Josephine Keating Swift
September 24, 1919 – August 28, 2010
Class: 44-W-1
Training Location: Avenger Field (Sweetwater, Tex.)
Assigned Bases: Dodge City Army Air Base (Kan.) and Pueblo Army Air Base (Colo.)
Planes flown: PT-19, BT-13, AT-6, B-24, B-26, B-25, L-5, UC-78
Josephine (Jo) Swift was born in Great Falls, Montana on September 24, 1919. She called Great Falls “a hotbed of stunt fliers, crop dusters, barnstormers and flight schools”. When Swift was 22 years old, in an open cockpit stereotypically outfitted “with goggles, leather skull cap helmet, and a long scarf” she took her first flight in a “Jenny” bi-plane, (WWI planes that were used to drop information or advertising fliers from the sky to those below and as “barnstormers”).
After successfully soloing and flying enough hours to get her pilot’s license, Jo then completed the required minimum of 35 hours and applied for, and was accepted into, the WASP’ flying training program as a member of class 44-W-1. After completing 7 months of training, she, along with 48 other young women pilots, graduated, received their silver wings, and became WASP! Class 44-1 was the first class to wear the Santiago Blue WASP dress uniform! They also wore gloves at their graduation. Jo’s graduation day was one of the coldest February’s in West Texas history!
After graduation, Jo was sent to Dodge City, Kansas to the Army Air Base to learn to fly the B-26 Martin Marauder. After successfully completing the transition training, she was stationed at Pueblo Army Air Base, Colorado, a combat training base. There, she flew both the B-26 & UC-78. She ferried cargo, personnel, and aircraft; towed targets, and flew simulated dive-bombing runs at B-24’s. A flight crew on their way to combat named their bomber “Red the Wasp” after the red-haired beauty, and Jo searched all her life hoping to find out what happened to that crew.
After deactivation of the WASP in 1944, Jo returned to Montana to work as a flight instructor in Billings. It was there that she met her soon-to-be husband, Ken Swift, a bush pilot from Alaska. They were married in 1946. The Swifts moved to Seattle and started a family.After raising her children, Jo went to work in market research at Boeing. She moved on to vice president of a leasing company in Bellevue and eventually moved to Anchorage, Alaska, where she opened a branch office. After six years Jo returned to Seattle where she retired to be closer to her family.
In March 2010, Jo and her entire family traveled to Washington, D.C., where Jo was presented the Congressional Gold Medal awarded to the WASP for their service.
Sources:
Texas Women’s University in Denton, Texas, WASP Collection
WASP Final BlogSpot
Queenannenews.com
Legacy.com
