Featured on this month’s cover is a photograph of Holly Hollinger Grasso, 44-W-5, a graduate of the first women’s flying training detachment for the U.S. Army. Grasso is pictured completing her advanced flight training at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas.

Between 1942 and 1944, at the height of World War II, more than a thousand women left homes and jobs for the opportunity of a lifetime—to become the first in history to fly for the U.S. military. They volunteered as civilian pilots and relieved men for overseas duty. These women became the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II, better known as the WASP.

The image is from Texas Woman’s University, home of the official archive for the Women Airforce Service Pilots. Visit the collection at www.twu.edu/library/wasp.asp.