She grew up in the warm nights and under the sweet scent of orange blossoms on her family’s citrus farm. Fresh out of teachers’ college, and working with junior and senior high school students, Margie’s dreams all changed on December 7, 1941.

Marjorie “Margie” Doris Edwards was born on September 30, 1918[i] in Fullerton, Orange County, California.[ii] *

She was the daughter of English-born Frederick Charles Edwards, a retail oil salesman[iii], and Bessie Marie Metz Edwards, from Illinois.[iv] Her father became an American citizen the year she was born.[v]

Margie grew up, with a younger sister, Bessie M. and brother, Frederick, in Anaheim on the family’s orange ranch that her father owned after leaving oil sales.[vi] Today, the land her family farmed is a part of Disneyland’s “Small World.”[vii]

She graduated from Anaheim Union High School in 1936[viii]. She graduated in 1940 from Santa Barbara State Teachers College[ix] which is now the University of California, Santa Barbara. According to the website TogetherWeServed, she became interested in flying when she had a college boyfriend who was a pilot.[x]

Margie’s first job was teaching junior high in Baldwin Park, CA. After that, she taught at John C. Fremont High School in Anaheim.[xi] She taught for three years before joining the WASPs.[xii]

After the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, she renewed her interest in flying and attended flight school for two summers in Phoenix, AZ. [xiii] By 1943, she had learned to fly.[xiv]

HER MILITARY STORY

With an ambition to fly with the Women’s Air Service Pilots, she took a job with Douglas Aircraft Company and then was accepted as a WASP candidate.[xv] Margie served as a pilot in the US Army Air Corp in the AFF MOS 770, Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Service Squadron, 2nd Ferrying Group.[xvi]

She reported[xvii] to and was last stationed at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, TX.[xviii]

HER LAST DAY

Margie’s class was into their third week of their advanced training phase.[xix] It was nearing graduation time when WASP Margie D. Edwards took up an old AT-6c #42-3884 for a long cross-country navigation training exercise. She was flying from Avenger to Vernon to Amarillo, TX.

The night before, a classmate, Florence G. Shutsy, had taken up the same plane. When Florence was in flight, the instrument panel went out after takeoff, so she returned the plane.

Two witnesses observed the plane at a low altitude. Margie had just left Vernon[xx] when during the flight, smoke began billowing from the engine. At first, Margie does not think it is that bad, so she waits. Soon, she is losing altitude and the plane noses to the ground. [xxi] Margie decides she must bail out.

Florence, who had the plane the night before, said she understood a broken hydraulic line may have blinded Margie.[xxii] She pulled the D-ring, but it is too late. The parachute does not have time to open. [xxiii] She died on June 13, 1944 at Campbell Ranch[xxiv] near Childress Army Air Base, Childress, Texas.[xxv]

COMMENDATIONS

★ United States Aviator Badge

★ World War II Victory Medal

★ American Campaign Medal

★ Army Presidential Unit Citation

★ Army Good Conduct Medal[xxvi]

MEMORIALS

2003: Marjorie D. Edwards was recognized in a speech in the House of Representatives by Hon. Steve Israel when as part of a Veteran’s Day recognition, he thanked the 38 WASPs who gave their lives during WWII.[xxvii]

2013: The names of World War II soldiers, including Marjorie D. Edwards, are listed on a display outside Anaheim High’s Cook Auditorium. The alumni association tracked down more than 1,000 Colonists who fought in wars from World War I to the present.[xxviii]

HER GRAVE

She is interned at Loma Vista Memorial Park in Fullerton, California.[xxix]

CLARIFICATION

*Note: Some sources state birthdate as Sept. 28 but the California Birth Index confirms the date as Sept. 30.

ABOUT THIS STORY

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see

www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen here on Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smart phone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story.