When Paula Loop earned her wings, she was breaking the glass ceiling of her day. She was the first woman awarded wings in her home state of Oklahoma.[i] Ultimately, she flew in every state in the United States and also into Canada.

Her story began at the Loop family farm, 9 ¾ miles south and 1 mile west of Manchester, Oklahoma. It was there Elton Amos Loop and his wife, Nettie Alameda Bartlett Loop, grew their family. Both were 23 when their first child, Paula Ruth Loop, was born.[ii] Elton was from Kansas and Nettie from Iowa.[iii]

Four years later, Paula received a sister, Marjorie Genevieve Loop Wilson, who was born in their farm’s home.[iv] She was followed by a brother, Robert Elton Loop, in 1922 and another sister, Jessie Lorine Loop in 1925.[v] In the 1930 census, Elton and Nettie are farming. Paula and the other two oldest attend school. Only 4-year-old Lorine is at home.[vi] The school Paula attended was a country one-room grade school.[vii]

The Loop family was involved in church life as sometimes her father would lead the prayers. At least two of the Loop girls were musical. Paula played the piano, sometimes at church, and her sister, Lorine, would accompany her with the violin.[viii]

Paula graduated from Manchester High School.[ix]

HER LIFE BEFORE MILITARY

In 1937,[x] Paula graduated from the Oklahoma College for Women at Chickasha, now the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, with a degree in commerce[xi]. Paula started a master’s degree program in Stillwater at Oklahoma A & M College, now Oklahoma State University.[xii]

She taught several subjects at Arnett Public Schools and later, in 1939, she went to work in Ponca City as a private secretary[xiii] for a life insurance firm. She boarded as a lodger in Ponca City, which was about 75 miles from her home on the farm. Paula was earning about $21 per week.[xiv]

Then, in 1940, when she was 24, she took a flight scholarship from the Civil Air Authorities. Through this program, she earned her 35 hours of flight time and a private pilot’s license.[xv] She soloed on September 2, 1940.[xvi] Paula finished the program with a grade point average of 94.9.[xvii]

Indeed, Paula’s flying made the local newspaper, The Manchester Journal, when a column noted she and her sister, Lorine, flew over their home of their parents on a flight from Woodward to Ponca City one Sunday afternoon.[xviii]

In 1942, Paula joined the war effort as a civilian. She served as a Link Trainer Instructor at Darr School for British cadets.[xix]

In the winter of 1942, Paula’s sister, Marjorie, heads to Texas where she marries Harold Wilson in Wichita Falls, Texas. It isn’t very many months before Paula heads to Texas too.[xx]

HER MILITARY STORY

Paula Ruth Loop was a WASP in WWII.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt recognized the need to tap into women to increase manpower in the war. First news of the effort to take women pilots came in late 1942. Women had to pass through an interview process before being allowed to make a formal application and have a physical exam. The requirements gradually changed so April of 1944, applicants then took an Aviation Cadet qualifying examination. The requirements included American citizenship, an age range of 21 to 35 years old, a high school education and the women must know how to fly. They needed to provide a commercial pilot license with not less than 200 hours of logged flying time that included cross-country experience. When there were not enough women with 200 hours to fill positions, the required experience was lowered to 100 hours and later to 35 hours. The very first women’s flight class was named 43-W-1 for 1943-women-first class.[xxi]

A big difference between men and women pilot candidates in WWII was cost. Women had to pay for their own flight lessons and flying time in order to accrue enough hours to apply. Women also paid for their own way to Texas to train and if they did not graduate, they had to pay their own way home. If a woman was killed, as Paula was, her family was expected to pay for the return of the body.

Paula Loop entered Army Air Force flight training at Ellington Field at the Houston Municipal Airport in Houston, Texas on December 19, 1942.[xxii] She was a member of class 43-W-2.[xxiii]

She earned her WASP wings on May 28, 1943,[xxiv] graduating at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas.[xxv] A newspaper article in the Fort Worth newspaper described the graduates as “sun tanned, windblown, physically fit women with military bearing and an air of confidence.” After graduation, Paula and the other women were to relieve men fliers for combat and other duties.

“We are anxious for you to prove to our enemies that our pride is well founded,” Colonel J. Huntington Hills said in his remarks at graduation. A drill of 300 cadets passed the reviewing stands along with a military band and color-bearers.[xxvi]

After graduation, she was assigned to Romulus Air Base near Detroit, Michigan as a ferry pilot.[xxvii] Her ferrying job had her delivering planes for army training, to fields and embarkation points in Canada and the U.S.[xxviii]

After a stint in Michigan, Paula headed to Florida. There she completed advanced training as a W.A.S. pilot in Orlando. Once her training was complete, she took two weeks leave, the last one of May and the first week of June, to vacation at home with her parents and her sister, Lorine. None of them realizing that in a month, she would be gone. Following her visit home, her sister accompanied her to Kansas City.[xxix]

In Kansas, she reported to the 33rd Flight Group at Fairfax Field in Kansas City.[xxx]

Paula Loop had approximately 1,000 hours of solo time. She’d flown in every state of the United States and Canada, according to the Oregon Aviation Historical Society.[xxxi]

HER LAST DAY

On July 7, 1944, Paula’s mission was to deliver a Vultee BT-13 plane to Seattle, Washington. She took off from Enid.[xxxii] She fueled up at the Medford Army Air Field. After fueling, she headed north.[xxxiii]

Later the same afternoon, a U.S. Forest Service employee noticed a fire in the Richter Mountain area. He took a small crew with him and went to investigate the fire. It was there he found a burning airplane. The plane had hit several tall trees and the wing had sheared off.[xxxiv]

Her plane crashed near Medford, Oregon in a timbered and mountainous area.[xxxv] Her burning plane started a forest fire. The forest service ranger, Lowell Ash, discovered Paula’s body and the plane wreckage.[xxxvi] Her body was taken to Camp White in Medford.[xxxvii]

The cause of the accident is unknown. There were strong winds with severe gusts reported about 30 miles from Medford, Oregon. Speculation on the accident suggests she was caught in those winds and pulled into a downward slope that took her into trees.[xxxviii] An investigation showed she did not run out of fuel as there was fuel still in the tank.[xxxix]

Fellow WASP Pilot and friend, Geraldine “Jerry” Hardman Jordan, told of another reasoning discussed at that time. In a blog article, “My Mother Had Wings” at The Church of the Big Sky[xl] Blog by Jerry Jordan’s daughter, Melissa Jordan, she shared Jerry Jordan attended the inquest into the accident. It was noted in the article that investigators tried to pin the accident on the pilot having her menstrual cycle, something that would be unheard of in modern times where women have flown in the space shuttle for nearly a year without a break.

She was 27.

AFTER THE WAR

In 2003, the Oregon Aviation Historical Society received permission from the U.S. Forest Service to look for and recover Paula Loop’s plane. After 59 years, all that remained was the engine and a tubular section of fuselage. Volunteers built a sled and then used ropes, chains, pulleys, and a cable to move the plane parts up hill and around trees. [xli] Most of the artifacts and wreckage pieces were sent to the National WASP WWII Museum in Sweetwater TX , according to Annette Buswell Whittington, Director/Treasurer, Oregon Aviation Historical Society.

COMMENDATIONS

Congressional Gold Medal[xlii]

World War II Victory Medal

United States Aviator Badge Army

American Campaign Medal

Army Presidential Unit Citation

Army Good Conduct Medal[xliii]

MEMORIALS

2005: The University of Science and Arts Oklahoma Nash Library hosted a “Fly Girls” exhibit about WASPs. The nine-panel exhibit contained a special section with information on Paula Loop, a school alumnus from the Class of 1937.[xliv]

1980: A dormitory at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City was dedicated in Paula’s memory.[xlv] According to a Ninety-Nines’, a women’s pilot association, newsletter, it is the first military building dedicated in a woman’s memory.[xlvi]

A monument to the 38 WASPs killed in the line of duty can be found at their old base in Sweetwater, Texas.[xlvii]

Lieutenant Paula Loop is remembered at the United States Air Force Academy, Colorado, in El Paso County. The marker can be found in the United States Air Force Academy Cemetery, on Parade Loop west of Stadium Boulevard.[xlviii]

HER FUNERAL AND GRAVE

Fellow WASP Pilot and her dearest friend, Geraldine “Jerry” Hardman Jordan, escorted her body home to Oklahoma, according to an Air and Space Magazine article by Jerry Jordan’s daughter, Melissa Jordan.[xlix] In Melissa Jordan’s blog, The Church of the Big Sky, she writes that the train carrying Paula’s body was greeted by the whole town, including relatives in their WWI uniforms. Jerry Jordan is said to have called her commanding officer because military honors were not awarded to WASP pilots at that time, and he instructed her to allow the folks to do whatever they wanted to for Paula.[l]

A memorial service was held for WASP Pilot Paula Ruth Loop at the Fairview Christian Church with Reverend W. A. Keller of Cherokee officiating. A flag-draped casket, with a picture of Paula, was surrounded by floral arrangements.[li] She was buried at the Wakita Cemetery in Wakita, Oklahoma.[lii] Her silver wings are embedded in her granite grave marker. Her marker reads “Into The Mosaic of Victory, This Priceless Piece Was Set.”[liii]

ABOUT THIS STORY

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen saved on Together We Served and Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smartphone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story.

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