For 33 years, the Women Air force Service Pilots (WASP) organization was a military branch that never existed by all historical accounts.

During the course of these three decades the sacrifices made by patriotic American women during World War II were all but forgotten. They were not in the history books. They did not have the benefit of enjoying a veteran status. And most importantly, they did not have any way of vocalizing their frustration.

After having served as military pilots from 1942 to 1944 their existence was deemed classified by the United States government and their voice was silenced.

Times were different then. Prior to the creation of the Women Air Force Service Pilots organization, in 1942, at the then Houston Municipal Airport, today William P. Hobby Airport, there had been no other female military pilot program in the country.

Even then, their existence was more a matter of necessity – not desire.

It took Jacqueline Cochran, the first woman to fly a military aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean and the founder of the WASPs, three years to convince President Franklin D. Roosevelt to establish a women’s military pilot program. In 1939, the dear friend of Amelia Earhart wrote her first letter to Mrs. Roosevelt proposing her concept, only to have it rejected.

No, however, was not a term unfamiliar to this self-made woman of conviction. Before becoming a pilot, Cochran, a high school dropout, worked as a shampoo girl and a dancer, always holding dear the belief that an airplane could not differentiate between a man and a woman.

In December of 1941, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the nation’s military fleet was crippled by the loss of more than 2,300 American soldiers, sailors and civilians. At that point the United States became desperate for more pilots and it was then that Cochran was given the green light to proceed with the concept of the WASPs.

In 1942, the first group of 29 women pilots from across the nation arrived at Houston Municipal Airport. Unlike their male counterparts, these women had to pay their own way into the makeshift military base. Once here, they did not have a bunker in which to reside – each pilot had to make their own arrangements for shelter.

Nicknamed the “guinea pigs” these women were required to have 200 more hours of flying time under their belts – 500 hours in total – than male pilots in order to participate in the program. With her salary of $1 per year Cochran made do and slowly the number of female military pilots began to grow.

By 1944 more than 1,000 women had earned their wings and were flying over 22 different types of aircraft for the US military. Their primary function was to relieve male pilots for combat missions, but even under these circumstances their security was not assured. More than 35 WASPs lost their lives during the war.

Witnessing these historic events was a curious and adventurous young pilot dispatcher named Celeste Graves. Graves had began her career in aviation one year earlier, in 1941, at the age of 20 and still remembers the apprehension she felt after learning that the first group of female pilots would be coming to Houston Municipal Airport.

“It was not something I was looking forward to,” she recalls. “Being the only woman surrounded by a bunch of male pilots I was spoiled, but as soon as the first group of women arrived there was an immediate camaraderie between us.”

From her small little dispatch office at the airport, which the male pilots had christened ‘the doghouse,’ Graves watched as the women underwent the rigorous training, one group after another.