“Guess what?” she said gloomily.
“What?” Betty asked.
“I’ve just been reassigned to Wright Field in Ohio,” she said, waving a copy of her orders at Betty.
Betty laughed and showed Ann her own orders. “So have I,” she said.
The two women burst into laughter.
“Well, if we’re going together, it won’t be too bad. What do you think we’ll be doing there? It all sounds very secretive, doesn’t it?” Ann said.
“It sure does. We’ll just have to wait and find out, I guess,” Betty said.
Ten days later, Betty and Ann arrived at the Miami Hotel in Dayton, Ohio. They spent a restful night there and in the morning were met by Major Frederick Borsodi, a tall, dark-haired man who escorted them by car to Wright Field. As they rode, Major Borsodi chatted to them about some of the work he was doing at the air base. His area of expertise encompassed learning about compression shock waves on the wings of airplanes. Major Borsodi was the first man to see these and the first to photograph them. He told Betty that to do this he had put a P-51D aircraft into a dive from forty thousand feet.
Betty was impressed. The highest she had ever flown herself was nineteen thousand feet, and anything over twenty-five thousand feet was considered dangerous—for three reasons. First, the lack of oxygen at such high altitudes caused hypoxia, which made pilots feel peaceful and sluggish. As a result, their judgment was impaired, and if they didn’t get to a lower altitude and more oxygen fast, they could drift into unconsciousness and death. Second was the problem of extreme cold at such heights. The temperature could go down to minus eighty degrees Fahrenheit, or even lower. At such temperatures, a person would be instantly frostbitten. Third was the threat of an embolism. What happened to pilots at such an altitude was similar to what happened to deep-sea divers who resurfaced too quickly: They got the bends. Basically, the fast reduction in atmospheric pressure caused gas bubbles to form in the blood. These bubbles were mostly nitrogen and made a person feel itchy, suffer blurred vision, and then become paralyzed and die.
Major Borsodi explained that a big problem for the United States in the war was that German airplanes could fly higher than Allied planes and were bombing them from higher altitudes. At Wright Field, the Americans were experimenting with high-altitude flying, because the side that developed airplanes that could fly higher than all others would have a definite advantage in the air.
By the time the Pontiac carrying Major Borsodi, Betty, and Ann pulled into Wright Field, Betty was beginning to wonder what she had let herself in for. Was she going to be flying at such heights? Or did the air force have something else in mind for her?
Betty did not have to wait long to find out. A note was on the message board when she arrived asking her and Ann to report immediately to Colonel Randolph Lovelace II, M.D., director of the Aeromedical Laboratory. Betty straightened her bun and set out with Ann Baumgartner to find Colonel Lovelace.
The colonel turned out to be a kindly man of medium height and build, with his left hand heavily bandaged. “Ah, ladies, I have been waiting to meet you,” he said in a pleasant voice, inviting them into his large office. “Please sit down, and I’ll try to fill you in on why you are here.”
Betty and Ann sat in comfortable overstuffed easy chairs and peered across the desk at the colonel.
Colonel Lovelace cleared his throat. “Welcome to Wright Field. I’m glad to have two WASPs on my staff. I think you can make a valuable contribution to the work we’re doing here.”
Betty smiled. “Just what work is that?” she asked politely.
Colonel Lovelace grinned. “Very cutting-edge work,” he replied. “Let me tell you about it.”
Over the next hour, the colonel laid out the work he had been involved in and the strides he had made since the beginning of the war. In 1940 a strato-chamber had been invented to simulate conditions at forty thousand feet. This meant that for the first time, the responses of the human body to high altitudes could be studied without the risk of actually being in the stratosphere. By 1943 much work had been done on radio communications, making it possible for aircraft to transmit radio messages from forty thousand feet. Now the research team had turned its attention to making and testing oxygen masks and flight suits that would allow pilots to fly at thirty-five thousand feet and higher for long periods.
Betty Greene and Ann Baumgartner were to be a part of the team that would be the first to test the new equipment. “Though, of course,” Colonel Lovelace added, “I never ask my men or women to do anything I have not done myself.”
Betty did not fully understand how serious the colonel was about this until later that night in the mess hall. Over a bowl of beef stew and biscuits, she learned from one of the men on base that Colonel Lovelace had been the second person to ever jump from an airplane flying in the stratosphere. The colonel had jumped from seven and one-half miles up in an attempt to determine whether a parachutist could survive a drop from that height. He had jumped using a tethered line to activate his parachute in case he became unconscious. It was a good thing he had, because the jolt of the parachute opening had hit him with a force of six Gs, knocking him unconscious. As he fell silently through the near oxygenless atmosphere, his left glove slipped off, exposing his hand to minus sixty degrees Fahrenheit. An oxygen bottle strapped to the inside of his right leg supplied him with air to breathe as he fell. He had plummeted thirty-four hundred feet before he regained consciousness and pulled his exposed hand into his sleeve. Colonel Lovelace had landed safely in a wheat field. He was rushed off to the hospital to treat his frostbitten hand.
“So that explains the bandages,” Betty said to Ann as they walked back to their new barracks for the night.
The next morning their work began. Betty and Ann were fitted with oxygen masks and began preparations for an eventual flight into the stratosphere aboard a modified four-engine Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber. They spent hours each day in the strato-chamber discovering the tolerances and limits of their bodies under various stresses.
By the end of the week, they had their first experience of high-altitude flying. Betty loved everything about it, especially the deep-blue color of the sky and the almost endless vista of land below them. They had been maintaining an altitude of thirty-five thousand feet for about an hour and a half when one of the officers scribbled a note and handed it to Betty, who grabbed it with her heavy fur-lined glove. “Prepare for immediate descent. Pass it on,” the note read. Betty passed the note to Ann. As Betty pulled her safety belt to its tightest setting, she wondered what the problem could be. Seconds later, the B-17 went into a steep dive. In less than five minutes it had dropped twenty thousand feet to a safer altitude of fifteen thousand feet.
It was not until the plane had safely landed that Betty found out the full story. One of the airmen had accidentally disconnected his oxygen line, and by the time the problem was discovered, he was unconscious. No one knew whether there was time to save him, but the plane had dived as steeply as it could. By the grace of God, the airman had regained consciousness and made a full recovery. Although the incident had ended well, it made Betty vow to be extra careful. One wrong move at such altitudes could easily cost her her life.
Several days later, Betty, along with Ann Baumgartner and some airmen, was conducting tests using electrified flying suits to see how warm people could stay. There was only one way to find out. When the B-17 reached forty thousand feet, the windows were wound down and the doors rolled back. Frigid air rushed into the plane, biting at Betty’s face mask. Betty pulled her legs up under her chin and sat still, watching the young gunner opposite her who was conducting tests to see how weapons operated in such sub-zero temperatures. The gunner struggled to load the gun, the heavy gloves and extreme cold making it nearly impossible to move the ammunition into position. In the end, he just shrugged at Betty and laid the weapon aside. It was impossible to use it under such conditions.
Next Betty’s attention was drawn to the lieutenant monitoring them all. He moved silently from one person to the next, checking their oxygen levels and intake valves. For some reason, Betty glanced down at her own oxygen gauge. To her horror, the needle was on zero. No oxygen was getting through to her!
For a split second, Betty wanted to panic. Without oxygen she would be unconscious within thirty seconds. But thinking quickly, she waved her arms to get the lieutenant’s attention. She pointed to her oxygen tank as he hurried over. She held her breath while the lieutenant felt his way down her intake tube. About a third of the way along, he looked up and then began massaging the tube. Betty knew immediately what had happened. The flexible hose had become blocked with ice that had formed from the condensation of her warm breath. She reached down to help, and the ice blockage was soon cleared. Life-sustaining oxygen flowed into her oxygen mask, and Betty gave the lieutenant a thumbs-up.
Not everyone survived the tests. A few days later, a colonel made a parachute jump from forty thousand feet. He did not use a tethered line to automatically open his chute, since he was experimenting with opening his own parachute. He blacked out soon after jumping from the airplane and plummeted to the ground, his unopened parachute strapped uselessly to his back. Days later, a pilot was diving his P-38 airplane from high altitude and was unable to regain control and pull out of the dive. The plane slammed into the ground, killing the pilot.
Of course, everyone knew there were dangers involved in performing the tests. But Betty, like the others serving at Wright Field, was willing to accept the risk. It was mid-1944, and the war had reached an important phase. The Allies were preparing for a massive invasion of France to defeat the occupying German forces there and needed every tactical advantage they could muster. So despite the ever present danger, Betty happily threw herself into the work. As she did so, life at Wright Field seemed to fall into a routine for her.
Chapter 6
You Are Not Alone
Betty stood back from those still waiting for their name to be called and glanced at the two letters she had received. One was from her mother, but she did not recognize the handwriting on the other one. It was postmarked Floyd Bennett Field, N.Y., and was dated July 1, 1944. It had taken only a week to reach her. Not bad for wartime, she mused to herself as she tore the envelope open and unfolded the neat handwritten pages it contained. She began to read. “Dear Miss Greene, I read your article in last year’s spring issue of His magazine and wanted to inform you that you are not alone. There are several others of us who share your vision for using aircraft and pilots to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth.”
Betty’s heart raced as she walked briskly back to her barracks. This was the kind of letter a person needed time to digest without interruptions. She sat down on the edge of her cot and continued reading. The letter went on to say that three men, Jim Truxton, who was writing the letter, Jim Buyers, and “Soddy” (Clarence) Soderberg, had been meeting together for over a year to pray for and plan an organization that would use military-trained pilots to help support missionaries when the war was over. Betty could hardly believe what she was reading. This was exactly the thing she had hoped to become a part of when the war ended!
Betty read eagerly on. Since the war was dragging on, the new organization the men hoped to start had no staff, but it did have a name. It was called the Christian Airmen’s Missionary Fellowship, or CAMF for short. In light of Betty’s article about using her flying skills to serve God, Jim Truxton wondered whether Betty might be able to come to Washington, D.C., sometime soon to meet him and talk more about the plans for CAMF. Betty wrote straight back to Jim to tell him she would keep her eyes and ears open for a way to get to Washington, D.C.
