Nancy Love

Nancy Harkness Love
(1914-1976)

Nancy Love learned to fly when she was only sixteen years old. She received her commercial pilot's license in 1933 and was hired by the Bureau of Air Commerce as one of a group of three women pilots assigned to mark principal cities across the United States to better facilitate aerial navigation.

In 1940, as the Army was setting up its Ferrying Command, Love proposed a women's flying squadron. She had located 49 experienced women pilots that could help ferry new planes from factories to military bases across the country, freeing male pilots for wartime duty. Her idea was rejected at the time, but was reconsidered early in World War II. Upon organization of the Women's Auxiliary Ferry Squadron, or WAFS, Love was made its director.

In 1943 the WAFS merged with the Women's Flying Training Detachment, under the leadership of Jacqueline Cochran, into a new organization called the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). While Cochran was given command of the WASP, Love was put in charge of all ferrying operations. 

Under her command, female pilots flew almost every military aircraft then in service. In over 12,000 ferry flights her pilots flew 9.2 million miles, with a better safety record than male pilots. For her efforts Love received the Air Medal.