Pilot Elizabeth Erickson, who went by the name Jayne, was born in Seattle, Washington on April 24, 1921.[i] She was a Second Lieutenant[ii] in the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs).

Jayne’s parents were Charles Edward Erickson, from Minnesota, and Lucile Kelton Erickson, from Texas.[iii] At different times her dad ran the Preston Mill and was a road contractor. Oldest of three, she grew up with one sister, Charlotte Ann Kelton Erickson Sandusky, who was three years younger. Her brother, James Kelton Erickson,[iv] came along three years after her sister.

HER LIFE BEFORE MILITARY

The family moved to Preston, Washington, where she graduated from Issaquah High School with honors and as a class officer. She was outgoing, became a cheerleader, edited the school yearbook, made the honor roll, participated in band and choir.[v]

After graduation, Jayne attended the University of Washington in Seattle where she majored in art. She was in the Delta Delta Delta sorority, known as the Tri-Delts.

By this time, Jayne is living on her own in a boarding house in Seattle with 10 or so other people in their twenties and one other boarder works with her. She worked full time in the summer and parttime during the school year as a machine clerk at Commercial Bank[vi].

In fact, she fell in love at the bank for that is where she met Don Smith and they became engaged. [vii] According to HonorStates.Org, Jayne, who had a wonderful smile, was known to have an outgoing personality and saw only the good in people.

HER MILITARY STORY

When war broke out, Jayne moved to Yakima, Washington, learned to fly, and joined the WASPs.[viii] She was a member of the 318th Army Air Force Flight Training Detachment (AAFFTD).[ix] She reported for duty in Sweetwater Texas in January of 1944.[x]

Although men in the military learned to fly from scratch, they didn’t want a bunch of women coming in who didn’t know how to fly. Women had to set aside every penny in order to pay for flying lessons which could cost as much as $500.[xi] In addition, Jayne faced many challenges when she joined the WASPs, according to an Issaquah Veterans’ of Foreign Wars program. Among those challenges were that Jayne had to pay her own way to training and buy her uniforms, despite having less pay and at that time not being treated as real service members.[xii]

An AAF MOS 770-Airplane Pilot with the Air Training Command,[xiii] she was a member of class 44-6. The women in WASP, were given extensive flight training and relieved men of their non-combat duties. One of the jobs of women pilots were to fly new fighter planes to Europe[xiv] and another was to tow targets to give ground and air gunners training in shooting with live ammunition.[xv]

HER LAST DAY

Trainee Jayne Erickson was up in a Beechcraft AT-6 Texan on April 16, 1944. She was preparing to land her first solo flight in the AT-6.[xvi] At this point, she had 71 hours of flying experience and 11 hours in the AT-6. At 1:15 in the afternoon, she was on her eighth practice of touch-and-go landings, the first three had been with an instructor.

Meanwhile, another trainee, Mary Holmes Howson, a member of class 44-4, was returning from a cross-country flight in a Fairchild PT-19 Cornell primary trainer.[xvii] Mary, coming in from San Antonio, was also preparing to land. The two pilots are approaching Avenger Field from different directions and they do not realize they are on a collision course.

Jayne is busy getting ready to do practice landing – including getting the landing gear down, watching her airspeed, setting her flaps, and staying in contact with the tower, according to Airforce Together We Serve.[xviii]

Mary had just over 48 hours in the type plane she was in and a total flying time of 163 hours. She was nearing graduation. Because Mary is returning from a longer flight, she would have had more time to prepare to land. As she approaches, she would have been looking at the tower for visual instructions.[xix] At this point, Mary is also looking into the Sun.

Each is unaware of the other.

“Elizabeth (Jayne) was entering traffic over Avenger field on a 45-degree leg to the downwind leg from an easterly direction. Mary was also entering traffic on a 45-degree leg to the downwind leg from a westerly direction. They were both at about 800 feet altitude and had turned into their base leg perpendicular to the runway and were now headed right at each other,” according to a page by A3C Michael S. Bell at Airforce Together We Served.[xx]

They collide. Jayne fell to the ground in her plane. Mary bailed out but was too low for her parachute to open.[xxi]

In clear skies with unlimited visibility[xxii], both WASP trainees were killed in a mid-air collision in the traffic pattern at Avenger Field on April 16, 1944.[xxiii]

Another trainee and friend of Jayne’s, Dorothy Herthneck thought the tower may be at fault. The overhead approach was changed to 4,000 feet before entering.[xxiv]

HER FUNERAL

After Jayne was killed, on April 17th, the day following the crash, a memorial service was held. There were many in attendance including the new trainees in class 44-9 who had just begun training that day.[xxv]

Her classmates took up a collection to ship her body home. Flintoft’s Funeral Home in Issaquah volunteered to pick up her remains and take them to the cemetery. At that time, because WASPs were not considered military,[xxvi] she was not allowed to have a flag draped over her casket. (The WASP status was retroactively changed to military in 1977[xxvii].)

Back home, a memorial service was held on Wednesday April 19 at the University Christian Church following burial in Lake View Cemetery in Seattle.

Elizabeth “Jayne” Erickson died 8 days shy of her 23rd birthday.

COMMENDATIONS

★ United States Aviator Badge

★ World War II Victory Medal

★ American Campaign Medal

★ Army Presidential Unit Citation

★ Army Good Conduct Medal[xxviii]

MEMORIALS

Elizabeth Erickson’s name is on the monument to Issaquah’s war dead that stands in Memorial Field in Washington state.[xxix] She is the only woman listed.[xxx]

2005: The 1929 hangar on Avenger Field was opened and a 35-foot flagpole was placed as a permanent reminder of the courageous young women pilots of WWII and the freedom they helped preserve.

2010: Remembered on the Issaquah History Museum Blog as part of Pioneering Women Pilots in WWII.

2011: Issaquah VRW Post 3436 vows to “set things right” and remedy the fact that Jayne was denied a flag-draped coffin at her funeral because in 1944 it was not allowed. The group planned a military funeral in her honor.[xxxi]

2015: Elizabeth Erickson is remembered in a special newspaper section about the fallen.[xxxii]

HER GRAVE

Elizabeth “Jayne” Erickson is interned at Lake View Cemetery in Seattle, Washington. "Thy Flight Was Celestial" is inscribed on her headstone.[xxxiii]

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.

[i] https://www.fold3.com/page/641396037-jayne-elizabeth-erickson/facts

[ii]https://airforce.togetherweserved.com/usaf/servlet/tws.webapp.WebApp?cmd=ShadowBoxProfile&type=Person&ID=122137

[iii] https://www.geni.com/people/Elizabeth-Erickson/6000000099768310962

[iv]https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/11029079/james-kelton-erickson

[v]https://airforce.togetherweserved.com/usaf/servlet/tws.webapp.WebApp?cmd=ShadowBoxProfile&type=Person&ID=122137

[vi]https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/2442/images/m-t0627-04380-00264?pId=64722669

[vii]https://airforce.togetherweserved.com/usaf/servlet/tws.webapp.WebApp?cmd=ShadowBoxProfile&type=Person&ID=122137

[viii]https://airforce.togetherweserved.com/usaf/servlet/tws.webapp.WebApp?cmd=ShadowBoxProfile&type=Person&ID=122137

[ix] https://www.honorstates.org/index.php?id=508432

[x] https://www.issaquahhistory.org/blog/local-news-pioneering-women-pilots-of-wwii-get-a-belated-honor/

[xi] https://www.npr.org/2010/03/09/123773525/female-wwii-pilots-the-original-fly-girls

[xii] https://patch.com/washington/sammamish/issaquah-s-veterans-of-foreign-wars-post-honors-veterans

[xiii]https://airforce.togetherweserved.com/usaf/servlet/tws.webapp.WebApp?cmd=ShadowBoxProfile&type=Person&ID=122137

[xiv] https://www.issaquahhistory.org/blog/local-news-pioneering-women-pilots-of-wwii-get-a-belated-honor/

[xv]https://www.npr.org/2010/03/09/123773525/female-wwii-pilots-the-original-fly-girls

[xvi]https://airforce.togetherweserved.com/usaf/servlet/tws.webapp.WebApp?cmd=ShadowBoxProfile&type=Person&ID=122137

[xvii] https://www.fold3.com/page/630028782-mary-howson

[xviii]https://airforce.togetherweserved.com/usaf/servlet/tws.webapp.WebApp?cmd=ShadowBoxProfile&type=Person&ID=122137

[xix]https://airforce.togetherweserved.com/usaf/servlet/tws.webapp.WebApp?cmd=ShadowBoxProfile&type=Person&ID=122137

[xx]https://airforce.togetherweserved.com/usaf/servlet/tws.webapp.WebApp?cmd=ShadowBoxProfile&type=Person&ID=122137

[xxi]https://airforce.togetherweserved.com/usaf/servlet/tws.webapp.WebApp?cmd=ShadowBoxProfile&type=Person&ID=122137

[xxii]https://airforce.togetherweserved.com/usaf/servlet/tws.webapp.WebApp?cmd=ShadowBoxProfile&type=Person&ID=122137

[xxiii] https://www.fold3.com/page/641396037-jayne-elizabeth-erickson

[xxiv]https://airforce.togetherweserved.com/usaf/servlet/tws.webapp.WebApp?cmd=ShadowBoxProfile&type=Person&ID=122137

[xxv]https://airforce.togetherweserved.com/usaf/servlet/tws.webapp.WebApp?cmd=ShadowBoxProfile&type=Person&ID=122137

[xxvi] https://www.npr.org/2010/03/09/123773525/female-wwii-pilots-the-original-fly-girls

[xxvii] https://www.npr.org/2010/03/09/123773525/female-wwii-pilots-the-original-fly-girls

[xxviii]https://www.honorstates.org/index.php?id=508432

[xxix] https://www.issaquahhistory.org/blog/local-news-pioneering-women-pilots-of-wwii-get-a-belated-honor/

[xxx] https://patch.com/washington/sammamish/issaquah-s-veterans-of-foreign-wars-post-honors-veterans

[xxxi] https://patch.com/washington/sammamish/issaquah-s-veterans-of-foreign-wars-post-honors-veterans

[xxxii] https://issuu.com/issaquahpress/docs/issaquahpress052115/12

[xxxiii] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/70664098/elizabeth-erickson

Elizabeth Erickson in flight clothes.jpg - https://www.issaquahhistory.org/blog/local-news-pioneering-women-pilots-of-wwii-get-a-belated-honor/

Issaquah War Memorial with Elizabeth Erickson name.jpg - https://www.issaquahhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/P8210114-memorialfieldmonument.jpg

Jayne Elizabeth Erickson