The plane crashed killing the pilot, one of the women WASPs said to feel unwelcome on the base. Was there foul play? Nothing was ever proved so maybe it was just an accident. Or was it?

Discussed in publications including Time Magazine and various newspapers, the death of WASP Pilot Betty Wood is filled with speculation.

Born on March 13, 1921[i] in New Berlin, Illinois, Elizabeth “Betty” Louise Taylor (Wood) was the daughter of Thomas R. and Effa Mae Swaringuin Taylor. She, and her older brother Thomas Jr., spent younger years in Athens, Illinois.[ii] (Many places list New Berlin as her birthplace but only her death certificate says Litchfield, Illinois.)[iii]

BEFORE MILITARY LIFE

She was a 1939[iv] graduate of Placer High School in Auburn, California. She then attended and graduated from Sierra Junior College in California[v] with an associate of arts degree on May 28, 1941.[vi] She was a popular member of her schools.[vii] She was a member of the VGO who aided the USO.[viii]

By 1940, she is living at home in Auburn with her father, a manager of a lumber yard, and his second wife, Jeanette. Her brother, Thomas, who is now 22 and an employee of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company[ix], and his wife, Pauline, live with them too.[x]

Betty became a student in the Civilian Pilot Training program at Sierra Junior College. According to GoldCountryMedia.com, a fellow trainee, Captain Don Graham, described her “As the most natural pilot enrolled in the class.”[xi]

Besides studying in college and learning to fly, she worked as a clerk and a doctor’s assistant.[xii]

HER MILITARY STORY

Betty began her military career when she entered AAF flight training at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas. She began on Valentine’s Day in 1943 and was in the class of 43-W-4.[xiii] She was a member of the Women’s Flying Detachment at Avenger Field.[xiv]

A 22 ½ week[xv] training included physical exercise, work in the trainer, aircraft identification, navigation, meteorology, medical training, seamanship, woodsmanship, airplane and engine maintenance, handling paperwork and studying dot-dash codes.[xvi] Dressed in khaki coveralls, the women worked long hours under the hot Texas sun.[xvii]

At the end of her training, two big events happened for Betty in one day. First, graduation was celebrated and then her wedding was celebrated. Betty married her tall[xviii] flight instructor, Harold Wayne 'Shorty' Wood in Nolan, Texas[xix] with her parents in attendance and another WASP as her maid of honor[xx]. According to The Sacramento Bee newspaper, the First Presbyterian Church was decorated in ferns, flowers, and gladioli. The church organist played traditional wedding marches for the double ring ceremony. Betty walked down the aisle on her father’s arm. Afterwards, a wedding dinner was held for their close friends.[xxi]

Both life changing events were on August 7, 1943.[xxii] Shorty was from Colorado. At the time he filled out his draft card for WWII, he was working at Cedar Rapids Airways in Iowa.

Post-graduation and wedding, she “went east” for training in high altitude flying.[xxiii] Shorty stayed on as instructor at Avenger Field. Betty was then stationed at Camp Davis Army Air Field in Holly Ridge, NC,[xxiv] where she served as a Ferry Command Pilot[xxv] with 3 Tow Target Squadron.[xxvi] At Camp Davis, the WASPs faced a strict routine. They had 45 minutes in the morning for exercise, changing clothes, making their bed with perfect corners, eating breakfast, and reporting to the airfield for the day’s mission. They’d search the board in the operations room for their assignment then head to the briefing room.[xxvii]

Betty’s mission was to fly targets for shooting practice where live ammunition was used. Air Force Magazine reported that at Camp Davis, the women flew “tired, badly maintained A-24 and A-25 dive bombers.”[xxviii]

Targets were pulled behind her in a “beat-up” A-24 that had been deemed no longer fit for combat, according to Gus Thomson in an article “Pioneer WWII Pilot Betty Wood's Fatal Flight Mystery.”[xxix] They flew the fighters and bombers over Topsail Island.[xxx] The dangerous job meant that targets were carried 300 yards behind their plane while men who had never fired such a large weapon shot at them. Women landed with holes in their aircraft.[xxxi]

HER LAST DAY

On her last day, Betty took off in an RA-24A Banshee Bomber, serial number 42-60850, with First Lieutenant Richard Wezeman aboard. Reverend Wezeman was a United States Army Chaplain. He was a Christian Reformed Church minister[xxxii] who had left his wife, Anne, and three-year-old daughter, Jean, at home in Illinois while he was a Chaplin and served the war effort.[xxxiii]

On the return flight, she went in for a normal landing with flaps down at Camp Davis Army Air Base in Holly Ridge, North Carolina, according to investigators of the crash. However, the accident report continued “The left tire, left flap and left wing all contacted the runway at the same time, and the airplane swerved off the runway with the left wing dragging and both wheels in the air. After a 45° turn to the left, both wheels struck the ground hard, and the airplane bounced and headed for an embankment. The pilot applied full throttle and brought the tail wheel down. after skimming along the ground in this manner, the front wheels struck the embankment, a dirt slope about 4 ft high. The impact threw the airplane upwards for about 25 ft. The nose came up into a stalling attitude and the airplane fell over on its back into a drainage ditch."[xxxiv]

Betty Wood was killed and the Chaplin seriously injured on September 23, 1943 in the plane crash[xxxv] as they were crushed between the canopy and the plane.[xxxvi] Her death made the front page news of her hometown newspaper, The Auburn Journal.[xxxvii] She was one of 38 WASPs killed in WWII.[xxxviii] (Some reports stated both were killed but Reverend Wezeman’s obituary shows that was not true.[xxxix])

She was 22 and a newlywed of less than two months.

WAS FOUL PLAY INVOLVED?

Although her crash was ruled an accident attributed to pilot error, there seems to be much mystery and speculation about the event that led to her death. From rumors that female pilots and old planes were expendable, to resentment from male pilots who were then freed to go into battle and unproven allegations of sugar in her gas tank.[xl]

“When the women showed up, no one told the men at (Camp) Davis in advance, so the commander said they wouldn’t be allowed to do anything and it caused problems right from the start,” John Moseley, an educator at the Fort Fisher State Historic Site who studied WASPs, told the Gaston Gazette newspaper.[xli] Moseley added that the women came along to take the men’s jobs so they could do combat duty and that there was hostility because the women became better at the jobs than men.

Another WASP shared her story of that time. "I was sent on a temporary basis from the Fifth Ferrying Group at Love Field to tow targets at Camp Davis, NC for anti-aircraft training. On arrival we were told the planes were expendable and so were we,” said Marion Hanrahan, WASP pilot, at Skylighters.org.[xlii]

Sugar in the gas tank of a female pilot wasn’t just a rumor. It was witnessed by a well-known and high-ranking pilot. _Time Magazine _reported that Pilot “Jacqueline Cochran personally discovered sugar in the gas tank of a plane that had crashed, killing her colleague Betty Davis, but feared she and her colleagues would lose their jobs if they reported it.”[xliii] Cochran was probably the best-known female pilot of her era. She was an aviation pioneer, a racing pilot and the first woman to break the sound barrier. During wartime, she was the head of the Women Airforce Service Pilots.[xliv]

Despite women pilots claiming men sabotaged their planes, none of the cases were ever proved. Besides Betty, another WASP, Mabel Rawlinson, was also killed in 1943 at Camp Davis. Mabel’s crash investigation showed poor plane maintenance and that the wrong octane fuel was used.[xlv]

“It would be decades before their deaths were public record,” according to Benjamin Schachtman in the Port City Daily.[xlvi]

Several technical factors may have contributed to the crash. The plane was flying with gas that contained lower-than-required octane, lack of repair parts may have meant maintenance wasn’t properly attended to and another possibility is that the throttle stuck pushing the plane into a roll when it was pulled up to gain altitude.[xlvii] Many of the 38 WASPs that died were killed as a result of mechanical failure.[xlviii]

AFTER THE WAR

Camp Davis was shuttered.[xlix] The WASP program was ended. Betty’s husband, Shorty, remarried a few years later to another Betty – Betty Ann Stahl. He went on to have a family and live to age 63.[l] Reverend Richard Wezeman, injured in Betty’s fatal crash, went home to his family, Anne and Jean. He lived to be age 99,[li] having grandchildren and great-grandchildren.[lii]

COMMENDATIONS

Congressional Gold Medal[liii]

United States Aviator Badge

World War II Victory Medal

American Campaign Medal

Army Presidential Unit Citation

Army Good Conduct Medal[liv]

MEMORIALS

There is a North Carolina Highway Historical Marker dedicated to the WASPs who served there and those who were killed. It is located on U.S. Highway 17 N. near Camp Davis Road in Holly Ridge.

HER GRAVE

A memorial funeral service was held at Lukens, Vettestad & Bryan Chapel[lv] in Auburn, California with Rev. Lucius Reed of the Auburn Congregational Church conducting the service.[lvi] Her body was delayed in transit and did not arrive in time for the service.[lvii] Betty Taylor Wood was cremated[lviii] and her remains are at East Lawn Memorial Park in Sacramento, California.[lix] They are marked with a WWII WASP medallion.

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 here on Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smart phone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story.

[i] https://www.fold3.com/page/641396257-elizabeth-louise-taylor/facts

[ii] https://www.honorstates.org/index.php?id=508461

[iii] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/1121/images/S123_1261-1967?pId=1565346

[iv] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/70687187/betty-louise-wood

[v] https://www.honorstates.org/index.php?id=508461

[vi] https://basic.newspapers.com/image/378312364/?terms=%22Betty%2BLouise%2BTaylor%22

[vii] https://goldcountrymedia.com/news/148953/pioneer-wwii-pilot-betty-woods-fatal-flight-mystery/

[viii] http://genealogytrails.com/cal/placer/military/ww2articlespg3.html

[ix] https://basic.newspapers.com/image/477164640/?article=03f01393-fd0e-440c-a698-449afeb23864

[x] 1940 census https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/2442/images/m-t0627-00275-00364?treeid=157972095&personid=132104244042&usePUB=true&_phsrc=Zvj9&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&pId=70111356

[xi] https://goldcountrymedia.com/news/148953/pioneer-wwii-pilot-betty-woods-fatal-flight-mystery/

[xii] https://basic.newspapers.com/image/475005506/?terms=%22Betty%2BLouise%2BTaylor%22

[xiii] https://twitter.com/will_m_miller/status/1043882942248841216?lang=en

[xiv] https://basic.newspapers.com/image/475005506/?terms=%22Betty%2BLouise%2BTaylor%22

[xv] http://genealogytrails.com/cal/placer/military/ww2articlespg3.html

[xvi] https://www.newsobserver.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/past-times/article139094393.html

[xvii] http://genealogytrails.com/cal/placer/military/ww2articlespg3.html

[xviii]To Live and Die a WASP: 38 Women Pilots Who Died in WWII by William M. Miller.

[xix]https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/family-tree/person/tree/157972095/person/132104244042/facts?_phsrc=Zvj5&_phstart=successSource

[xx] To Live and Die a WASP: 38 Women Pilots Who Died in WWII by William M. Miller.

[xxi] The Sacramento Bee, August 28, 1943

[xxii]https://www.honorstates.org/index.php?id=508461

[xxiii] http://genealogytrails.com/cal/placer/military/ww2articlespg3.html

[xxv] https://goldcountrymedia.com/news/148953/pioneer-wwii-pilot-betty-woods-fatal-flight-mystery/

[xxvi] https://www.aviationarchaeology.com/src/AARmonthly/Sep1943S.htm

[xxvii] https://www.newsobserver.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/past-times/article139094393.html

[xxviii] https://www.airforcemag.com/article/valor-the-wasps-of-world-war-ii/

[xxix] https://goldcountrymedia.com/news/148953/pioneer-wwii-pilot-betty-woods-fatal-flight-mystery/

[xxx] https://portcitydaily.com/story/2017/10/23/the-wasps-of-wwii-when-women-pilots-ruled-the-air-over-the-cape-fear-area-our-ht/

[xxxi] https://www.gastongazette.com/news/20200516/wasps-in-wwii-women-pilots-built-legacy-in-cape-fear

[xxxii] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7539266/richard-wezeman

[xxxiii] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/2442/images/M-T0627-00893-00186?usePUB=true&usePUBJs=true&pId=140107151

[xxxiv] Fatal Army Air Forces Aviation Accidents in the United States 1941-1945. Volume 2. Anthony J. Mireles page 523.

[xxxv] https://www.fold3.com/page/641396257-elizabeth-louise-taylor/stories

[xxxvi] https://goldcountrymedia.com/news/148953/pioneer-wwii-pilot-betty-woods-fatal-flight-mystery/

[xxxvii] https://goldcountrymedia.com/news/148953/pioneer-wwii-pilot-betty-woods-fatal-flight-mystery/

[xxxviii] https://goldcountrymedia.com/news/148953/pioneer-wwii-pilot-betty-woods-fatal-flight-mystery/

[xxxix] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7539266/richard-wezeman

[xl] https://goldcountrymedia.com/news/148953/pioneer-wwii-pilot-betty-woods-fatal-flight-mystery/

[xli] https://www.gastongazette.com/news/20200516/wasps-in-wwii-women-pilots-built-legacy-in-cape-fear

[xlii] http://www.skylighters.org/wasps/

[xliii] https://time.com/4923054/world-war-ii-sugar-engines/

[xliv] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacqueline_Cochran

[xlv] https://www.news-daily.com/features/a-veteran-s-story/article_6db721ab-5fc7-521a-b1fb-ab84e2753cd8.html

[xlvi] https://portcitydaily.com/story/2017/10/23/the-wasps-of-wwii-when-women-pilots-ruled-the-air-over-the-cape-fear-area-our-ht/

[xlvii] https://goldcountrymedia.com/news/148953/pioneer-wwii-pilot-betty-woods-fatal-flight-mystery/

[xlviii] https://time.com/4923054/world-war-ii-sugar-engines/

[xlix] https://www.gastongazette.com/news/20200516/wasps-in-wwii-women-pilots-built-legacy-in-cape-fear

[l] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/family-tree/person/tree/157972095/person/132104046143/facts

[li] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7539266/richard-wezeman

[lii] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7539266/richard-wezeman

[liii] https://portcitydaily.com/story/2017/10/23/the-wasps-of-wwii-when-women-pilots-ruled-the-air-over-the-cape-fear-area-our-ht/

[liv] https://www.honorstates.org/index.php?id=508461

[lv] http://genealogytrails.com/cal/placer/military/ww2articlespg3.html

[lvi] https://basic.newspapers.com/image/477164640/?article=03f01393-fd0e-440c-a698-449afeb23864

[lvii] http://genealogytrails.com/cal/placer/military/ww2articlespg3.html

[lviii] http://genealogytrails.com/cal/placer/military/ww2articlespg3.html

[lix] https://www.honorstates.org/index.php?id=508461

Betty Taylor Wood.jpg - https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/70687187/betty-louise-wood/photo

Betty Taylor Wood WASP medallion.jpg - https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/70687187/betty-louise-wood/photo

Betty Taylor Wood Final Resting Place.jpg - https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/70687187/betty-louise-wood/photo

Elizabeth Louise Taylor