Ever since the first time she boarded an airplane at a Dallas airport in 1943, Frankie Bretherick just wanted to fly.

So she dropped her job as a registered nurse at the nearby veterans’ hospital and a year later, she was accepted into the Women Airforce Service Pilot – also known as WASP – program with a commercial pilot’s license and more than 200 hours of flying time under her belt.

Bretherick, 94, of Plano was one of about 1,000 female pilots who flew noncombat missions during World War II to help free up men to fly combat missions.

The WASPs were an experiment and a secret – the fact that the U.S. resorted to female pilots would have been seen as a sign of vulnerability. And though the war has been long over, these women pilots have remained largely in the shadows with little thanks or recognition.

Last week, President Barack Obama signed a bill honoring Bretherick and the other women pilots who backed up the men during the war, an action Bretherick says is long overdue.

Soon, the surviving WASPs – a little under 300 – will receive Congressional Gold Medals in Washington. And on July 6, U.S. Rep. Sam Johnson, who co-sponsored the bill, presented a Congressional Record to Bretherick in her assisted living home.

“Plano has a living legend among us in Frankie Bretherick,” he said. “To the brave and selfless women like Frankie, our nation owes them a debt of gratitude for their service and sacrifice.”

Johnson served as a fighter pilot for 29 years, flying 62 combat missions in the Korean War and 25 in Vietnam before he was shot down and spent almost seven years as a prisoner of war.

WASPs flew every mission and every aircraft the men flew with the exception of combat flights. This isn’t to say the women were protected from danger. Bretherick, for one, remembers having to land a plane during a sandstorm when she couldn’t see the runway. Others tested aircrafts to prove that they were safe for men to fly.

But when any of the 38 women died, there were no honors, no gold stars in windows and no flags draped over their coffins. As civil service employees, the WASPs were never granted military benefits. They paid their own way to go into training and to return home when they disbanded in December 1944. It wasn’t until 1977 that the WASPs were granted veterans’ status.

Nancy Parrish, executive director for Wings Across America, says most women didn’t consider the lack of benefits or recognition a point of complaint.

 “They love to fly,” she said of the more than 100 WASPs she has interviewed. “But to be able to do it for your country back in the time when it was unheard of … If that meant paying your way, it meant paying your way.”

Still, the least they deserve is gratitude, and that’s what the Congressional Gold Medal represents, Parrish said.

Parrish, inspired by her mother who was a WASP, has been helping shed light on the WASPs’ contributions to U.S. history.

“It’s not just history,” she said. “It’s inspirational.”

The Waco-based nonprofit got the WASPs inducted into the Texas Aviation Hall of Fame and founded a WASP museum in Sweetwater, where Bretherick trained for eight months.

Although Bretherick said the congressional honor is long overdue, she ultimately echoed the sentiments of the women Parrish has recorded on her organization’s Web site, saying the hardships were well worth the experience.

“I just love to fly,” she said. “I just love being up there – it’s freeing.”

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