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­­­A Very Special Connection:

Dora Dougherty Strother WASP and Cottey Alum

     Dora Dougherty Strother was one of the first women accepted into the WASP program during WWII. After the United States entered World War II, it was in desperate need of trained fliers, and Strother became a pioneer herself by joining the third class of the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots in 1943. She was part of the class of 43-w-3. She ferried planes, towed targets, and flew drones before she, along with Didi Moorman was asked by Col. Paul Tibbets to learn how to fly the B-29 bomber. A year later she was training male pilots to fly the B-29 bomber.  Dora and Didi showed the much maligned bomber was "So easy to fly that even a women could do it." After their brief exhibition, Dora went on to be part of the 509th Composite. Col. Tibbets said that she was one of the best multi-engine pilots he had ever flown with. The WASP did not get the GI bill since they were considered civilians at the time.

Dora worked for Bell Helicopters from 1962 until 1986. She set two world flight records for Rotorcraft in Altitude and distance from 1961 until 1966 when they were broken. She was the 6th female in US to earn Airline Transport Certificate. She was the 27th woman in the free world to earn a helicopter rating. After 20 years in the Air Force Reserve, she retired with the rank of Lt. Col from 9823rd Air Reserve Squadron, Ft. Worth, TX. Strother held a PhD in Aviation Education (NYU, 1955). She was a recipient of the Amelia Earhart Award for academic achievement and was an inductee in the Military Aviation Hall of Fame. In 1966, she was awarded the Achievement Award by the American Association of University Women. Strother was a 1987 inductee to the Texas Women's Hall of Fame. Strother was also a Whirly-Girl, serving as their President from 1979-1981, and a member of the Ninety-Nines.

     None of her accomplishments would have happened had it not been for a civilian pilot training program that Strother took in the summer of 1940. This was after her first year at Cottey College in Nevada, Mo., and the course was being taught at Northwestern — only a few miles from Winnetka, Ill., where her parents had moved from Long Island."The civilian pilot training program was designed to train people to fly who would then be a pool of [wartime] aviators for the country," Strother says. "If the public had known, there would have been an outcry. To keep them from the idea that it was premilitary, they enrolled 10 percent women. I was lucky enough to be part of the 10 percent at Northwestern." The 30 people in the course — 27 men and three women — spent half their time in ground school in the Technological Institute learning about airplanes and engines, meteorology, navigation, radios, communication and flight instruments. The actual flight training took place at Palwaukee Airport in suburban Wheeling.

From the start Strother was hooked. "It was a thrill, although I was so busy that I didn’t think of my emotions," she says. "I think that a lot of the excitement is that it’s something new, that you’re in control and that the success of the flight depends on you."