‘Micky’ Axton served nation as a World War II WASP

As the U.S. tackled two fronts in World War II, it faced a shortage of trained pilots. In 1943, the U.S. Army Air Forces enlisted women to train as pilots for noncombat missions. Mildred “Micky” Axton, of Coffeyville, Kansas, was a certified pilot. She was one of the first three women recruited for the Women Airforce Service Pilots. She became a test pilot, pulled target craft and taught pilots classes. As a Boeing flight test engineer, she was the first woman to fly a B-29 Superfortress.

Mildred Darlene “Micky” Tuttle was born Jan. 8, 1919, to Ralph and Beatrice Fletcher Tuttle in Coffeyville, Kansas.

Coffeyville was home to the Inman Brothers Flying Circus. They gave barnstorming shows across the Midwest. They would fly their planes low over Coffeyville’s downtown to the amazement of onlookers such as the Tuttle children, Mildred and Ralph Jr.

BIPLANE RIDE

In 1929, the children were sold on flight when they rode in a biplane of the one of the Inmans. The Inmans gave $1 rides to the public in a Curtiss Jenny. Their mother went up first, and then she allowed Mildred, 10, and Ralph, 8, to go. Axton recalled her mother reassured them it was “perfectly safe and she said I wish I could be a pilot.” After that, the siblings wanted to be pilots.

Axton graduated from Coffeyville’s Field Kindley High School in 1936. She enrolled in Coffeyville Junior College, where she took all the math and science classes she could in order to become an engineer. She transferred to Kansas State University in Manhattan in 1938 and graduated with a teaching certificate in 1940.

She enrolled in the Civil Pilot Training program in Coffeyville Junior College in 1940. She had signed up as a junior, but women were not accepted that year. When she was a senior, she reapplied and was accepted — the only woman in the program. At the time, she was teaching chemistry at the junior college.

She had one handicap — she didn’t know how to drive. The class was 5 miles away from campus.

Her mother took her to a local baseball field where she learned to drive. She passed her exams and received her license.

Her mother wanted to be her first passenger, but she was preempted by Micky’s 91-year old great-grandmother. Her great-grandmother was not intimidated in the least. After landing, her great-grandmother said,“Boy, that sure does beat covered wagons.”

FLIGHT TEST ENGINEER

She married David Axton on June 1, 1941. David Axton was a test pilot for Boeing Aircraft. The couple lived in Wichita. Their daughter, Carol, was born Feb. 28, 1942.

Brother Ralph Tuttle had enlisted in the Army Air Corps at the start of World War II. He was a fighter pilot in the Pacific theater.

In his letters home, he told of the dangers and losses suffered at Guadalcanal.

The need for pilots hit Micky Axton hard. But how to help? She soon learned from the famed female pilot, Jackie Cochran, of a new program created in 1943. The Women Air Force Service Pilots was designed to free up male pilots for combat. After a long talk with her husband and parents, they all agreed that with her experience she could make a contribution becoming a WASP. Her parents volunteered to raise Carol.

In August 1943, she left for Sweetwater, Texas, 200 miles west of Houston to begin the WASP training program, class of 43-W-7.

She was one of three women in the first class. She completed the six-month program that qualified her to fly everything the Air Force had from twin-engine Cessnas to AT-6 fighter trainers.

She was assigned to Pecos Army Field in Reeves County, Texas, as a flight test engineer. Her responsibility was to test overhauled B-20s, B-25s, B-26s and B-29s before approving them as flightworthy.

On one test flight, she had an engine failure in a twin-engine plane on takeoff at an altitude of 300 feet. She recalled the mechanics onboard being petrified. She was busy trying to balance the plane, shut down the engine, talk to the tower and fly. Finally, she quit talking and focused on landing the plane as other planes and vehicles near the runway scattered. Crash trucks and ambulances raced to the scene. She brought it down safely.“I wasn’t scared until it was over,” she remembered.

It wasn’t all successful flights, however. She remembered watching other WASP pilots crash and die in the course of duty while still having to complete her assigned flights.

Her roommate, Gertrude Tompkins, was lost flying a Mustang P-51 fighter into Santa Monica Bay in 1944.

The WASPs were disbanded in 1944 without fanfare and sent home.

They were not counted as veterans. Axton said: “When WASPs died, the military refused to pay to send their bodies home or provide a military funeral.

The women took up collections for families to recover the costs.”

JOB AT BOEING

Axton’s mother, Beatrice, fell ill in March 1944. Axton left the WASPs in April to care for her daughter.

She took a job at Boeing Aircraft as a flight test engineer in Wichita, Kansas.

She flew or was on crews that tested new aircraft before releasing them to the Air Force.

On the test flight of the 16th B-29 Superfortress in 1944, she was stationed in a blister monitoring the four engines. Elton Rowley, chief of engineering flight test, called her forward to the cabin. He asked her, “Micky, how would you like to fly this thing?” She piloted it for 20 minutes and became the first woman to fly a B-29.

“I was just absolutely in hog heaven,” she recalled.

She also worked on the experimental B-47 bomber in 1950-51.

Axton worked for Beech Aircraft Corp. for a short time but resigned after her two children, Carol and Gary, contracted polio, from which they recovered.

She resumed teaching at East High School in Wichita in 1958. She taught science and debate.

A short aeronautics class she presented was so well received it became a fullblown aeronautics class in 1959.

In 1968, she joined the Commemorative Air Force, formerly the Confederate Air Force, in order to publicize the story of the WASP program. It became her mission to publicize the role of women in aviation.

She spoke to graduating classes of U.S. Navy and Marine pilots. The Navy presented her with gold pilot wings. She was a featured speaker for clubs, veterans, business and industry groups.

She flew the only remaining B-29, nicknamed “Fi Fi,” to a Wichita airshow and a Boeing open house.

The Jayhawk Wing of the Commemorative Air Force wanted to name its restored PT-23 after her. Axton replied,“OK, but be sure to give me a decent swimsuit.” “Miss Micky,” wearing a red swimsuit, graces the nose of the plane.

In July 2009, President Barack Obama signed a bill bestowing the Congressional Gold Medal to the members of the WASP for their service during World War II. However, Axton died Feb. 6, 2010, at age 91, a month before the scheduled award presentation.

Her family received the medal March 10, 2010.

Axton proved what women could accomplish in the field of aviation. Though WASPs did not receive recognition at the time, due to the efforts of her and others, WASPs received status as military veterans in 1979. Yet it was the joy of flying that inspired her through the years. She summed it up in a 2008 interview, saying,“I just feel like the luckiest gal in the whole wide world.”

BILL CALDWELL is the retired librarian at The Joplin Globe. If you have a question you’d like him to research, send an email to news@joplinglobe.com or leave a message at 417-6277261.

Mildred “Micky” Axton, born in Coffeyville, Kan., was an American aviator who was a pilot during World War II.

COURTESY | U.S. ARMY

Micky Axton poses in front of an AT-6 at the Confederate Air Force American Airpower Heritage Museum. Axton was 23 when she joined the Women Airforce Service Pilots program.

COURTESY | U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

BILL CALDWELL

Globe columnist