Women Air Service Pilot

Evelyn Sylvia Greenblatt was born on July 28, 1917 in Atlanta, Georgia. Her father, Samual Greenblatt, was a Spanish-American War veteran. Early into her adult life, Greenblatt showed an interest in flying and began taking flying lessons. Her parents did not agree or approve of her flying but eventually accepted their daughter's passion. In 1944, they even purchased her a plane.

WASPs stands for Women Air Force Service Pilots that is a combination of two subgroups: Women's Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) and Women's Flying Training Detachment (WFTD). Nancy Love and Jacqueline Cochran helped create these subgroups in 1942 and in September of 1943, the groups were combined to form the WASPS. Nancy Love directed the WAFS and Jacqueline Cochran directed the WASPs and the WFTD. When the WASPs were formed, they were labeled as civilian volunteers, so they were not placed in military and veteran status during their service. The WASPs disbanded in 1944. 

In November of 1942, Greenblatt joined the 319th Squadron Army Air Corps Women's Flying Detachment to ferry training planes, fighters and bombers to other training bases across the United States. 

WASP trainees were required to have a pilot's license and complete a minimum of 75 flight hours. Greenblatt's certificate of pilot status demonstrates the flight hours she completed in order to meet these requirements.

After WASPs graduated from basic training, they were given Civil Air Patrol (CAP) status. The salary for the CAP status was $150 per month during training and then increased to $250 per month after training. WASPs had to use their own wages to pay for housing, food, clothing, and transportation during service. The only items issued to the WASPs were textbooks, flying clothes, goggles, and parachutes. Greenblatt was given a memorandum receipt to show that she was given these items during her service in the WASPs. 

Greenblatt, along with the other women in the WASP, were assigned WAC uniforms, which they had to keep clean and neat while on duty. The uniform included a hat, skirt, and a jacket that is seen in this photo. On the jacket there is a pin that was given to the WASP members that shows their regiment.  

After Greenblatt completed basic training on April 24, 1943, she officially graduated and received her orders. Stationed with the 5th Ferrying Group out of Love Field in Dallas, Texas, one of her first orders was to ferry planes from Boeing Aircraft Factory in Kansas to Clarksdale School of Aviation in Mississippi. Greenblatt and other WASP members would ferry newly construed planes from the factories to military bases, which was one of the main roles for the WASPs. From 1943 to 1944, Greenblatt ferried aircrafts to multiple bases across the United States and tested a variety of types of planes. Greenblatt also went to Cochran Field in Georgia to test fly AT-6's during her service.

While in the WASP, Greenblatt's task included flying shipments around the United States and filling out pilot reports. One of which is the inspector's and pilot's final acceptance report about their flights, which is shown by the document. The report describes the flight and the inspection done by Greenblatt.

Greenblatt did not agree with the military's decision about keeping WASPs as civilian volunteer status and sent this telegram to the Military Poll Committee on her thoughts.

After the war, Greenblatt went to Atlanta and started a flight instructor business at the Municipal Airport with her business partner, Himman V. Howren. The flight school was called Flightways, Inc and lasted from 1947 to 1968. Between the years 1950 to 1965, Greenblatt also worked as a secretary and the treasurer for the Georgia Aviation Trades Association to help spark interest in Georgia Aviation. As the years passed, Greenblatt's Flightways, Inc grew to instruct ground and flight instructions, new and old aircraft sales, photography, and mechanical services and repairs. In 1968, Greenblatt business, Flightways, Inc, was sold to Lockheed.

In the years after the war, Greenblatt also participated in a mass flight of 150 Piper aircraft from Pennsylvania to other locations across the United States in 1946. She was charter member of the 99s in Georgia that was created by Amelia Earhart in the 1930s  of women pilots. 

Greenblatt attended the 25th anniversary WASPs reunion in Indio, California on Jacqueline Cochran's property.

After 35 years of waiting, Evelyn Greenblatt and the other WASPs members were finally given their veteran status for their military service during World War II. Greenblatt achieved much in her life from joining the WASPs to creating her own business. He passion for flying helped modernize societal norms regarding women in aviation. In 1994, she became only the third woman named to the Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame.