Family Fighting to Allow Female World War II Pilots to Be Laid to Rest in Arlington National Cemetery

[Valin]

ABC New:

AVIANNE TAN

Jan 5, 2016

 

The family of late World War II pilot veteran Elaine Harmon is fighting for her and other female WWII pilots to have the right to be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.

 

In 1944, when Harmon was 25, she joined 1,000 female pilots as part of the Army's Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) program in World War II, according to the Veterans History Project in The Library of Congress. Though WASPs didn't fly in combat and weren't "militarized," they ferried all kinds of military aircraft to various parts of the country, trained male pilots on different planes and instruments and even flew airplanes with targets behind them to help male pilots training in aerial target practice.

 

Harmon, who died last year at age 95, had one last dying wish, according to a letter she wrote to her family: She wanted her ashes to be inurned at Arlington National Cemetery's Columbarium, her granddaughter Erin Miller told ABC News today.

 

(Snip)

 

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