news-record.com

It took 66 years, but former Greensboro resident Susie Winston Bain was finally recognized earlier this month for her service during World War II as a Women Airforce Service Pilot.

Bain, 87, is one of about 300 still living and one of 200 who were able to make it to Washington to receive the Congressional Gold Medal during a ceremony at the U.S. Capitol.

Bain lived in Greensboro for 38 years after the war ended, raising her family here. Her son, Bobby Bain, is president of Bain Oil Co. in Greensboro.

“I’m just thrilled that finally our story could be told,” said Bain from her home in Austin, Texas, where she lives with her daughter, Debby Bain McCray, and three grandchildren. “I wanted and still want people to know we were there.”

Bain was one of 1,102 women who served as WASP members, ferrying fighter planes and bombers back and forth across the U.S. and pulling targets behind their planes so that male pilots could practice. They did not fly in combat, but WASP members were the first female pilots to fly American military planes.

“We were basically surrogate pilots for the men, so that more male pilots could serve overseas,” Bain said. “We felt important to the war effort.”

Though they felt important to the war effort, they were not considered part of the military. They had to buy their own uniforms. Thirty-eight WASP pilots died in the line of the duty and did not receive a military funeral, Bain said.

“You have to remember this was the 1940s, and women were basically considered expendable,” Bain said. “When a WASP was killed, the other women pilots had to take up a collection to send the pilot’s remains home.”

Bain felt she was doing what needed to be done and enjoyed being a pilot.

“It felt like I was floating on top of the world,” she said. “We just wanted to fly.”

Bain, a Texas native, was a sophomore at the University of Texas when Pearl Harbor was bombed and the U.S. entered World War II.

Because finances were tight during the war, Bain quit college and went to work typing for a CPA office. She was bored, though, and when a friend shared an ad with her about the WASP program, she jumped at the chance.

“I had no flying experience, no yearning to be a hot pilot,” she said. “Nothing but gall told me I could fly.”

The then 21-year-old raised funds to take classes and was one of 25,000 interviewed for the WASP program. Of that 25,000, 1,830 were accepted into the program, and 1,074 graduated, Bain said.

While she feels her service was not really respected at the time, she has many fond memories of her work.

During a flight from Texas to Louisiana in stormy weather, she had to make an emergency landing in a cornfield. She laughed when she recalled the land owner coming out with his gun and his surprise when he learned a woman was flying the plane.

“I loved her stories growing up,” Bobby Bain said. “I used to tell my girlfriends that my mom flew bombers during the war, and if someone asks about my mother now, her flying is the first thing I share.”

He said his mother didn’t talk about her experience that much.

“To mother, she thought she was just doing her duty for the war and at the same time, having fun.”

With the close of the war in December 1944, WASP was disbanded, and Bain and her fellow pilots were given 24 hours to leave and “get home the best way we could,” she said. Bain never flew a plane again.

For years, many people were not aware of the contribution of women pilots during World War II. All records of the WASP were classified and sealed for 35 years.

It was not until 1977 that WASP received veteran status, and in 2009 U.S. Sens. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md. and Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, proposed a bill to recognize the pilots. In July, President Barack Obama signed it.

Though she has degenerative arthritis and osteoporosis, Bain was determined to attend the Congressional Gold Medal ceremony with her family. In addition to Bobby Bain and McCray, her daughter Betty Osborne attended the ceremony, as well as her grandchildren. One gold medal was made by the U.S. Mint and donated to the Smithsonian Institute, and bronze replicas of the medals were given to the WASP members and their families.

“It was amazing,” McCray said. “It made me proud.”

For Bain, it reiterated what she learned at the knee of her mother and what she’s tried to instill in her own children and grandchildren, two of whom are interested in becoming pilots.

“My mom always said, ‘You can do anything you set your mind to,’” Bain said.

Contact Jennifer Atkins Brown at 574-5582 or jennifer.brown@news-record.com.