Jacqueline Cochran (born Bessie Lee Pittman; May 11, 1906 – August 9, 1980) was an American pilot and business executive. She pioneered women's aviation and was the first woman to break the sound barrier on 18 May 1953. Cochran (along with Nancy Love) was the wartime head of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) (1943–1944), which employed about 1,000 civilian American women in a non-combat role to ferry planes from factories to port cities. Later on, Cochran was initially a sponsor of the Mercury 13 women astronaut program, before testifying against it in a congressional subcommittee.
Early life
Cochran was born Bessie Lee Pittman in Pensacola,Hickok, Ralph, "The Encyclopedia of North American Sports History", Facts On File, Inc., New York, Oxford, 1992, , , p. 110. (some sources indicate she was born in DeFuniak Springs)"National WASP WWII Museum" in the Florida Panhandle. She was the youngest of the five children of Mary (Grant) and Ira Pittman, a skilled millwright who frequently relocated setting up and reworking sawmills. While her family was not wealthy, Cochran's childhood living in small-town Florida was similar to those in other families of the era. Contrary to some accounts, there was always food on the table and she was not adopted, as she often claimed.Nolen 2002, pp. 32, 34.
Circa 1920, (she would have been 13 or 14), she married Robert Cochran and gave birth to a son, Robert, who died in 1925 at the age of 5. After the marriage ended, she kept the name Cochran and began using Jacqueline or Jackie as her given name. Cochran then became a hairdresser and got a job in Pensacola, eventually moving to New York City. There, she used her looks and driving personality to get a job at a prestigious salon at Saks Fifth Avenue.
Although Cochran denied her family and her past, she remained in touch with them and provided for them over the years. Some of her family moved to her ranch in California after she remarried. They were instructed to always say they were her adopted family. Cochran apparently wanted to hide from the public the early chapters of her life and was successful in doing so until after her death.
Later Cochran met Floyd Bostwick Odlum, founder of Atlas Corp and CEO of RKO in Hollywood. Fourteen years her senior, he was reputed to be one of the 10 wealthiest men in the world. Odlum became enamored of Cochran and offered to help her establish a cosmetics business.
After a friend offered her a ride in an aircraft, Cochran began taking flying lessons at Roosevelt Airfield, Long Island in the early 1930s and learned to fly an aircraft in three weeks. She then soloed and within two years obtained her commercial pilot's license. Odlum, whom she married in 1936 after his divorce, was an astute financier and savvy marketer who recognized the value of publicity for her business. Calling her line of cosmetics Wings to Beauty, she flew her own aircraft around the country promoting her products. Years later, Odlum used his Hollywood connections to get Marilyn Monroe to endorse Cochran's line of lipstick.
Contributions to aviation
Known by her friends as "Jackie", and maintaining the Cochran married surname, she was one of three women to compete in the MacRobertson Air Race in 1934. In 1937, she was the only woman to compete in the Bendix race and worked with Amelia Earhart to open the race to women. That year, she also set a new women's world speed record. By 1938, she was considered the best female pilot in the United States. She had won the Bendix and set a new transcontinental speed record as well as altitude records. Cochran flew a bomber - an Lockheed Model 414 Hudson Mk.V(LR) - across the Atlantic on June 11-19, 1941, the first woman to do so . She won five Harmon Trophies. Sometimes called the "Speed Queen", at the time of her death she held more speed, distance, or altitude records in aviation history than any other pilot."Explorers, Record Setters and Daredevils." Centennial of Flight, 2003. Retrieved: October 24, 2009.
Ninety-Nines Cochran was a friend of Amelia Earhart. Although she was not a founding member of the Ninety-Nines, she was one of their most influential members. She was president of the Ninety-Nines from 1941 to 1943, and was instrumental in ensuring that women pilots would be able to participate in the newly-founded Civil Air Patrol as well as the WASP. In her monthly editorials for the Ninety-Nines Newsletter, she exhorted members to join the CAP or the WASP, and to do what they could to help the war effort.
Air Transport Auxiliary Before the United States joined World War II, Cochran was part of "Wings for Britain", an organization that ferried American-built aircraft to Britain, becoming the first woman to fly a bomber (a Lockheed Hudson V) across the Atlantic. In Britain, she volunteered her services to the Royal Air Force. For several months she worked for the British Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA), recruiting qualified women pilots in the United States and taking them to England where they joined the ATA. Cochran attained the rank of Flight Captain (equivalent to a Squadron Leader in the RAF or a Major in the U.S. Air Force) in the ATA.
Women Airforce Service Pilots In September, 1939, Cochran wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt to introduce the proposal of starting a women's flying division in the Army Air Forces. She felt that qualified women pilots could do all of the domestic, noncombat aviation jobs necessary to release more male pilots for combat. She pictured herself in command of these women, with the same standings as Colonel Oveta Culp Hobby, who was then the director of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC). (The WAAC was given full military status on July 1, 1943, thus making them part of the Army. At the same time, the unit was renamed Women's Army Corps (WAC).)
That same year, Cochran wrote a letter to Lieutenant Colonel Robert Olds, who was helping to organize the Air Corps Ferrying Command for the Air Corps at the time. (Ferrying Command was originally a courier/aircraft delivery service, but evolved into the air transport branch of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) as the Air Transport Command). In the letter, Cochran suggested that women pilots be employed to fly non-combat missions for the new command. In early 1941, Olds asked Cochran to find out how many women pilots there were in the United States, what their flying times were, their skills, their interest in flying for the country, and personal information about them. She used records from the Civil Aeronautics Administration to gather the data.Cochran 1954, pp. 125–128.
In spite of pilot shortages, Army Air Forces commander Lieutenant General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold still needed to be convinced that women pilots were the solution to his staffing problems. He knew that women were being used successfully in the ATA in England so Arnold suggested that Cochran take a group of qualified female pilots to see how the British were doing. He promised her that no decisions regarding women flying for the USAAF would be made until she returned.
When Arnold asked Cochran to go to Britain to study the ATA, Cochran asked 76 of the most qualified female pilots – identified during the research she had done earlier for Olds – to come along and fly for the ATA. Qualifications for these women were high: at least 300 hours of flying time, but most of the women pilots had over 1,000 hours. Those who made it to Canada found out that the washout rate was also high. A total of 25 women passed the tests and, two months later in March 1942 they went to Britain with Cochran to join the ATA.Cochran 1954, p. 108.
While Cochran was in England, in September 1942, General Arnold authorized the formation of the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) under the direction of Nancy Harkness Love. The WAFS began at New Castle Air Base in Wilmington, Delaware, with a group of female pilots whose objective was to ferry military aircraft. Hearing about the WAFS, Cochran immediately returned from England. Cochran's experience in Britain with the ATA convinced her that women pilots could be trained to do much more than ferrying. As she lobbied Arnold for expanded flying opportunities for female pilots, he sanctioned the creation of the Women's Flying Training Detachment (WFTD), headed by Cochran. In August 1943, the WAFS and the WFTD merged to create the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) with Cochran as director and Nancy Love as head of the ferrying division.Regis 2008, pp. 102–103.
As director of the WASP, Cochran supervised the training of hundreds of women pilots at the former Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas from August 1943 to December 1944.
Award of the Distinguished Service Medal For her wartime service, she received the Distinguished Service Medal (DSM) in 1945. Her award of the DSM was announced in a War Department press release dated March 1, 1945 which stated that Cochran was the first woman civilian to receive the DSM, which was then the highest non-combat award presented by the United States government. (In actuality, however, a few civilian women received the DSM for service during the First World War. These women included Hannah J. Patterson and Anna Howard Shaw of the Council of National Defense, Evangeline Booth of the Salvation Army as well as Mary Vail Andress and Jane A. Delano of the American Red Cross.)
Postwar
At war's end, Cochran was hired by a magazine to report on global postwar events. In this role, she witnessed Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita's surrender in the PhilippinesCochran 1987, pp. 230-231. and was the first non-Japanese woman to enter Japan after the War. She also attended the Nuremberg Trials in Germany.Cochran 1987, pp. 239–242.
On September 9, 1948, Cochran joined the U.S. Air Force Reserve as a lieutenant colonel. She was promoted to colonel in 1969 and retired in 1970. During her career in the Air Force Reserve, she received three awards of the Distinguished Flying Cross for various achievements from 1947 to 1964.
Flying records Postwar, Cochran began flying the new jet aircraft, setting numerous records. She became the first woman pilot to "go supersonic".
In 1952, Cochran, at age 47, decided to challenge the world speed record for women, then held by Jacqueline Auriol. She tried to borrow an F-86 Sabre from the U.S. Air Force, but was refused. She was introduced to an Air Vice-Marshal of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) who, with the permission of the Canadian Minister of Defence, arranged for her to borrow the sole Canadair Sabre Mk.3. Canadair sent a 16-man support team to California for the attempt. On 18 May 1953, Cochran set a new 100 km speed record of 1,050.15 km/h (652.5 mph). Later on 3 June, she set a new 15 km closed circuit record of 1078 km/h (670 mph). Encouraged by then-Major Chuck Yeager, with whom Cochran shared a lifelong friendship, on May 18, 1953, at Rogers Dry Lake, California, Cochran flew the Sabre 3 at an average speed of 652.337 mph. During the course of this run the Sabre went supersonic, and Cochran became the first woman to break the sound barrier.
Among her many record accomplishments, from August to October 1961, as a consultant to Northrop Corporation, Cochran set a series of speed, distance and altitude records while flying a Northrop T-38A Talon supersonic trainer. On the final day of the record series, she set two Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) world records, taking the T-38 to altitudes of 55,253 feet (16,841 m) in horizontal flight and reaching a peak altitude of 56,073 feet (17,091 m).