WASSUP??? April 2019 VOLUNTEER AWARD WINNERS Volunteer of the Quarter Awards: Team Chiefs, though award winners have not been selected for a while, please keep on submitting your choice for Volunteer of the Quarter and Volunteer of the Year according to the following schedule. To all Team Chiefs, please make your nominations for the Volunteer of the Quarter awards to Lou Nigro no later than (NLT) the 15th day of March, June, September, and December. If we do not receive nominations by the date above of each of the specified quarters, we will not name a Volunteer of the Quarter. NEW VOLUNTEERS We are continuously blessed with new people volunteering their time to help us here at the Museum. Since the last issue of the WASSUP, we have not added to our team of volunteers. The Museum is always looking for a “few good men & women” to add to our team. Please recruit your family members to volunteer @ the Museum. We are always in need of weekend docents especially and a couple of our Tuesday/Friday teams are also in desperate need of volunteers. LONG-TERM MUSEUM VISITORS PASSES For those who do not use a Government ID card to access the Base, a revised list of volunteers have been sent to the Base Access Control Officer for the new Defense Biometric Identification System (DBIDS) card that will allow you access to the base. This list includes the name of volunteer’s spouses, if applicable, or the parent/guardian of volunteers who have not already reached driving age. The Air Force-mandated background check on the individuals listed will be accomplished, at the Visitor’s Center when the DBIDS card is issued. When you come thru the Gate, just show them that card. They will scan the bar code on the back, and you will be on your way. REMEMBER that: (1) DBIDS cards will be issued ONLY to the persons on the validated list allowing them access to the Base; (2) If your spouse needs unescorted access to the Base to drop you off or pick you up, he/she will need to get his or her own DBIDS card. The DBIDS cards were requested for the current period, BUT if you picked up a new DBIDS card before the expiration of the old one, the new one will expire one year after the issuance of the new one. So keep an eye on the expiration date of your DBIDS card, as they are all not the same. Do not forget to get your “NEW” DBIDS card before your current one expires! Your Social Security number will need to be confirmed before your DBIDS card can be issued, so you have to present either your physical Social Security card of a physical IRS Form (such as a W-2) to confirm that number. DBIDS cards are issued at the Vehicle Registration desk in the Visitor’s Center north of the Main Gate at the intersection of M-59 and Jefferson Avenue. NEW HOURS: hours are generally from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Monday and from 7:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday thru Saturday. Due to staffing limitations, the Visitor’s Center is closed the Saturday before a Federal holiday, Sundays, Federal holidays, and on Saturdays and Mondays for lunch (time varies depending on their workload). I would recommend that you call before you try to get your pass, regardless of the day you plan to arrive. Their phone number is 586- 239-6849. DBIDS cards have been requested solely for participation in Museum activities, the performance of Museum business at other on-Base locations, and transportation to/from on- Base eating establishments. Do not use this pass for any other reason! Michigan's last surviving WWII Women Air Force Service Pilot dies at 97 Source: Kristen Jordan Shamus, Detroit Free Press | Updated 3:34 p.m. ET Feb. 2, 2019 Michigan’s last surviving World War II fly girl, Jane Doyle of Grand Rapids has died. Doyle, who received the Congressional Gold Medal for serving in the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) Program during WWII, was 97 years old when she died Friday at Spectrum Health Blodgett Hospital in Grand Rapids. Born Mildred Jane Baessler in Grand Rapids, she was a trail blazer, and was among 1,102 women recruited to fly stateside for the U.S. Army Air Forces during the way, freeing up male pilots to serve in combat. She was among 38 Michigan women who served as WASP pilots during the war. Mildred (Jane) Doyle (pictured above), a member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots during World War II, poses for a portrait in her WASP dress uniform at her Grand Rapids, Michigan home on 7 November 2017. Doyle flew military planes in support missions for the United States military. (Photo courtesy of Andraya Croft, Special to the Free Press) “The Women’s Airforce Service Pilots were groundbreaking in the same way that the iconic Rosie the Riveters were – some in flying and some in building the aircraft.” Kristen Wildes, director of the Ada Historical Society, told the Free Press for a 2017 news story about Doyle. “When the men left to serve in the war, these remarkable women stepped in to assist in the war effort and get the jobs done. Through their dedication and service, the WASPs got a foot in the door of a future that would slowly open to women in aviation.” Doyle told the Free Press during a 2017 interview that her father, Karl Baessler, was a German immigrant who worked for the Pere Marquette Railway. It was her mother, Emma Baessler, who took her to see the famous aviator, Charles Lindbergh, when he came to Grand Rapids in August 1927. She recalled hearing Lindbergh speak in the outdoor amphitheater at John Ball Park. Doyle was just 6. Here, she’s at the controls of a World War II airplane at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas. (Photo at left: Mildred Jane Doyle family photo) It wasn’t until she enrolled in what was then Grand Rapids Junior College in 1939 that flying an airplane was something that she could do. “I was taking engineering drawing and I was the only girl in the class.” Doyle said. “I was ordered to sit in the back in the corner and the instructor came in and was talking to the fellas about this Civilian Pilot Training Program. After the class, I went up and said, ‘How about women? Can I get in?’ And he said, “Well, I’ll find out. And then he told me that one woman could get in for every 10 men. Men had to be 5-foot-4, but women could be 5-foot-2 ½. So, I stretched, and passed the physical and got into the program that summer.” By the fall of 1940, Doyle was enrolled at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and flying with the Civil Air Patrol to keep her pilot’s license. When Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, Doyle’s brother, Frederick Baessler, enlisted in the Navy as an officer, serving on a destroyer in the Pacific. Her sister joined the American Red Cross. And one day, a telegram arrived. It was from Jacqueline Cochran, the founder of a flying program that was recruiting female pilots from across the country to join the war effort. “I got a telegram asking, ‘was I interested?’ … I responded that I was interested. And then I got a notice that said … I had to go pass a physical at Selfridge Field,” Doyle said. She passed the tests and made her way to Texas for seven months of training at Avenger Field in the town of Sweetwater. Cochrane was insistent that her pilots would be trained to fly every aircraft in service. Photo of Mrs. Doyle showing her album from her WASP days and medals, badges, buttons and pins including a Congressional Gold Medal (center) and World War II Victory Medal (top center) that were awarded to Mildred Jane Doyle, a member of the Women Air Force Service Pilots during World War II, photographed at her Grand Rapids, Mich. home on 7 November 2017. (Photo courtesy of Andraya Croft, Special to the Free Press) Altogether, Doyle and the other WASPs flew 60 million miles of operation flights from 1942-44 and piloted 78 types of aircraft, according to Kimberly Johnson, the director of special collections at Texas Woman’s University, the repository of historical information about WASP pilots. Because they weren’t considered part of the military at the time – they were civilians – the WASPs had to buy their own uniforms and cover the costs of traveling to the training center and to their assigned bases. They had to pay rent and cover other expenses. And when a woman died on the job – as 38 of them did – her family got nothing. “For those that were lost, whose lives were given during the war the government didn’t pay to get them back home for their families to lay them to rest. There was a lot of sacrifice but they did so willingly.” Johnson said. “What they did was open so many doors.” Doyle met her husband, Donald Doyle, a flight instructor and check pilot, at Freemont Field in Indiana in June 1944. “He had to check me out along with the engine,” she said, chuckling. Two months after they met, Jane Baessler became Jane Doyle. “They said it wouldn’t last a year,” Doyle said. Instead, it lasted 67 years, and gave them five children, a dozen grandchildren and 19 great grandchildren.