BREAKING A GLASS CEILING

The true story of World War II aviator Nadine Ramsey was little known—until now. That has changed with publication of a well-documented and illuminating retelling of the pilot’s trials, tribulations, near-fatal crashes and, ultimately, success in defying convention to fly for her country in wartime.

Taking Flight: The Nadine Ramsey Story recounts a life of rebellion and patriotism as the aviator went from barnstorming and speed racing aloft to penetrating a glass ceiling as one of 303 women pilots allowed to fly military aircraft. They crisscrossed the country, delivering planes from factories to embarkation points for shipment to overseas units in World War II. The pilots were members of the Women Aircraft Service Pilots (WASP) program, created over objections from many in the military, and only when the shortage of male pilots in wartime convinced the U.S. to briefly lift the ban on women pilots flying military planes.

While the WASPs were never militarized—as civilians they even had to pay for their own uniforms—it would take 30 years, until 1997, when WASP pilots would be officially awarded veteran status. And it would take until 2009 for them to be acknowledged with a Congressional Gold Medal. By then, most of them—including Nadine Ramsey—were being honored posthumously.

In her early thirties when she became a WASP, Ramsey was older than most of her fellow trainees at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas, but she had already been flying planes for seven years. She had flown for the Civil Air Patrol and U.S. Air Mail before being posted to the U.S. Army Air Force’s Sixth Ferrying Group—the army’s largest ferrying group—at Long Beach Army Air Field.

Among the planes Nadine ferried while at Long Beach were game-changing pursuit (fighter) aircraft. These included the Lockheed P-38 “Lightning”—and Nadine was one of only 26 WASPs who flew it. After the war, while living in Long Beach, she achieved aviation “firsts”: As a flight instructor at the airport, she was the first and only woman in the country to teach male pilots how to fly army fighter planes. She also was the first woman to purchase and fly her own P-38, a war surplus plane she named “Lucky.”

An irrepressible redhead, Nadine was descended from Scots Irish immigrants, a child of log-cabin homesteaders, a young girl raised on the edge of the Dust Bowl who came of age during the Depression.

Taking Flight tells the story not just of a headstrong young woman, but also of her mother Nelle and brother Ed, a decorated World War II hero who commanded a guerrilla army in the Philippines for three years behind enemy lines (the subject of Lieutenant Ramsey’s War, published in 1990). Following the suicide of their father in 1927, the siblings were raised in Kansas by Nelle, an entrepreneur and dermatologist who would be appointed to the Kansas State Board of Cosmetology.

Nadine was born in Carlyle, Illinois, on August 28, 1911. After Ed’s birth in 1917, the young family moved to El Dorado to make their way among the burgeoning oil fields of Kansas. When her husband’s death left Nelle a single mom, she moved with Nadine and Ed to Wichita, Kansas, the self-described “Air Capital of the World,” where Nadine began her lifelong love affair with flying (and two marriages to fellow pilots, both ending in divorce).

When the WASP corps was disbanded in December 1944, the pilots were unceremoniously told to go home to make way for male pilots who would be returning stateside as better news on the war front meant less need for those pilots overseas. Without a young family to consider, Nadine was one of the few WASPs allowed to stay on in Long Beach, as a civilian instructor for new male pilots. When even that job was phased out, she set up her own company nearby to sell planes and aircraft parts. Dedicated to her passion for flight, she continued flying/

Like her male counterparts during wartime, she piloted with confidence, patriotism, stamina, and never-ending courage—and at enormous sacrifice. Like many of them, she also suffered isolation, aimlessness, and depression after the war, and a lifetime of pain in the wake of two serious air crashes. Whatever the challenge, however, Nadine persevered and was always proud of giving her all to her country at its greatest hour of need. Even brother Ed, who knew heroism when he saw it, insisted, “She had more guts than I ever did.”

HONORS AND AWARDS
A recipient of the WASP Congressional Gold Medal, the Victory Medal, and the American Campaign Medal, Nadine is represented nationally in memorials, institutions, and museums. She is included in the database at the Women’s Memorial outside Arlington National Cemetery and in the WASP displays at the Long Beach Airport; the P-38 National Association and Museum in Riverside, California; the WASP Museum at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas; and the Army Women’s Museum at Fort Lee, Virginia. Artifacts from her life will be donated to the Library of Congress archives.

AUTHORS

Raquel Ramsey is Executive Producer of the documentaries Taking Flight: The Nadine Ramsey Story (Vanilla Fire Productions, forthcoming 2022), and Never Surrender: The Ed Ramsey Story (Vanilla Fire Productions, 2016). Screened in museums and universities across the country and internationally. Never Surrender is based on Lieutenant Ramsey’s War, the memoir of Ramsey’s late husband, Edwin P. Ramsey (1917–2013). Originally published in 1990 by Knightsbridge Publishing, the book was later published by Brassey’s (1996), Potomac (2005) and, in a Philippine edition, by the University of Santo Tomas Press (2016). With Raquel’s continued involvement in promoting the book, it has sold more than 330,000 copies and remains in print today.

A retired teacher with a doctorate in education, Raquel Ramsey continues to carry her husband’s legacy. For decades, she has been actively engaged in several military organizations related to her husband’s career, including the Philippine Scouts Heritage Society, the U.S. Cavalry Association, and the Oklahoma Military Academy. In 2018, she accepted the Congressional Gold Medal on her husband’s behalf. She lives in Los Angeles, California.

Raquel Ramsey reads from "Taking Flight" at 2021 Women in Aviation International (WAI) Conference.

Tricia Aurand is an award-winning screenwriter, media critic, and podcast host. She is a contributor to several popular YouTube channels and cohosts the film-focused podcast, Beyond the Screenplay. Aurand also frequently cowrites with two-time Oscar nominee Stephen J. Rivele (Ali, Nixon). In 2018 her short film Work screened at more than forty festivals in twenty countries. Her play Nicaea won a 2017 Hollywood Fringe Festival Encore Award, and her work has been selected and honored at numerous other festivals and competitions.

In 2016, she cowrote the documentary feature Lieutenant Ramsey’s War (Talmarc Film Productions and Viewfinder Pictures, in development), the wartime story of Edwin P. Ramsey. A decorated hero of World War II in the Philippines and United States, Ramsey led the last mounted cavalry charge in U.S. Army history and commanded the East Central Luzon guerilla forces during four years of fighting behind enemy lines after the Japanese invaded the Philippines. Through this project, she learned of Ed’s sister, Nadine, one of the remarkable and forgotten women of aviation in our nation’s history. Aurand lives with her husband Sam, a director, in Los Angeles.

Tricia Aurand reads from "Taking Flight" at 2021 Women in Aviation International (WAI) Conference.

“[Taking Flight] captures the bold, adventurous spirit of Nadine and the other incredible women pilots who served their country as WASPs during World War II… These pioneers were ahead of their time—it was as if a portal to the future opened up for a few years and then closed… More than thirty years passed before women flew US military aircraft again.”

– Major Gen. Jeannie M. Leavitt, United States Air Force

Taking Flight is currently available in hardcover and ebook editions.

  • Publisher: University Press of Kansas
  • Date of Publication: September 3, 2020
  • Language: English
  • Hardcover: 320 pages
  • ISBN-10: 0700629807

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SIGNED COPIES
For signed, dedicated copies of Taking Flight: The Nadine Ramsey Story, please email Raquel Ramsey at raquiramsey1946@gmail.com.

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