PEARL HARBOR! FEMALE FIRST TO ENCOUNTER THE JAPANESE ATTACK!
She was the first US Pilot to encounter the Japanese Air Fleet bearing down on Pearl Harbor, and even avoided a strafing attack by a Japanese Zero and lived to tell the story.
Cornelia Fort has a small airport named for her in Nashville, Tennessee. She was one of America’s first female pilots and a leader in War Time Aviation that served our country in WWII. She grew up in Nashville, and was born into the wealthy Rufus Elijah Fort family who was the founder of National Life and Accident Insurance Company.
After college, she became one of the first women from Tennessee to get her commercial pilots license. Soon she was hired as an instructor by a Colorado Flight School and assigned to teach at John Rogers Field at the island paradise of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
A great gig, right? Except it’s 1941 and I’m not sure that Pearl Harbor is the place to be.
It was Sunday Morning, Dec 7th… a picture perfect day and Cornelia was in the air with her student for flight instruction when all of a sudden she saw another airplane coming straight toward her.
She pulled up quickly to avoid a midair collision. She noticed the Rising Sun insignia on the tail of the aircraft and soon saw the billows of black smoke coming from Pearl Harbor. Being pursued by a Japanese Zero, she quickly landed her plane and ran for cover just as the Zero destroyed her plane on the runway. The airport manager at Rogers Field was killed and two other private pilots who were in the air that morning did not return.
Wow, what a close call, can you imagine? In her flight log she recorded, “Flight interrupted by Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor”. Her terrifying incident was documented in the popular movie “Tora, Tora, Tora”.
America was now at war and Cornelia Fort was going to be a part of it. She soon returned to the mainland, where she made a short movie that promoted War Bonds. About the same time, the first women’s military organization for pilots was being formed to support in the war effort. It was called Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP’S) and she was the 2nd person to join up. Her job with the WASP’s was to ferry new military planes from production to combat service at various locations all over the country.
On 21 March 1943, while flying from Long Beach, California to Dallas, Texas, she was struck by another plane and was unable to control the craft. She crashed and was killed around Merkel Texas.
She was pioneer in women’s aviation, one of the first to encounter the Japanese Air Fleet, and she served her country. We as American’s should definitely honor and remember her. The headstone at her grave is inscribed, “Killed in the Service of Her Country”.
The airport named after her, in Nashville, was closed after it was flooded in 2010, and is now, it’s a great city park. All the infrastructure is still there including, the runway the hangers and the tower. Now, people ride their bikes and push their kids and their strollers out on the runway. Her memory and sacrifices will long be remembered by the generations that visit the park everyday. Be sure to see the video in the link below that tells Cornelia Fort’s story on location.
– Scott Denney, Historian for Family Tree Nuts