A Look at World War I & II - It was a Long Road to Tipperary

Preface / Introduction
A look at World War I and II. While one hopes these tragedies are never repeated, the war heroes
should never be forgotten.
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Table of Contents
1. An appreciation for the life of Violet Cowden, 94, died April 10, 2011. World War II aviation
pioneer.
2. Remembering the commencement of World War I, when the road to Tipperary proved to be very
long and arduous indeed, 1914.
An appreciation for the life of Violet Cowden, 94, died April
10, 2011. World War II aviation pioneer.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
President Harry Truman once remarked that there is nothing new under the sun except the history
you haven't learned yet. How right he was, and nothing proves the point so well as this appreciation
for the life of World War II aviation pioneer,Violet Crowden and all the other 1,078 Women
Airforce Service Pilots.
Here is the crucial problem they helped to solve:
When the United States entered World War II, (December 1941), it placed its massive
manufacturing and industrial capacity at the service of the Allies. This meant producing aircraft in
the quantities needed to overwhelm Germany and Japan thereby ensuring the fastest possible
victory. But there was a problem here.
The war drained America of its male pilots; they were needed at the front, to fly the crucial
missions. But there weren't enough male pilots in the country to replace them. That left a huge
problem that had to be solved and had to be solved fast: how to get the planes being manufactured to
the landing fields worldwide where our "boys" desperately needed them?
The solution?
Cherchez la femme, particularly the thousands of American women who were licensed pilots. They
were the ace in the hole... though they had to get through a mountain of male skepticism and doubt
before they got the opportunity to show America and the world that they could do their "bit" too.
Creation of the WASP.
Even before America entered the war far-seeing women were at work on solving problems that
would occur when she did. Two famous women pilots -- Jacqueline "Jackie" Cochran and test-pilot
Nancy Harkness Love -- independently submitted proposals for the use of female pilots in
non-combat situations. These proposals were submitted to the US Army Air Forces (USAAF),
predecessor to the United States Air Force, or USAF. They rightly believed the war would spread
and that the United States must be prepared when it did.
Their (separate) proposals were rejected by General H. "Hap" Arnold, commander of the USAAF.
Poor "Hap" was hapless. Not least because Eleanor Roosevelt, America's activist First Lady,
intervened and strenuously so. Her involvement triggered the usual winks, nudges and (privately)
malicious digs and comments; why couldn't she just give teas in the Blue Room like all the First
Ladies before her?
But that wasn't Eleanor Roosevelt's way and the USAAF got a whiff of what one determined
woman could do to help other determined women help America. In due course, America's need for
pilots trumped the arguments against female pilots... and so, bit by bit, women were integrated into
the services. Some ferried new planes to their destinations; others towed targets for aerial gunnery
practice; still others were flight instructors.
The "Big Cheese" syndrome.
But if women could do men's work, they also suffered from the same turf battles. Who was going to
be the Big Cheese of these proceedings -- "Jackie" Cochran or Nancy Love? Cochran was in
England volunteering to fly for the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA). While she was gone, "Hap"
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A Look at World War I & II - It was a Long Road to Tipperary
Arnold decided to go with Nancy Love's proposal. "Jackie" Cochran, back from England,
immediately made An Issue of this decision... while Hapless Hank Arnold claimed ignorance...
anything to cool Cochran down.
Arnold's solution was classic: both proposals were accepted and a final decision postponed. Of
course both tenacious, determined, bureaucratically adept women continued the battle for supreme
control. In July 1943, Cochran, famous and better connected, got what she wanted. With Arnold's
assistance Cochran became director of the Women Airforce Service Pilots. No one knew better than
General Arnold why they were called WASPs.
Violet Cowden at work for America.
While these internecine battles were playing themselves out, the recruitment of women pilots got
underway... and the results were astonishing. More than 25,000 women applied for WASP service.
Fewer than 1,900 were accepted and just 1,078 of them got their wings... including Violet Cowden,
who served the WASPs in 1943 and 1944. Cowden was typical of the kinds of women who became
WASPs and the constant obstacles they faced.
Born October 1,1916 in Bowdle, South Dakota, in 1936 she earned a teaching certificate from what
was then the Spearfish Normal School, in Spearfish, S.D. She then stayed in Spearfish to teach first
grade. There, she rode her bicycle 6 miles each way to a local airfield for her first flying lessons.
After Pearl Harbor was attacked, Cowden, by then a licensed pilot, asked to join the Civil Air Patrol
but got no reply. That was typical. She tried again and applied to the Women's Flying Training
Detachment, an early incarnation of the WASPs. She was one of the 1830 lucky applicants and
reported to Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas for six months of rigorous training.
There she discovered that because WASPs were civilian employees and not military, they had to
pay for their own food, lodging, and (generally ill-fitting) attire. Barely 5 foot tall Violet Cowden
was installed in a men's Size 44 for the duration.
Violet Cowden faced the snubs and slights the way most WASPs did -- by ignoring the fact they
were ignored and getting on with the job. They knew something about America's pilots that these
male pilots often forgot: they needed these women and their often overlooked skills. It was a simple
as that.
Always an afterthought, Cowden worked seven days a week, sleeping on commercial flights that
ferried her to and from her crucial business. There was hardly ever a good word for a dangerous job
well done... and remember what the WASPs did could be very dangerous indeed. Thirty eight
WASPs died in accidents during training or on duty.
And despite all they did, when in late 1944 male pilots began coming home in significant numbers,
the WASPs were, with hardly a word of thanks or recognition, simply dismissed. For Violet Cowden
that day came in December, 1944 when the Army dissolved the WASPs altogether and told them to
go home. For Cowden this was the "worst day of my life"... but it was a man's world then... and this
was how things were done. It was America at our crudest and most insensitive, and it is painful to
recall that our nation treated these patriots so.
Recognition, at last.
If there contemporaries ignored and overlooked them, later generations did what they could to
bestow proper recognition and acknowledgement for a job well done. President Jimmy Carter signed
in 1977 legislation to give WASPs full military status for their service. On July 1, 2009 President
Barack Obama awarded the WASP the Congressional Gold Medal and said, "I am honored to finally
give them some of the hard-earned recognition they deserve."
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A Look at World War I & II - It was a Long Road to Tipperary
As for Violet Cowden, having been kicked out of the war, the WASPs dissolved, she got the only
job in aviation she could... behind the ticket counter of Trans World Airlines, waiting for history to
catch up. Perhaps now it has...
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A Look at World War I & II - It was a Long Road to Tipperary
Remembering the commencement of World War I, when the
road to Tipperary proved to be very long and arduous
indeed, 1914.
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author's Program Note. This day in August 97 years ago was a day of general European warfare.
The great powers, the most civilized nations on earth, had, at last, done the unthinkable, allowing a
regrettable incident to morph into mayhem.
For this story, I have selected one of the most famous songs of World War I, "It's a long way to
Tipperary" to be the musical accompaniment. Written by Jack Judge in 1912, it started life as a
rousing music hall number, and you can almost hear the clinking of glasses as you listen. It's got a
catchy beat of course but the underlying message is sad, even tragic, for with each passing day, the
way back to Tipperary got longer... and the list of those who would never go home again did, too.
You'll find this tune in any search engine. Try to get the version by celebrated tenor John
McCormick (born 1884) It's grand indeed. Once you've found it, play it a couple of times. And
listen to the words... carefully... many men died with this song on their lips and in their hearts....
How had it happened...
Once a war begins, people cease to be very interested in how they got there... and focus instead on
how to ensure that they go home again safe and sound. That is entirely understandable, but not what
we want to know today. We want to know why, so that (we hope) we can avoid such travail and
grief for ourselves.
The proximate cause of the war was the assassination of the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary,
Archduke Franz Ferdinand. I have two autographed pictures of this man, known to history solely for
his assassination and death, when, had he lived and reigned he would have been known for more.
The photographs I am looking at as I write show him first in 1890 (age 27 ) and then later in a
glorious silver presentation frame with his archducal coronet blazing in gold at the top looking
supercilious, complacent, a tad silly, and not just for his outsized handlebar mustache either.
He looked like a man you wouldn't want to cross... and insiders within the empire knew he was
adamant about reforming the ramshackle imperium, bringing her antiquated systems and
infrastructure up-to-date. He gave every impression that he meant not just to be emperor... but
master. "Yes, Gustave, he means what he says," they whispered over their snitzel, then went on with
the national obsession, living well. This was Austria in 1914... where things were significant, but not
important.
Franz Ferdinand has gone down to history as stern and unyielding. The Hungarians certainly thought
so... and Hungarians (whose royal status had been upgraded in 1867) had a huge (entirely negative)
influence in the empire. Franz Ferdinand meant to change all that, with a system he called
"tri-alism", aimed to elevate the Slavs in his empire to equal status with the Germans who founded it
and the Hungarians. The Hungarians, especially the nobility of this most aristocratic of nations, were
opposed... and not just mildly, either. In fact, had one heard that Franz Ferdinand had been shot your
first reaction would have been to assume the deed was done by an Hungarian. There was certainly
(suppressed) joy around the noble tables of Budapest when the news of his death became known...
joy and (very subtle but heartfelt) toasts (in the very best tokay, Aszu Escenzia).
A man of cultivated taste and sensibility and a gnawing sense of injustice.
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A Look at World War I & II - It was a Long Road to Tipperary
Though Franz Ferdinand's public persona was grave, censorious, insistent, he was very different at
home... for there he was a man in love, whose deep affection was equaled only by the burning rage
he felt because his wife could not be accorded his imperial honors. She was Sophie Chotek von
Chotkovato, a mere countess, hence beneath the contemptuous notice of the sublime Hapsburgs.
Franz Ferdinand was forced to sign a declaration prior to his marriage saying that while he retained
his position in the succession... his wife, of such lowly rank, could not share it, neither would any
issue by her be allowed to reign. And so out of his great love for his lady came an abiding, gnawing
sense of injustice, rage, and dishonor. Growing exquisite roses, collecting exquisite furniture, the
tastes of an accomplished aesthete, did not begin to heal his anger and mortification. The humiliation
was as calculated as 650 years of Hapsburg rule and unbending protocol could make it... she could
never walk into any imperial function on his arm; she had to walk instead where her rank as
lady-in-waiting placed her... each slight an insult like acid... to be endured but could never be
amended. He fumed... and whilst fuming sought ways to show her and the world how he felt about
the woman he so loved... such an opportunity came in July, 1914. He was going to the Bosnian
capital of Sarajevo in connection with his military duties. He brought Sophie along because she
could share his rank there... and he was insistent that she should.
A young revolutionary, burning with youthful zeal and the righteousness of his cause, the cause of
Slavic independence, gave Sophie equal treatment indeed, killing both her husband and herself at the
same moment. Ironically he got his chance because the car carrying both made an erroneous stop
just a few feet from Gavrilo Princip, one of the several terrorists placed in the crowd that fateful day.
Even the novice that Princip was couldn't miss... and didn't. Another Balkan crisis, amidst an
unending stream of Balkan crises,was underway. But "crisis" didn't necessarily mean "war". While
this great question was being answered, Princip, in prison, probably tortured, became the third
fatality. He was just 20 years old...
War did not have to come; a negotiated settlement was not only probable but virtually certain.
Patriotic Austrians were rightly outraged and aghast at the murder of their imperial heir. He might
not be popular but the dynasty he represented was. Importantly those with political acuity saw an
opening, to weaken the Slavs who wanted total independence from an empire not willing to concede
the point. And so an ultimatum, reckoned to be the most severe one sovereign nation had ever sent
to another, was drawn up in Vienna and sent to Serbia... an ultimatum which made it clear that each
point was not negotiable and that any quibble, even the smallest, would result in an immediate
invasion of Serbia and the most abject of terms, even worse than in the ultimatum.
Serbia, having no means ready to combat Austria-Hungary, capitulated... with one minor, even
trivial exception. Here was the basis for peace and even the German Kaiser Wilhelm II knew it.
And yet war came. Why?
Because a militaristic coterie in Vienna (headed by Conrad von Hotzendorf, Chief of Staff) and one
in Berlin (headed by the Kaiser and the court and army officials who kept this mercurial emperor on
track), wanted this war, at this time, sure they could win it. They almost won their bet, too... only to
be handed in due course ignominy and total defeat.
Along the way, the road to Tipperary became long and bloody indeed, inscribed as it was with the
names of all who knew the poignant significance of its words. As for us, we must remember that we,
too, have more than enough people amongst us with a penchant for war. Eternal vigilance is the
price we pay to ensure we do not experience any more of the long roads than we already have.
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A Look at World War I & II - It was a Long Road to Tipperary
Resource
About the Author Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide
range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Lant is also a historian and author
of 18 best-selling business books.
Republished with author's permission by Lisa Martiniuk http://TheHomeOfficePeople.com.
http://www.TheHomeOfficePeople.com Copyright Lisa Martiniuk - 2014 9 of 9
A Look at World War I & II - It was a Long Road to Tipperary