'Fly Girls' tells the early history of women in aviation

From  Christian Science Monitor:

Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History by Keith O’Brien centers on women who were brave and determined as they set about breaking technological and cultural barriers in their pursuit of flight, but their stories, taken together, are not as unambiguously victorious as the book’s subtitle suggests.

Between the unreliability of early planes – developed through trial and error and liable to have a wing suddenly sheer off midflight – and the virulent sexism that hampered these pilots’ access to better quality planes and the sponsorship they desperately needed, it was a tough road. A female flier could hardly emerge unscathed – with the possible exception of Amelia Earhart, the one name still familiar today, successful in flight and public persona, until she disappeared.

read more here @ Christian Science Monitor

The Women Who Flew for Hitler by Clare Mulley

From Historia Magazine:

Hanna Reitsch and Melitta von Stauffenberg were talented, courageous and strikingly attractive women who fought convention to make their names in the male-dominated field of flight in 1930s Germany. With the war, both became pioneering test pilots and both were awarded the Iron Cross for service to the Third Reich. But they could not have been more different and neither woman had a good word to say for the other.

Acclaimed biographer Clare Mulley gets under the skin of these two distinctive and unconventional women, giving a full – and as yet largely unknown – account of their contrasting yet strangely parallel lives, against a changing backdrop of the 1936 Olympics, the Eastern Front, the Berlin Air Club, and Hitler’s bunker.

Review: Seized by the Sun

Of the 38 Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) confirmed or presumed dead

World War II, only one—Gertrude “Tommy” Tompkins—is still missing.

On October 26, 1944, the 32-year-old fighter plane pilot lifted off 

from Mines Field in Los Angeles. She was never seen again.

Seized by the Sun: The Life and Disappearance of World War II Pilot Gertrude Tompkins by James W Ure is part of the "Women of Action" series.

This is a good introduction into the lives of the women of WASP. The focus of this work is on one woman in particular - Gertrude "Tommy" Tompkins (1912 - 1944). It is more of a memoir than a factual history, and we are treated to stories from Gertrude's early life (childhood and family), schooling, travels and marriage prior to her joining WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) at its very inception.

Then the book details Gertrude's "career" with WASP - her training, her female comrades, the flying, all the while reminding us - the reader - that these were dangerous times, and many of the female pilots were killed in the commission of their duties - 38 documented losses.

And then we come to Gertrude's final flight - what did happen that day is not fully known; some details are very sketchy; her state of mind was unknown; and even today, theories abound. 

As I mentioned, it is not a factual history of WASP, its pilots, nor a traditional biography. It is a simply written memoir for the curious reader. 

Review also @ Goodreads

See also: 

• Female WWII Pilots - The Original Fly Girls @ NRP 
• Wings Across America @ WASP WWII 
• WASP @ WWII Database 
• WASP @ Wikipedia