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Date: 7-11-01
EXPLORATIONS #1960 - Jacqueline Cochran
By Marilyn ChristianoANNCR:
Now, the VOA Special English program, EXPLORATIONS.
Today, Harry Monroe and Kay Gallant tell the story of American
pilot Jacqueline Cochran.
VOICE ONE:
Some people's paths in life seem to be straight and true. From
an early age, they are set on one goal. Other people's paths
turn this way and that. The events of their lives are a
surprise.
Jacqueline Cochran was one of these people. No event in her
early life was a sign of what she was to become -- one of the
best fliers in the world.
Jacqueline Cochran was known as Jackie. She said she was born in
Nineteen-Ten. She did not really know. Her parents died when
she was a baby. Another man and woman adopted her. They became
her legal parents.
These people were very poor. They lived in several towns in
Florida and Georgia. Jackie went to school for just two years.
Then she began work in a cotton factory. She was eight years
old. She earned six cents an hour.
VOICE TWO:
Later, Jackie studied to be a nurse. But, she decided to be a
beautician, a person who cuts and fixes other people's hair. She
went to a special school and worked in several beauty shops in
the South. Then, she decided to move to New York City. There
she worked in a very fine beauty shop. On a business trip, she
met wealthy financial expert, Floyd Odlum.
Floyd Odlum urged Jackie to learn to fly. He also helped her
establish what was to become a very successful business.
Jackie had dreamed of selling her own beauty products. At that
time, the United States was in severe economic trouble, the Great
Depression. Floyd told Jackie it would be very difficult to sell
enough beauty products to make her company successful. She would
have to sell them all across America.
To cover the territory, he said, she would need wings. She
thought it was a great idea.
VOICE ONE:
Years later, Jackie Cochran remembered how she talked with her
friends about learning to fly. They all warned her how difficult
it would be. She did not think so. So she went to Roosevelt
Field on New York's Long Island to learn how.
After two-and-a-half weeks of lessons, she received her official
pilot's license. She immediately flew to Montreal, Canada. The
year was Nineteen-Thirty-Two.
Three years later, she competed in the Bendix Trophy Race from
Los Angeles to Cleveland.
The race was an important competition for both men and women
pilots. In her first try, Cochran had trouble with her plane.
She failed to finish. Another young female pilot, Amelia
Earhart, finished fifth.
VOICE TWO:
In Nineteen-Thirty-Six, Jackie and Floyd were married. She
continued to operate her company, Jacqueline Cochran Cosmetics.
And he continued to support her flying activities.
In Nineteen-Thirty-Seven, Amelia Earhart attempted to fly around
the world. She disappeared during that flight. A group of
female pilots held a memorial ceremony to honor her. Jackie
Cochran spoke at the ceremony. "We can mourn her loss," Cochran
said, "but not regret her effort. We will carry on her goals."
VOICE ONE:
A month after Earhart was declared lost at sea, Cochran flew
again in the Bendix Trophy Race. She was the only female pilot.
She finished in third place, ahead of several of America's
toughest male pilots.
The winner of that race flew a new kind of military plane. It
was designed by Alexander de Seversky. He had come to the United
States from Russia.
Seversky wanted to sell his new long-distance plane to the United
States Army Air Corps. He thought the army would notice his
plane if a female pilot flew it in a race and did well. So he
asked Cochran to fly it in the next Bendix race. She accepted
immediately.
VOICE TWO:
Seversky added extra fuel containers in the wings. He wanted to
show that the plane could fly long distances without stopping.
Cochran would be the first pilot to use the new system.
Twenty-one pilots flew a test course before the race. Only ten
completed it successfully. Nine men and Jackie Cochran.
The race began in Burbank, California, in the middle of the
night. Forty-thousand persons were there to watch. Seversky's
plane, with Cochran at the controls, speeded down the runway.
Its silver wings and body shone in the lights around the
airfield. The plane lifted off the runway, climbed up and
disappeared into the darkness.
VOICE ONE:
Another crowd was waiting in Cleveland, Ohio. They cheered as
the first plane landed and crossed the finish line. It was the
silver plane flown by Jackie Cochran. She had won the race.
Cochran had flown three-thousand two-hundred-seventy kilometers
in eight hours and ten minutes. She had done it without
stopping. But only she knew there was enough fuel left to
fly just a few more minutes.
Jackie Cochran won something else that year -- recognition. She
received the Harmon Trophy, the highest award given to a pilot in
America. She would win the Harmon Trophy thirteen more times.
VOICE TWO:
The next year, Nineteen-Thirty-Nine, World War Two started in
Europe. Cochran believed female pilots could help in the war
effort. She thought they should be permitted to fly military
transport planes. In that way, she said, more male pilots would
be free to fly combat planes.
In Nineteen-Forty, she tried to get the United States Army Air
Forces to support her idea. Cochran wrote to President Franklin
Roosevelt's wife, Eleanor. She said the real problem in wartime
was likely to be a lack of trained pilots. Many women, she
noted, already were trained.
VOICE ONE:
Cochran received permission to go to England to observe female
pilots in the newly-formed British Air Transport Auxiliary. She
stayed there several years.
By Nineteen-Forty-Three, the United States realized that it did
need more pilots. The commander of America's Army Air Forces,
General Henry Arnold, visited England. He asked Cochran to come
home and organize a program for female pilots. The group would
be known as the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs.
The group existed for two years. During that brief time, the
women learned to fly seventy-seven kinds of military planes.
One-thousand seventy-four women served as WASPs. They flew
almost one-hundred-million kilometers. They were never
officially part of the Army Air Forces. They were considered
civilian employees.
VOICE TWO:
At the end of World War Two, the American government gave Jackie
Cochran the Distinguished Service Medal for organizing the WASPs.
She was the first civilian to receive the honor.
After the war, she worked with General Arnold. She helped write
a bill that created America's Air Force Reserve. She became the
first female member. She was finally a member of the military.
VOICE ONE:
In the late Nineteen-Forties, Cochran started racing again. She
set many more flying records. In Nineteen-Fifty-Four, she
entered the jet age. The Canadian government agreed to let her
test its new fighter plane. In it, she became the first woman to
fly faster than the speed of sound.
In the early Nineteen-Sixties, she became a test pilot for the
Lockheed Company. She flew a fighter plane two-thousand
two-hundred-eighty-six kilometers an hour. More than two times
the speed of sound.
It was the fastest speed ever reached by a female pilot.
VOICE TWO:
Jackie Cochran sold her beauty products company in
Nineteen-Sixty-Four. She died of a heart attack in
Nineteen-Eighty. At the time of her death, she held more speed,
distance and altitude records than any other pilot -- man or
woman -- in aviation history.
She had risen from a lowly beginning to the heights of business
and flight.
Jackie Cochran is not as well-known as some of the other great
pilots. One history expert said people respected her, but did
not really like her. She led the way for other female pilots.
But she did not seek their company as friends.
Jackie Cochran felt very much at home in the sky. She once
described her feelings about flying. This is what she said:
"Earth-bound souls know only that underside of the atmosphere in
which they live. But go up higher, and the sky turns dark. High
up enough, and one can see the stars at noon. I have. I have
traveled with the wind and the stars."
(THEME)
ANNOUNCER:
This Special English program was written by Marilyn Rice
Christiano. Your narrators were Harry Monroe and Kay Gallant.
This is Shirley Griffith. Listen again next week for another
EXPLORATIONS program on VOA.
Source: www.voa.gov/special/