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And Still Flying...: The Life and Times of Elizabeth "Betty" Wall
by Patrick Roberts
98 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-1691; ISBN 1-4120-1313-5; US$22.95, C$29.95, EUR18.95, £13.95
The fascinating life history of an energetic octogenerian woman pilot.
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About the Book About the Author Table of Contents or Excerpts Catalogue Information
About the Book
The fascinating story of one of our nation's "Fly Girls". The Women Airforce Service Pilots of WWII flew every P-47 off the factory line in 1944. They flew 60,000,000 miles of operational flights and 77 different types of military aircraft including the B-29 during the years 1934-1944.
Elizabeth "Betty" Wall was one of these 1,074 W.A.S.P.S. who served their country well during the course of the war. She went on to raise a family of 5 during the 50's and 60's (5 kids in 5 years) and became a statistical researcher with the American Cancer Society.
Elizabeth "Betty" Wall flew an F-16 at age 71 and first piloted at B-17 at age 82! And she is still going strong at 83. This is the story of her life that so far spans nearly a century: from the "Roaring Twenties" and the "Great Depression" through WWII, the 60's and 70's to the present day.
Wall is a member of the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame and received the Immortal Chaplain's Humanitarian Award representing all Women Service Volunteers of WWII. She introduced Mr. Tom Browkow at the celebration dedicating a Veteran's Museum at the Hormel Plant in Austin, Minnesota. She is an energetic octogenarian who finds every day a golden opportunity to enjoy God's gifts.
Immerse yourself in the stories of a remarkable life and learn more about one of the people that we have to thank for the remarkable age we are now living in.
Comments
"...It was great to seek you again recently. You are a remarkable person and a Minnesota treasure! Thanks for your service."
Tim Pawlenty
Governor of Minnesota"Elizabeth Strohfus is an incredible person. She has had opportunities to do and see things that many of us only dream about. It is amazing to look at the accomplishments she has achieved over a lifetime and it is an honor to know her. Elizabeth is a star that continues to burn bright and is full of more energy than most teenagers. Who else can say they have flown an F-16 at age 71 and a B-17 at age 82?"
Jon Velishek
Historian, Rice County Historical Society, Faribault, Minnesota
About the Author
Patrick Roberts is the son of Elizabeth "Betty" Wall. He returned to Minnesota from California for a two week vacation in 1996 and got hooked. Between family home healthcare needs and other worthwhile endeavors, he has been fortunate to have the opportunity to escort his mother on many of her outings and is honoured to chronical her story. Having heard stories from other veterans and their contributions to the war effort, he is currently working on a book about the 455th Service Squadron New Guinea and nose art specialist Frank Seigert.
Table of Contents or Excerpts
Mother and father had married late in life; my father was 55 when I came along, making our cousins more like aunts and uncles. I remember our Uncle John Lorem who lived with and took care of our Aunt Maggie. She had polio as a child and was severely crippled, or physically challenged. He worked at the flour mill in town and had tried to start a labor union. In those days, trying to form a union was one of the least popular and most hazardous activities you could imagine. Owners and management alike frowned at the very thought of unions and believed them to be part of a communist plot and a menace to our society. Not to mention their own positions and pocketbooks. Johnny was labeled as a troublemaker, fired, and 'blackballed' from employment anywhere in the area. He had to make a living somehow for himself and Aunt Maggie, so he mastered the art of 'fermenting the grape' so to speak, and practiced the 'speak-easy' business of bootlegging.
At the time, the superintendent of schools lived next door to Johnny and he had complained to the Sheriff that something 'fishy' was going at Lorem's house because of the great number of visitors both day and night. The Sheriff, not only being a good friend of John's but also a regular customer, warned John that he was coming to raid his home the next day. Uncle John had a big pantry with a basement underneath it. He had a rug over the trap door and a table on top of the rug. His 'still' was taken apart and, with all his other brewing paraphernalia, was spirited away to the basement. Sure enough, the next day the Sheriff showed up with his deputy and the superintendent. They searched the house high and low and they came up dry -literally! The Sheriff looked that superintendent right straight in the eye and said with utmost sincerity, "Johnny must have a great number of very good friends." And that was that.
When Johnny got his 'still' up and bubbling again, he used to 'invite' us kids to come over and suck on a tube to siphon the hooch into big old jugs. All the sludge settled at the bottom of the vat and was the first stuff to come out. That 'gunk' was fouler tasting than I could ever express. I escaped this chore by telling Uncle John that I had taken the 'pledge', a solemn oath, and could never touch the liquor again or that I'd go straight to hell for sure. And that was that.
To supplement this income, he also sold fish to the Catholics on Fridays. As the story goes (and I should say again, story), he always had a pushcart full of fresh fish on Friday outside the church. Too many fish for any one person to possibly have caught. The school superintendent, still certain there was something 'fishy' going on over at Lorem's house, pointed this overabundance of fish out to the game warden, hoping to catch him at this game. The warden, also a regular customer of Johnny's other enterprise, promised to check it out. One Thursday he staked out the dock at Kelly-Dudley Lake where John launched his little duck-skiff. With the warden observing from the blind, sure enough, John rowed out to the middle of the lake, lit a half stick of dynamite from his cigar and tossed it over the side. He netted a great number of sunfish, bluegills, bullheads and a few walleye. As John approached the dock, the warden stepped out from behind the trees and explained why he was there while helping secure the boat to the dock. With one foot on the dock and the other in the skiff, Johnny slowly back paddled until the warden had to jump into the boat before landing in the drink. The warden kept citing the law while trying to figure out an angle to help get Johnny out of this mess while Johnny kept on paddling. In the middle of the lake, John calmly lit another stick of dynamite, handed it to the warden and said, "fish or shut-up!" And that was that.
While our father was still alive, his two brothers stayed with us in their old age and mother took care of them until they died. Those were different times and showed the true spirit of a loving extended family. If at all possible, no relative was ever put out to 'pasture' or into the poor house. Uncle Tom arrived in 1922 and lived with us until his death. Uncle John then moved in and he stayed another few years. Our brother George had to give up his room for the elders and slept on the couch in the parlor while the five of us girls had one room up stairs set up like a dormitory. Just how long ago those times actually were is evidenced by the fact that my father was three years old when President Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address and President Ulysses S. Grant had signed the Land Grant for my grandfather's property near Veseli, MN.
* * *
And then, on one particular day I was called into Flight Operations and given the mission of diving in on an infantry division over at Indian Wells with an AT-6, my favorite plane of all. I should mention again that there were only eight of us "lady" pilots stationed at Las Vegas. Our very existence not generally known and our flying missions not as yet part of the usual routine. My orders this day were to dive in at an infantry troop hunkered down in a bunker and let them sight in on me with anti-aircraft film-loaded machine guns and shoot me. I signed an order not to fly below 500 feet, complete the diving run, fuel up and return to base. I thought the form said 50 feet and I was not given specific approach directions for my strafing run. From the distance, I could see these boys in their bunker facing north searching the sky for the "intruder." This seemed much too easy, and knowing this was combat training, I took the initiative to circle to the south and approach from the rear on a surprise attack. Just as I was over the bunker, (and I mean JUST over their bunker) I changed the prop pitch on my AT-6 and ohh...what a lovely sound! I looked back as I passed and every one of those boys had hit the deck! I had a little chuckle, circled again and dove at them from the North. I could almost hear those guns a 'blazing'.
Thank God the ammunition was FILM! After the run, I landed for fuel and a critique on my mission. I'm a pilot, but I'm a woman pilot, so before I jumped from the cockpit, I took my comb and lipstick from my leg pocket, 'gussied' up a bit and lit to the wing. As I was preparing to fuel-up, a lieutenant came boiling up to my plane fuming, pacing and mumbling. He looked in the cockpit, around the plane and then blustered up to me and demanded to know where the pilot was that flew that last mission. I told him that I was his pilot and somehow I don't think he said what he had planned on saying. In a toned down rage he went on and on about how that mission was supposed to play out, how I had scared the 'bejeepers' out of his boys (and I'm sure him too) and that he was going to report me. Being somewhat surprised -but not really- I asked him where 'his' boys were going from here?
He said, "they are going overseas to combat and I want them to live to get there!" Thinking fast on my feet, I said, "Well do you think the enemy is just going to coast in on them, wiggle their wings and say "come on fellas, shoot me down?" To this he had no other reply than "humph" and stomped off in a huff. As it turned out his boys had the highest gunnery marks to date and this type of 'surprise' attack actually became part of the regular training exercise. He never did report me and later on we even became friends.
Even though the effects of G-force were not totally understood at this time, it was a standing order that no one, man or women, was to fly more than four hours a day. But, as I was young, healthy and felt certain that nothing could happen to me, after flying my own missions, I would hang around the ready room and wait for the inevitable. You know, some of those boys returning from town (Las Vegas) sometimes didn't look so good. They looked a bit green, like that fellow who gave me my first ride. They would struggle into a plane and start sucking up oxygen. I'd ask them if they wanted me to fly their mission and they usually said "O.K." They'd go into flight operations, sign their name on the manifest and then tell me what the mission was. They'd go off to bed, and I'd go off for the sky. If there ever had been a problem on that mission, someone would have sure been in for a surprise learning it wasn't a John Doe in that plane after all but a Jane Doe.
Having done this for apparently too long, one morning I could not get out of bed. I simply could not. I didn't feel sick, but I had zero energy and couldn't move, could not lift arm or leg. The other girls knowing that if I didn't get up to fly something was definitely wrong with me. I needed medical attention. They literally carried me to the flight surgeon who gave me a thorough examination. After determining there was nothing physically wrong with me, his diagnosis was explained as, "Miss? You're perfectly healthy, so you must be pregnant." I looked at him in utter surprise and indignantly answered, "I can't be pregnant because I'm not even married!" As he chuckled at that, but knew it to be true, it was decided I was suffering from flight-fatigue and given leave to recuperate.
Catalogue Information
