Women in Aviation International (WAI) members and friends will honor the valiant service of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) by visiting their graves and leaving an appropriate decoration in the form of flowers or other remembrances. In its seventh year, the #HonorTheWASP program was established by WAI to take place over the Memorial Day weekend each year.
“Our WAI members across the nation are grateful for the service and sacrifice of the formidable group of WASP who served so honorably during World War II. This group of brave and dedicated women risked their lives to do their part for the war effort and paved the way for so many of us to pursue our personal aviation dreams,” says WAI CEO Lynda Coffman.
WAI chapters across the country have organized efforts to #HonorTheWASP near them, but you don’t have to be a WAI member to #HonorTheWASP. A database of WASP gravesites, including Google maps to their locations, may be found HERE. The original database was provided by Texas Woman’s University (TWU), the home of the Women Airforce Service Pilots archives, and is regularly augmented through research efforts of WAI staff. WAI also provides a commemorative tag that may be printed and used by all. Also, search for your local WAI Chapter here to get involved: www.wai.org/chapters.
In each of the previous six years, #HonorTheWASP participants have visited and decorated nearly 100 WASP gravesites annually. WAI and TWU continue to improve the database and add WASP burial sites regularly.
Participants are asked to tweet a photograph of their visit and include who they visited and where they are located using the hashtag #HonorTheWASP. WAI will retweet all posts to its more than 22,800 X followers and other social media outlets.
