Mike Paoli
‘My God, this beast has power,’ thought Earlene Hayes, then Earlene Flory, as the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt barreled down the strip and lifted confidently into the air. Her normal procedure was to gain a little altitude, then check and adjust her rearview mirrors to get her bearings relative to the airfield. The first order of business when taking up a new plane was to circle the field a couple times to ensure access to a quick landing should the plane decide not to fly as designed
Only this time the mirrors showed no airfield. Only a few minutes into flight, the field was already out of view. She realized she was significantly farther out than the AT-6 Texan trainer she flew just yesterday would have taken her.
‘Right then, let’s not get lost,’ she thought. She applied left rudder pressure and dipped the left wing to double back on her course. She would test the P-47’s capabilities today – including its 2,300-horsepower engine – per the briefed profile, but not before zeroing in on home base.
Pilot Earlene Flory in the cockpit of a 600-horsepower North American Aviation T-6 Texan. (Courtesy photo)
That was 1944. The Allied invasion of Western Europe was still on paper, and Imperial Japan still ruled the Philippines and other islands throughout the south Pacific.
On the Homefront, the U.S. industrial machine continued to churn out tanks and aircraft at an astoundingly high rate (a B-24 Liberator long-range bomber came off the production line every 63 minutes.). Like the industrial work itself, testing those tanks and airplanes and getting them into the hands of Soldiers, Marines and Airmen in two theaters of war required manpower that the nation could not afford to pull from front-line combat roles. In stepped American women volunteers, including Earlene.
She wanted to fly, but was rejected.
“She was very short,” said her grandson, 412th Test Wing deputy commander Col. James Hayes. “So she hung from a pull-up bar several times each day and had her dad pull on her legs to extend her back. After a couple weeks of that, she went back for a second height evaluation and just eked it out by a centimeter or so.”
Twenty-seven weeks later, 25-year-old Earlene – born 105 years ago this month in Ishpeming, Michigan – graduated from class W-5 of the Women Airforce Service Pilots. With the nearly 1,100 other WASPs trained at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas, she would test fly aircraft and then ferry them to coastal airfields. WASP graduates were expected to possess the basic skills to safely pilot most any aircraft.
Earlene Flory, 1944 (Courtesy photo)
“They basically were like, ‘Yep, there’s the airplane,’” said Col. Hayes. “‘We need you to fly it from here to there, and you’ll figure it out on the way.’”
And so she did. Earlene mastered the flight controls of 13 trainers, fighters and bombers, including the North American B-25 Mitchell. Her favorite, however, was the P-47. As the most produced fighter of the war – more than 15,600 – the fully loaded Jug, as pilots called it, weighed in at eight tons. It was flown by top-5 World War II aces Francis “Gabby” Gabreski and Robert Johnson.
The WASPs, however, were to be a short-lived entity. Political pressure fed by the increasing availability of male pilots – and the need for jobs for those pilots – brought an end to the program in December 1944. Wishing to continue her active support of the war effort, Earlene joined the American Red Cross and traveled to England and Germany. In Germany she met then-Lt. Col. James Hayes, battalion commander of two of three battalions assigned to the 317th Infantry Regiment.
The 317th had joined the European fight during the Allied invasion’s third wave, 60 days after D-Day. As part of Patton’s Third Army, the regiment suffered extremely severe casualties at the Battle of the Bulge. Lt. Col. Hayes was later assigned to protect a treasure trove of Nazi-looted art stashed within the remote walls of Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria.
Lt. Col. James Hayes in France, 1944 (Courtesy photo)
“He was the guy who said ‘no’ to two and three-star generals who wanted to peruse the art,” said Col. Hayes of his grandfather, who promoted through the ranks from second lieutenant to lieutenant colonel in just two and a half years. “He didn’t make too many friends by denying access, but Patton really appreciated that he kept all that art safe.”
The senior Hayes went on to retire as a full colonel and wrote an autobiography that posthumously evolved into co-authorship of the book, “One Hell of a War: Patton’s 317th Infantry Regiment in WWII.”
It was shortly after the Neuschwanstein assignment that then-Lt. Col. Hayes met Earlene. Their courtship led to a wedding in which Earlene wore a dress she designed and crafted from the pure silk of her WASP parachute.
Three decades later, in 1977, President Jimmy Carter retroactively commissioned Earlene and her WASP sisters as 2nd lieutenants in the then-defunct Army Air Force, granting members of the group veteran status with limited military benefits. Official discharge certificates followed in 1979. In 1984, President Ronald Reagan awarded the group American Theater Campaign medals, and in 2010 President Barak Obama presented the WASP veterans with Congressional Gold Medals.
“I look at her as being the first test pilot in the family by far and doing it the old school way,” said Col. Hayes. “The courage and gumption that those WASP ladies had was pretty impressive. We go through a significant amount of training now in order to do anything close to that, and they just took up the mantle and ran with it.”
Upon his return from the Korean War, Earlene’s husband gave her a baby upright Wurlitzer piano.
After Earlene’s death in 2008 at the age of 88, the piano passed to her grandson. In consultation with uncles Ed and Keith, and his mother and father Terri and James Jr., Col. Hayes donated his grandmother’s piano to Club Muroc, the social center of Edwards Air Force Base.
Col. Hayes’ family, along with fiancé Teresa Vaught and her father Milton, recently gathered in Pancho’s Lounge to formally dedicate the piano to his grandmother. After installing an engraved plate with Earlene’s biography and a photo of her in a T-6, Col. Hayes gave the newly tuned piano a test run.
Col. James Hayes, 412th Test Wing deputy commander, plays his grandmother’s piano after its dedication in Pancho’s Lounge. (Photo by Mike Paoli)
“I’m extremely proud to have that piano specifically left in Pancho’s, named after a famous aviatrix [Florence “Pancho” Barnes], and knowing that my grandmother has that same lineage,” said Col. Hayes. “That’s a pretty cool thing.”
Teresa Vaught carefully aligns a photo on the Earlene Hayes piano as Heather Hayes provides light and Ed Hayes waits to mark the drill holes. (Photo by Mike Paoli)
Heather Hayes takes a photo of her brother Ed drilling a screw hole into their mother’s piano as Teresa Vaught provides light to work by. (Photo by Mike Paoli)
Ed and Heather Hayes tighten the plate screws around a photo of their mother. (Photo by Mike Paoli)
Terri Hayes and husband James look at the newly installed dedication plaque and photo of James’ mother. (Photo by Mike Paoli)
Col. James Hayes looks at the final product on his grandmother’s piano. (Photo by Mike Paoli)
Gathered to dedicate the Erelene Hayes piano in Pancho’s Lounge are, left to right, James Jr., Ed, Terri, Keith and Heather Hayes, Col. James Hayes, and Teresa and Milton Vaught. (Photo by Mike Paoli)
Pilot Earlene Flory in the cockpit of a 600-horsepower North American Aviation T-6 Texan. 
Earlene Flory, 1944 
Lt. Col. James Hayes in France, 1944 
Col. James Hayes, 412th Test Wing deputy commander, plays his grandmother’s piano after its dedication in Pancho’s Lounge. 
Ed and Heather Hayes tighten the plate screws around a photo of their mother. 
Gathered to dedicate the Erelene Hayes piano in Pancho’s Lounge are, left to right, James Jr., Ed, Terri, Keith and Heather Hayes, Col. James Hayes, and Teresa and Milton Vaught. 
Col. James Hayes looks at the final product on his grandmother’s piano. 
Terri Hayes and husband James look at the newly installed dedication plaque and photo of James’ mother. 
Teresa Vaught carefully aligns a photo on the Earlene Hayes piano as Heather Hayes provides light and Ed Hayes waits to mark the drill holes. 
Heather Hayes takes a photo of her brother Ed drilling a screw hole into their mother’s piano as Teresa Vaught provides light to work by.