which had undergone repairs and help in training. Their contributions critically freed up male pilots to participate in combat missions.
Some 38 women pilots died on the missions, and were never accorded any military honors. Fewer than 300 of the women are alive today.
At the end of the war, the WASPs were not integrated into the US Air Force but instead returned to civilian life without any form of recognition for the role they played, and the program was suspended.
It was only in 1977 that the WASPS were granted veteran status.
"We acknowledge that for too long the proud service of the WASPs was not recognized in word, or in deed. As the resolution says today: 'There were no honors, no benefits and very few thank yous,'" House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.
She was addressing a ceremony awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to some 170 women aged between 80 and 90, many accompanied by their families.
"Women Airforce Service Pilots: we are all your daughters. You taught us how to fly. We thank you for that and for what you did in flying to make us the 'home of the brave and the land of the free,'" Pelosi added.
It was "wonderful," said 89-year-old Lois Nash of South Carolina, who joined up when she was 22 just after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
She added the women were very surprised. "We had no idea this was coming after all these years," said Nash, who flew B26 bombers, dragging behind her a training target that other bombers would fire at with live ammunition.
"It was a missing chapter in the history of WWII, the history of the air force, of the aviation and most of all in the history of America," said Deanie Parrish, a former WASP who addressed the gathering wearing her blue uniform.
Kittie Naegler, 63, said the celebration was "well overdue."
"It's a shame they didn't do it 10 or 20 years ago," added Naegler, who was at the tribute representing her mother, a former WASP who was too frail to attend.
With her hand resting on a framed photo of her mother on the wings of an airplane, Naegler described the circumstances under which young women between 18 and 20 years old joined the WASPs, as the air force struggled to deal with a shortage of pilots.
"You had to pay for the bus to get there, the bus to go home, your uniform, your wings," she said.
But once the war was over, the women were simply expected "to go home and have babies," she added.
"I just loved to fly," said Phyllis Paradis, who like Nash flew small planes for pleasure after the war was over.
"I reenrolled in the air force but they wouldn't let us fly any planes," Paradis said.
Amy Strebe, a historian and author of "Flying for her Country," said the tribute came not a moment too soon.
"This is the time to do it. In a couple of years they are not going to be with us anymore," she said.
Between July 2009, when President Barack Obama signed a measure paying official tribute to the WASPs, and Wednesday's ceremony, at least a dozen of the women fliers died, Strebe said.
