“Those aren’t crash damage,” he said.
“No. Ground fire.”
His grandmother had not died on a ferry mission over the English Channel. She had been shot down over occupied Belgium.
Everything his family had been told was false.
He returned to the United States and requested Evelyn Whitmore’s official military file. It consisted of 11 pages.
Her application to the Women’s Flying Training Detachment dated April 1943 listed 340 hours of civilian flight time. She had graduated in September 1943, near the top of her class. She had qualified on pursuit aircraft. She had been assigned to ferry P-47 Thunderbolts throughout 1944.
The final document was a casualty report dated December 3, 1944. It stated that she had been lost during ferry transit. The aircraft was presumed lost over water, likely the English Channel.
The route was impossible. A ferry flight from Delaware to California would not approach the English Channel.
Daniel began searching archival records related to WASP operations in late 1944. On the second day, he found a personnel requisition form dated September 1944. An OSS Special Operations branch had requested female pilots qualified on pursuit aircraft for unspecified special duty.
A handwritten memo listed five names. Evelyn Whitmore was third.
Daniel cross-referenced the other four.
Margaret Ellison, killed in a training accident at Avenger Field, October 1944.
Dorothy Brennan, lost during ferry transit over the Gulf of Mexico, November 1944…..