Living Biographies; 101; Kay Gott Chaffey

Funding for the KDE Living biographies initiative has been provided by the Wallace Reader's Digest fund the California Council for the Humanities the humble Foundation and other donors. Typical right for me would be in pursuit. Therefore I would go to from Dallas to Newark New Jersey go into operation and I had a qualification I still have a qualification record it's a little green book. It's about this high you could carry in your pocket and you go into the operation man and say Have you got anything for me to move. And he would say yes. Male factory up and Niagara Falls. Need the pilot needs. And so early in the war I delivered. The male heir. P. 39. So he got to he has a passion for airplanes and dance tonight a Living biographies approved north coast treasure interview was conducted by Bob Dorough and with videographer by Katy music.

After my first year in college where I proved to my family I could do it and get AIDS. My second year I had a friend called Marjorie Tucker. And he and I walked down the hall together and he said where were at the physics lab and I said What do you want to go to the physics lab for I'm going to enroll in flying. And I said why. This colleagues a very secret program you know very secret program. They would allow one girl every 10 min. Well I made her the next day and I said how did it come out. And she said my guardian wouldn't let me. Her parents had been killed in a car wreck. And so that left one position and I dropped everything and hitchhiked. Don't tell the kids I did this but I hitchhiked it was safe to do that in those days. I hitchhiked 10 miles home to Nampa from Caldwell. And my mother signed a permission slip because I wasn't old enough. I wasn't 21 and I enrolled in flying with 19.

After I earned my private pilots license that spring I decided to quit school at the end of my junior year and quit school. Worked in agriculture that whole summer did not go back to school that fall for my senior year because I was really focusing then on my instructor never told me I was any good but he told my mother that I was a natural whatever that means and that I could continue on flying. So here arranged there was a club in Nampa that these fellows. I don't know how many of them put in a hundred dollars and bought an airplane. Porterfield 65 horsepower tail dragger. And so as the war became more and more imminent to us in 1940. These fellows were drafted or went went away a lot of them went

volunteered in England as a mercenary because we were not in the war. And so the college and also the town was very aware that Britain was threatened. And so there were these. Parts of memberships of this club for sale and my aunt bought one for me for half price $50. I got in and I own a tenth of an airplane for a while. And so what I would do is go out watch the airplanes all airplanes on the field for a chance to go up for an hour and then I would join the Civil Air Patrol and I would drive people if they would pay the $3 RIT for the plane for the gas. And so that's how I got my commercial license. When my aunt called up from the office and said Go out and get the Saturday Evening Post

because there's a girl in the back smoking Camel and there's an ad beside her that says that if you can fly and have 200 hours or 500 hours I think it was then ride or wire Jacqueline Cochran because women are needed to fly to relieve men for combat. Well I went back to work. I sent a telegram to Jacqueline Cochrane immediately. From home and I went back to work and drew up my wages. And by 2:00 or 3:00 o'clock I got a telegram back saying that if I arrived in three days I could be in the second group. I was furious just furious. If I know about it I would have been in the first group. And it took me 30 years to realize how lucky I was that I wasn't in the first group. They had one potty on the field. They farmed the girls out the first group had a real rough time they told them.

That they weren't to tell their landlady what they were doing it was such an experimental program. Everybody expected the women to fail. By the time I got there Declan Cochrane had commandeered one motel. But imagine I'm 20 years old and I've put in bed a double bed with somebody I don't even know the first three classes were supposed to go into ferrying moving airplanes and Congress limited to the United States. And but the. Sometimes we went to the factory and picked up a brand new ship and moved it. Sometimes we moved schools because the weather in certain places with terrible. And so gradually shift was to the southern part of the United States schools. So I was I took a lot of planes. That first year I was in ferrying to I took a lot of training planes to schools in the south and all different kinds.

I ended up 17 different kind of playing there and in height and within the tight sometimes there would be an early model and then a later model I gave the you know what. It depended on the commander of the base in where you were and what you were doing. But Jacqueline Cochrane always said that if you behave like a lady you'd be treated like a lady and if you get out of line all these guys expect you to fail. Isn't that interesting. Fact of life. It's still a fact of life for the women that are flying today they have to prove. That they're even better than the math. And of course we had to stop in Dallas not only for fuel but we had to stop and get the mail. Remember I was 20 years old and it was very important as my first time away from home mail was extremely important.

Besides that going to there's no baggage compartment in any of these ships that I wrote flew. So you were always hard up for clean clothes. But I flew the training plane for a year and then one day a guy came up on the. Board big board in the operations office. And OK so what. What's the crisis. Do you want to go to instrument school. Well they had it at Dallas so sure I could live at home. You know I could live in the barracks. By that time we were accepted in. We moved from downtown into the barracks still civilian. And I passed a very difficult instrument rating. You had to have a flight test you had to have a linked training test and then you had to have a written so that I passed those three things. And then after I did that you had a choice.

In Britain you didn't have a choice you flew everything eventually. I have a friend that gave me an interview and he he flew everything but you had a choice to go to bombers or to fighter school. Well the fire school washout rate was 56 percent that includes men and women. And. I said I just passed the horrible instrument exam. I can pass fighters and I love the 86. That was my favorite plane at that time. So I went off to Palm Springs the fighter school. And. One month later I was assigned my first fairy you know fire. They took a DC 3. Seat 47. I mean it would bucket seat. They took the whole school to the Internet. They're all in the North

American factory and we each picked up one of the. Mustang P-51 and we weren't supposed to. We were especially the women were not ever told. We we never could fly formation you were never supposed to wait for anybody. Somebody in the battle wanted the ship immediately you know and you were to get it there are no acrobatic right level that you could get there. No funny stuff in that. The lucky lightning that the peeps P-38 Lockheed lightning and earth and dubbed the twin tailed devil by the enemy because it was because it had twin engine Rolls Royce her you know to hear the sound. It's it's unmistakable but I didn't get this right away we did not get the P-38 in school. You had to have a twin

engine medium bomber pine. No no this is a fighter. But yeah but. But in order to qualify to fly twin engine you had to have medium bomber. So after I'd flown fighters for almost eight months my name came up. Did I want to fly. Did I want to learn to fly this plane. Well course I did. You know kind of you know with a gulp in my throat because Evelyn's the operative been killed near Pittsburgh Pennsylvania one of their engines on takeoff one of engines quit and the plane cartwheeled into the dead engine and killed or question. And then Howard one of my friends in Dallas one of the pilots. His nose wheel with the practical gear and the nose wheel collapsed on him and so he was in the hospital and the third accident just before I was to

practice in on the 38. A plane blew up in the air near Dayton Ohio and I knew the fellow. So I wasn't exactly readable with the idea but I thought I'd sure like to give it a shot. I qualified so that it was the lucky lightning. Five landings five take off written cockpit check paths all that. All right. Take this modified 38 to Cheyenne Wyoming. So OK I take off when I get near this range of mountains following the Rockies and I think which one of those peaks Pikes Peak so I sashay around a little bit trying to figure out if you've ever been near Pike's Peak. There's a whole bunch of peak near Pike's Peak and I've been trying to figure out what's what is Pike's Peak. You know there's no label

on it from there that says this is Pike's Peak so pretty soon a red light comes on right in front of my eyes. Well written in any language you mean they know you're. And I said oh my god what is going to happen is going to blow up and I'm going to move my lives should I be allowed Should I leave this ship what should I do. And in a few seconds the light went out. And I said what in the world was flat all about. All the instruments were OK. Nothing varied at all that the both engines were purring or the Rolls Royce sounded just beautiful sound. Nothing happened in the in the cockpit at all. So a few minutes or maybe seconds later I looked out and an airline had passed below me and so I said.

WHAT IS THIS WHAT IS GOING ON. You know no indication nothing no label on the red light at all what it was for. So when I get back to Dallas I say. You fellows could have lost an airplane. What if I had bailed out and left that airplane you know. No label on the red light at all. And they said well it's radar because the enemies found out if they come below this twin tail this empathize here. If they come below that the pilot can't see. And so they put a radar screen there to warn him that the enemy was approaching below. But they forgot to tell me about it. I got a degree and physically do caisson. So I taught in junior high school for three years in Caldwell and then I had a chance to go for a

teaching assistant to the University of Oregon so I went to Eugene Oregon and got a master's and then I can't my kids don't believe this. You know that I had twenty four job offers with a master's degree. And so friend called from Arcadia California. And he said I'm going to get married and leave this job would you like that. I thought where is Arcade it wasn't even on the map. And she said can you find Eureka. I think well it's just north of there wasn't even an arcade it was not even on the map then. So I. 13 hours on the bus Greyhound bus from Eugene Oregon to Arcadia. I get off the bus on a stick at six o'clock in the morning beautiful morning beautiful ocean view and I couldn't believe that anybody would want to leave here.

It will be three. Yeah three women in the whole department. There are I mean three women. No three people in the whole department. Kill or be a doctor for kids. Stafford the football coach and that was the apartment in 1950. And yeah I knew him through friends I knew him I knew him about 10 years before we got married in one summer heat. I was teaching summer school and he took the swimming class and I was teaching and I think that's how we really got together it was great. Yeah he was born in Arcadia went through clear through Arcadia got bored one time and said I wondered if I remember an age thing about flying so I would not renew my license and flew a little bit. So

when the flood came in 64 Keith and I got in the car and went to the top of the Lolita hill and we couldn't believe the sea that we saw below us. So I went to Bennington anchored five miles off the carrier Bennington brought here to a copter then and I volunteered to be an observer with Keith. And there with horrible weather there with snow will be rain it was just really bad weather and I never was an observer but Mrs. Pierce Allen Pierce with the batting at Northern wear in the building next to northern air now and Mrs. Pierce for the next few days sat me on the silver ribbon which is where the ocean hit the fan. The Crescent City back and forth and I always brought something back because the only way to get in and out of here during those days of the flood was by air

and I laugh and Caltrans said they saved humble County I said with no what were we doing. And I taught everything I thought for when I taught archery and I taught one class a folk dance and the first class is kind of you know I have butterflies in my stomach and all for 13 years I did all my vacation. I did dance and and gradually as the folk dance grew it started the folk dance Federation started 48. Before I got here but I got in early. I came in 50 so it wasn't that old. And then they started doing camps. You know teachers wanted to come and learn more like me. And so Stockton had become the established camp summer camp for teachers and then

people who really wanted to do more in debt. And different years they emphasized different dances. I found that a great satisfaction in dance. All kind of dance and I did modern dance and then I was totally bored with the technique part of it. But I love the creative aspect and when I got students who were skilled enough to do some composing we did fantastic shows. I mean all I did was just encourage and be the impetus and some of those shows that we did are memorable really memorable ones. Hope the club just in the starting because they want to they wanted to do.

Oh it started with the Ted cayenne Gary coin. They they didn't want to do the beginning dances and I said OK why don't you divide the hours that you have two hours and why don't you have the first hour be the beginners and then they can go home and then the advance people come a little later and that would be one way to do it. And I thought I don't want to run your club. I don't want to tell you what kind of dances to do is be in like another class for me. You decide what you want to do. And this is the way you promote leadership too. I was the advisor. And in fact I still am in the background. I wanted to write the book because.

The college girls that I started to get to know had such low aspiration and the high school kids that I talked to that the end of life was getting married. And. Even though there were more and more opportunities for women I don't think anybody dared to break out and really do what they thought they were good at. And I said well you know if I if I hadn't really had a strong desire there were so many obstacles in my way that I if I had really persevered I never would have made it either. And so maybe I never talked about that. I was so disappointed that Congress would tell us go home. Where we're still you know and still being used. And there was still a need for us to do the job we were doing.

I was so disappointed that I never talked about what I did for years. I mean I bet 20 years I never talked about it at all. Some women are still that. That's the high point of their lives. And I said to myself that is not going to be the high point of my life. And it hasn't been. When I went down the Colorado River in 1967 in a rowboat I thought that was the high point. Nineteen days in the rowboat in water like this. Well I don't think that's that today I don't think that five point in my life. But it's a memorable part and it is such an unusual part of my life and I think a women should aspire to be more than they are than they think they can be and they shouldn't let disappointment stand in the way of achieving. And that's partly why I wrote the book and

also to let the women that did this have a little recognition because one of them fed half the people in this book. It's a quiet little you know I think mouse. He said to quiet person I sat next door to a banquet one time and he hardly said two words to me. She has the most incredible story. And it's and I wrote it up. She gave me a taped interview finally and I wrote her that up and it's in here. And if this is ever made a movie Her story is muddy going to be one of the stories because she said in an unassuming person that you would never believe that he was courageous that he was brave that he would dependable that he would loyal that she could do this. I think Brokaw's book The Greatest Generation.

He pays tribute to the people of World War 2. You know he and he is what I what I think too is that if we hadn't defeated Hitler we'd be speaking German if we hadn't defeated the Japanese we'd be speaking Japanese today and maybe we were the greatest generation but there was a time when people really pulled together. My mother ended up teaching school you know in Idaho when she went back to college got a degree in mathematics which is very difficult for me and she laughed at me and she said You blew by math in the arithmetic for two years and 11 days when you really wanted to do it you could do it. And I said yeah I guess so. So I think women need to know that they can do. And they've been told so much that they're not good in science they're

not good in math. That's a myth. And also I think the fact that women in general have actually said this in public that women make excellent pilots because they're they have a light touch and upright or plain take little finger can fly fighter and the bombers are everything hydraulic. Now in fact it's all computerized. Women are more patient more thorough tonner acknowledges that in the book. And he's dead now but he's the one that did the mandala Airlie a wonderful organizer. I've never met him but he married one of the law. And he acknowledges that when the men were afraid to fly the thirty nine The. One that caused so many accidents women read the tech orders

they followed the rules and they flew and when the B-29 was first out it was considered a very dangerous plane so he got two women who were the Enola Gay man. He went down to Camp Davis where they were towing targets and he picked two top women to fly the B-29 around the United States to kill the women can do it. But what with you guys and I think a piece of history like this. That those who don't study the past are condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past. And I think for Brokaw to honor his father's generation but to write a book and call it the World War to get angry. And it's it's his Thank you

that he actually lived in a time when people pulled together. And were generous and had curried and had belief that we could win and we did that.