Page 37 - World Airnews Magazine April 2020 Edition

WOMEN IN
AVIATION

Teresa fell in love with the man she called her ‘most important

student’, George ‘Dink’ Martin and they married in 1942 just prior
to Teresa joining the WAFS.
Dink enlisted in the Army air forces as a B-17 bomber pilot and

was shot down and missing in action while on a mission over
France in June 1944. Teresa would receive the devastating word of

his loss while ferrying P-47s from Republic Aviation in Farmingdale,

but it would not be until 1987 that she learned of her husband’s
and his crew’s fate in the French town of Joinville-le-Pont through

the testimony of eyewitnesses to the crash some 43 years earlier.

During her famed career as a pilot, Teresa was qualified to fly 54

types of civilian and military aircraft from the OX-5 biplane that she
soloed in, to the twin-engine C-47, C-60, the P-51 Mustang and her
’Baby’, the P-47 Thunderbolt. At the apex of her service as a WASP,
on September 20, 1944, Teresa was chosen to ferry ‘Ten Grand’,
the 10,000th P-47 manufactured by the Republic Aviation to its

port of embarkation in Newark, New Jersey from where it would

be transported by ship overseas for its first assignment with the
79th FG of the 12th Air Force on the Italian Front.
After the abrupt disbandment of the WASP in December 1944,

Teresa was commissioned as a Major in the US air force reserve
and from 1961 to 1965 she was assigned to the Alaskan air com-
mand in Anchorage and while living there, accumulated experience
in bush piloting.

On June 13, 2001 Teresa received the NY State Conspicuous
Service Award from Governor George Pataki at the dedication of

the WASP exhibit.

As she walked around the old Republic hangar, she patted the
wing of the museum’s P-47 and said to me, “I think you’ve added
10 years onto my life.”
It was very bittersweet. By the end of her weeklong visit, she

said, “I changed my mind; you’ve added 15 years onto my life”.
But as our newfound friendship grew over the next few years
and with my subsequent visits to her home in Florida until her

passing in 2008, I often think about Teresa and what an incredible

life force she was, and the impression she left on my daughters

and all who met her. I still miss her to this day, but I consider it a

privilege to have known her and to call her friend, because to know
her was to love her. Q
Article courtesy: https://metroairportnews.com/my-friend-the-

invincible-teresa-james/

World Airnews | April 2020 World Airnews | April 2020
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