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5 The Best of All Jobs “I developed an inferiority complex.” Unlikely words to come out of Nancy Batson’s mouth. “I was supposed to go to Dallas in January 1943, but Betty [Gillies] pulled me out and kept me in Wilmington. She never told us why the orders were changed. I thought I was being left in Wilmington because I wasn’t any good. When I mentioned it to Betty, years later, she laughed and said, ‘oh, no, I kept the good ones on purpose.’” Del Scharr echoed Betty’s comment when she wrote her memoir, Sisters in the Sky. Del claimed that Colonel Baker objected when Nancy Love “took all the cuties” for the newly formed squadrons and told her to leave some of them in Wilmington. So Betty—by then in charge at Wilmington—sent three others out instead and kept Batson, Gertrude Meserve, and a very unhappy Teresa James at Wilmington. Teresa’s husband was stationed in California , Nancy had promised her Long Beach, and she wanted to go in the worst way.1 Teresa, characteristically, made the best of the situation. Ditto Nancy Batson , who may have felt the pull of disappointment and—in her words—“an inferiority complex” for a couple of days, but nothing kept resilient Nancy down for long if she was flying. “Besides, my older sister, Elinor, was living in Baltimore, so I didn’t have a problem with Wilmington.” Nancy and her fellow Wilmington ferry pilots settled into a routine of assignments that consisted of ferrying PT-19s south from Hagerstown, Maryland , and PT-26s (PT-19s with canopies) north, often into Canada. This would be their life week in and week out through the winter and spring of 1943. On January 13, 1943, Nancy Batson, Helen Mary Clark, Gertrude Meserve , and Delphine Bohn reported to the Fairchild factory in Hagerstown to check out in the PT-26. On the sixteenth, they began their journey north, each in a PT-26, bound for Toronto. First, they were weathered in in 40 • Chapter 5 Williamsport, Pennsylvania. They headed north again on January 20 and got as far as Buffalo, where, once again, they were grounded by weather. “It was bad—snowy,” the southern girl from Alabama remembered. They RONed (remained overnight) that night at Niagara Falls.2 The next day was Sunday and still bad weather. A number of male ferry pilots were weathered in as well and staying at the same hotel. Nancy recognized one of them from Birmingham. “He and I walked downtown to the picture show. When we walked back into the hotel later that afternoon, there sat the three WAFS in the lobby. You know how you sense something. I knew something was wrong. “Helen Mary said, ‘Nancy, you need to call your sister.’ “I said, ‘Okay, I’ll go up to the room.’ “Delphine said, ‘I’ll come with you.’ Seven Wilmington WAFS arrive at the Fairchild factory in Hagerstown, Maryland, spring 1943, to ferry PT-26s. From left: Helen McGilvery, Teresa James, Dorothy Fulton, Sis Bernheim, Gertrude Meserve, Betty Gillies, and Nancy Batson visit with a Fairchild official. Photo courtesy the Crews family. The Best of All Jobs • 41 “Sitting on the bed, I called my sister Elinor in Baltimore. She told me my brother had been killed the day before. I remember saying, ‘oh, poor Mother and Daddy.’” Nancy’s brother, Radford, an Army Air Forces officer, was in flight training at Ellington Field in Houston. His trainer had crashed. The senior Batsons had called Elinor who, in turn, had called the base in Wilmington to find out where Nancy was. Betty Gillies had tried to reach Nancy in Niagara Falls and, since she was out at the movies, had talked to Helen Mary, the flight leader. “When I walked in that door, they already knew my brother had been killed,” Nancy said. “Wasn’t that thoughtful of Delphine to go with me to make the call—because she knew. “After I talked to Elinor, I was told I had orders to get on the train and go to her in Baltimore.” Nancy’s parents had heard about Radford’s death Sunday morning. “My mother said that on Saturday afternoon she had gone with some friends to the picture show. And when she came out of the show something just hit her—something about her son. When she got home she tried to put in a call to him, but it didn’t go...

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