FLYING CAREER

  • In 1936, Nadine after making her first solo flight aboard a Velie Monocoupe in Wichita.
  • After receiving a commercial pilot’s license in 1937, Nadine was a stunt pilot in regional air shows and became the first female member of the Wichita chapter of the National Aeronautic Association.
  • On May 19, 1938, Nadine poses beside a twin-engine yellow Taylor Cub after flying from Wichita to Wellington, Kansas, to deliver 15 pounds of mail during National Air Mail Week to mark the 20th anniversary of U.S. Air Mail.
  • In 1940, Nadine recovers at her Manhattan Beach, California, bungalow following a September 2 plane crash while demonstrating a Taylorcraft light plane to a new customer.
  • In spring 1942, Nadine (back row, far left) joined the Civil Air Patrol in Wichita as a flight instructor and squadron commander of an all-female class of aspiring pilots.
  • Arriving at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas, in 1943, Nadine takes a break beside a BT-13 Vultee Variant training aircraft in summer 1943.
  • In 1943 Nadine (far right) with some of her fellow Class 43-5 trainees at Avenger Field as part of the Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD).
  • In 1943 Nadine at the controls of a Fairchild P-19 aircraft at Avenger Field during WFTD training prior to the merger of the detachment into the U.S. Army’s Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program.
  • In 1943, Nadine prepares to pilot a P-51A fighter plane during pilot training at Avenger Field in Texas.
  • Nadine is one of 85 pilots in the WASP Class 43-5 to graduate on September 11, 1943 in Sweetwater, Texas.
  • In 1943, patch featuring the WASP mascot Fifinella, designed by Walt Disney, worn on Nadine’s flight jacket.
  • Painting by Gil Cohen, "WASP Special Delivery"
  • In 1944, Nadine sports the newly-designed Santiago blue WASP uniform adopted in spring 1944 to differentiate U.S. Army Air Force personnel from the Army’s standard green uniforms.
  • In 1944, WASP members of the Air Transport Command’s Sixth Ferrying Group pose for a portrait, including Nadine Ramsey (standing, far left) and commander B.J. Erickson (standing, far right) at U.S. Army Air Field in Long Beach, California.
  • At the final banquet marking the deactivation of the WASP program on December 20, 1944, Nadine (front row, far right) and fellow pilots of the Sixth Ferrying Group in Long Beach say goodbye.
  • Despite her wartime service, Nadine and other WASPs did not receive an Honorable Discharge certificate until 1979, backdated to 1944, following the decision in 1977 by Congress to award veteran status to all women who served as WASPs.
  • In June 1945, Nadine borrowed a ‘red racer’ to fly brother Ed Ramsey from San Francisco to Wichita, where they were met by aviation tycoon Walter Beech (far left) and mother Nelle Ramsey (far right).
  • On February 14, 1946, in Kingman, Arizona, Nadine purchased a war-surplus Lockheed P-38 Lightning from the War Assets Administration; she paid $1,250 for the fighter that had flown barely 20 hours and cost $115,000 to build.
  • In 1946, Nadine in the cockpit of her newly-purchased P-38 dubbed “Lucky”; she closed the deal and promptly flew the plane from Arizona back to Long Beach, California.
  • In late February 1946, Peter Stackpole, a photographer for LIFE magazine, photographed Nadine, the first woman to own a P-38, with her new purchase at Long Beach Army Air Field. (The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)
  • LIFE photojournalist Peter Stackpole shot a series of photographs for a March 1946 issue of the magazine, including this shot of Nadine walking on top of her P-38 “Lucky”. (The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)
  • On March 25, 1946, LIFE published a story under the headline “Personal P-38”, including a photograph of Nadine holding the propeller of the plane’s left engine; the photo appeared on the back cover of LIFE’s international edition. (The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)
  • In August 1946, Nadine registered in Van Nuys, California, to take part in the Transcontinental Bendix Trophy Race to Cleveland, Ohio – the first such race after a hiatus during World War II. (Ben Franklin Collection, courtesy Al and Bob Chute, photograph by Fortune Illustrators)
  • In 1946, Nadine gives Col. John H. Fite, president of Aviation Maintenance Corporation, a tour of her P-38 in Van Nuys prior to the Bendix race. (Valley Times Photo Collection, Los Angeles Public Library)
  • On race day August 30, 1946, Nadine arrived at the Van Nuys airfield to find the tires on her P-38 all slashed; because there was no time to re-certify the plane’s airworthiness, she was unable to compete. (Ben Franklin Collection, courtesy Al and Bob Chute, photograph by Fortune Illustrators)
  • In 1948, her finances strained, Nadine sold her P-38 for $4,000 in order to purchase a large stock of aircraft parts and created her own sales company and dealership, Aircraft Enterprises, Inc., near Long Beach Airport.
  • In late September 1978, Nadine (front row, fourth from right) and 30 other members of WASP Class 43-5 held a reunion in Colorado Springs, Colorado. (WASP Archive, Texas Woman’s University, Denton, Texas)
  • In 1989, artist Dan Kelly’s painting “Young and Invincible” honors the 26 WASP pilots – including Nadine – qualified to fly the P-38 fighter jet.
  • In 1990 Nadine attended a WASP reunion in Seattle, Washington, where she posed with fellow Sixth Ferrying Group alumnae with a painting honoring the WASP by artist Dan Kelly; pictured (l-r) Mary Lou Colbert McNeale, Nadine Ramsey, Iris Cummings Critchell, Barbara Erickson London, Lauretta Beatty Foy, and Katy Loft Strehle.
  • Women in Military Service for America Memorial at Arlington, Virginia, is dedicated on October 18, 1997 – seven months after Nadine’s passing; posthumously, she is among the women honored from all U.S. Armed Forces.
  • In March 2010, Nadine is posthumously honored along with fellow WASPs with a Congressional Gold, following a 2009 law passed by Congress and signed by President Obama in 2009.

FAMILY PHOTOS

  • Nadine’s maternal grandparents Josiah (Joseph) Alexander Cozad and Rebecca J. Harris married on October 24, 1866, in Wirt County, West Virginia (three years after it became a state apart from Virginia).
  • Nadine's paternal grandparents Hiram E. Ramsey and Margaret Jane Young married on October 2, 1878, in Salem Township, Marion County, Illinois.
  • Nadine’s parents Claude Price Ramsey and Nelle Brown Cozad married on March 17, 1911, in Clinton County, Illinois.
  • In 1907, the Ramsey clan on the family farm in Odin, Illinois; Nadine’s father Claude is standing in front, far right.
  • Baby Nadine, age 1 in 1912, with mother Nelle and father Claude.
  • Nadine, age 5, with her mother in 1916.
  • Portrait of Nadine at age 18 in 1929 on her graduation from El Dorado High School in the oil-town of El Dorado, Kansas.
  • On the eve of the Depression, 19-year-old Nadine with brother Ed, 13, and mom Nelle in 1930.
  • Portrait of Nadine in 1935, when she took secretarial jobs to help pay for her first flying lessons.
  • Brother Edwin, at 19 in 1936, attended Oklahoma Military Academy in Claremore, Oklahoma, where he learned to play polo and trained to be a cavalry officer.
  • In 1939, eager to work in the fast-growing aircraft industry in southern California, Nadine moved to Los Angeles; mother and brother would eventually follow her, with all three making southern California their home.
  • In 1940 mother and daughter pose with palm trees in the background not long before Nadine’s near-fatal plane crash and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
  • Mother Nelle (sitting) in Wichita in 1943 on a regular visit home from Nadine, who drove to Kansas from Avenger Field in Stillwater, Oklahoma, where she was training for the Women Airforce Service Pilots.
  • In 1945, Ed Ramsey (at left) and fellow officer John Boone in Manilaafter Gen. Douglas MacArthur decorated each with the Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest military award, given for “extreme valor during combat”.
  • A family reunited in 1945: Following the war, Ed returned to the U.S. after three years behind enemy lines – and listed as Missing in Action; Nadine flew him from California to Kansas for a reunion in Nelle’s Wichita home.
  • In May 1946, Ed Ramsey visits with first cousin Barbara Branch Stunz.
  • On November 25, 1949, Nadine tied the knot with second husband John Percy Gardner, a fellow pilot (12 years her junior) in Glendale, Los Angeles County.
  • At home in Long Beach in 1950, Nadine plays her organ (topped with Jack Gardner’s model airplanes, including a P-38).
  • After a divorce in June 1957, Nadine returned to Long Beach and on June 20, 1959, she married third husband (and fellow pilot) Thomas Joseph Donnelley in Las Vegas, Nevada. Four years later, they divorced.
  • In 1995, brother Ed and sister-in-law Raquel Ramsey visit with Nadine, age 84, in the Marlora Manor Post-Acute Rehabilitation Hospital in Long Beach two years before her passing on February 16, 1997.
  • On March 4, 1997, on Nadine’s express wishes, Ed Ramsey scattered her ashes from a plane off the coast of Long Beach.

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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For signed, dedicated copies of Taking Flight: The Nadine Ramsey Story, please email Raquel Ramsey at [email protected].

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