Blanche Osborn Bross
1916–2008
Class 43-W-6

Planes flown: B-17 and B-24
Assigned bases:
Buckingham Army Air Field (Fort Myers, Fla.)
Lockbourne Army Air Base (Columbus, Ohio)

Blanche Osborn Bross was among 1,074 women who flew for the Women’s Air Force Service Pilots during World War II. Before joining WASP in 1943, Bross was a plumbing company’s accountant.

In 1943, Blanche heeded the call to duty by joining the Women’s Air Force Service Pilots, WASP. More than 25,000 women applied for the prestigious WASP program but only a select 1074 graduated. WASP’s like Blanche spent countless hours training to assume piloting jobs, delivering planes from factories to their domestic bases, towing targets for gunnery practice, and training cadet pilots. Sent to Ohio to learn to fly four-engine aircraft, she learned to pilot the legendary B-17 “Flying Fortress”. Stationed at Fort Myers, Fla., she took gunners up in the air where they fired at targets towed by a B-25.

“Pistol Packin Mamas” Frances Green, Margaret (Peg) Kirchner, Ann Waldner and Blanche Osborn are seen here leaving their plane, “Pistol Packin’ Mama,” at the four-engine school at Lockbourne AAF, Ohio, 1943. These WASP are learning to ferry the B-17

After spending close to a year at Fort Myers, Blanche and three other WASP were transferred to the Las Vegas gunnery school where they were used in the engineering squadron to test repaired aircraft. The program generated significant publicity during the war and Blanche was featured in a famous picture of female pilots walking away from the “Pistol Packin’ Mama”, a B-17 bomber. The photograph has since been used in advertisements for clothing lines, fashion magazines, historical chronicles and a copy hangs in the Smithsonian Museum.

After the WASP deactivated, Blanche joined the American Red Cross and was sent to Kunming, China. Following her tour in China, Blanche returned to the U.S. to begin a family. In 1957 she married Willis H. Bross with whom she had a son, Charles. Together they moved to Portland where they developed a seaplane flying base. Later, Blanche received a commercial pilot’s license and flew construction crews to work sites. She also spent many years as an accountant and after retirement was an avid golfer.

Sources:

Texas Womens University
The Bulletin
The Columbian