Female WWII pilot will finally be laid to rest at Arlington

Women Airforce Service Pilot Elaine Harmon was finally laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery today in a service that was both reverent and joyful. Then Harmon passed away in April 2015 and Army officials told Miller that her grandmother was not eligible for burial at Arlington.

During WWII, no U.S. women were allowed to participate directly in combat, though many found themselves in combat situations throughout the duration of the war. The legislation was sponsored by Rep. Martha McSally, R-Arizona, herself a retired Air Force pilot who was the first female fighter pilot in US history to fly in combat.

Harmon’s ashes were laid to rest at a funeral service with military honors. But since the women were technically civilians, the US Army that employed them would not allow the US flag to be put on the coffin of fallen pilots. “I’m humbled every time I think of the legacy of the WASPs”. And when the war was winding down, the WASPs were dismissed and their jobs were given back to male military pilots.

Things did get better for the women after many former WASPS successfully fought to be recognized as a military organization.

In the end it took an Act of Congress to open the cemetery to the WASPs once again. WASPs won the right to an Arlington burial in a de facto Army ruling in 2002, as The Christian Science Monitor previously reported. “There was a lot of hostility and people who wanted us to fail”, the congresswoman said of the effort to restore the WASPs’ rights.

Harmon was a member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASP.

But a month before she died, then-Army Secretary John McHugh decided that WASPs did not qualify for inclusion at Arlington – and never should have.

Harmon’s relatives appealed for a change in policy, the Post reports. But her family had to fight to get her buried at Arlington.

“Everyone was horrified”, says Rickman. A story about it by the Associated Press sparked a campaign to have the ban reversed, fuelled by a change.org petition that garnered no fewer than 175,000 signatures. With the help of WASP historians like Rickman and several Congressional allies, they fulfilled Harmon’s wishes. US Rep. Martha McSally (R) of Arizona, a former military fighter pilot herself, recalls learning that WASPs were not permitted to be buried at Arlington. McSally made sure she was in attendance for Wednesday’s funeral.

“I was just shocked”, said Kruse, who now lives in Pompano Beach, Fla. On May 20, 2016, President Obama signed H.R.4336, an act to provide for the inurnment in Arlington National Cemetery of the remains of those whose service has been determined to be active service.

Lt. Col. Caroline Jensen, an Air Force reservist with more than 200 combat hours who was the Thunderbirds’ first flying mom, said she is one of the Harmon Air Force granddaughters. “In a way, we’ve already grieved, and this now is about closure”.

In all, 38 WASPs were killed during their service – 11 in training and 27 on missions.