in November 1979
Marcella Ann Ng (born July 24, 1956) was the first African American woman pilot in the United States Armed Forces. [1]
Marcella Ann Ng (born July 24, 1956) was the first African American woman pilot in the United States Armed Forces. [1]
Marcella, born Marcella Ann Hayes, was born in 1956 in Mexico, Missouri. She was raised by her grandparents in Centralia, Missouri. [2] She graduated from Hickman High School in Columbia, Missouri in 1974. She received her bachelor's degree in English from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1978. [1] She initially wanted to become a doctor. [3] She joined the army in 1978. She is married to Dennis Ng and the couple has three children. [3] [4]
Marcella joined the ROTC in her second semester of college, and joined the army in 1978 after graduating from college. [5] [2] On November 27, 1979, at the U.S. Army Aviation Center at Fort Rucker, Alabama, she became the first black woman, and the 55th woman, to become a pilot in the United States Armed Forces. [1] [3] [2] She went on to serve 22 years in the army, and retired in 2000 as a lieutenant colonel. [5] In 2022 she was inducted into the University of Wisconsin-Madison Army ROTC Hall of Fame. [6]
Jacqueline Cochran was an American pilot and business executive. She pioneered women's aviation as one of the most prominent racing pilots of her generation. She set numerous records and was the first woman to break the sound barrier on 18 May 1953. Cochran was the wartime head of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) (1943–1944), which employed about 1000 civilian American women in a non-combat role to ferry planes from factories to port cities. Cochran was later a sponsor of the Mercury 13 women astronaut program.
Bessie Coleman was an early American civil aviator. She was the first African-American woman and first Native American to hold a pilot license. She earned her license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale on June 15, 1921, and was the first Black person to earn an international pilot's license.
Nancy Harkness Love, born Hannah Lincoln Harkness, was an American pilot and commander during World War II. She earned her pilot's license at age 16. She worked as a test pilot and air racer in the 1930s. During World War II she convinced William H. Tunner to look to set up a group of female pilots to ferry aircraft from factories to air bases. This proposal was eventually approved as the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron. Love commanded this unit and later all ferrying operations in the newly formed Women Airforce Service Pilots. She was awarded the Air Medal for her work during the war and was appointed lieutenant colonel in the US Air Force Reserve in 1948.
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Women in the Air Force (WAF) was a program which served to bring women into limited roles in the United States Air Force. WAF was formed in 1948 when President Truman signed the Women's Armed Services Integration Act, allowing women to serve directly in the military. The WAF program ended in 1976 when women were accepted into the USAF on an equal basis with men.
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