Norma Halberg was born in 1923 and grew up in Los Angeles, California. It was a good life. It was during the Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s] and they were poor, but everyone was. Her father was a welder and her mother a housewife. They rented in houses to live in. She attended school. At one point they moved to Arizona for about a year before returning to Los Angeles. She was an only child but had two cousins who lived with their family. The war was not talked about. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Halberg what she was doing when she heard about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] Halberg was making her bed. When war was declared on Japan, everybody was excited. Her male friends were signing up to join the Army. Halberg signed up to become a watcher at night to look for aircraft. She took a course for it. When she was 19, she wanted to fly. The closest place you could fly was Blythe, California. She met someone going there. She could afford one flying lesson per week. She realized she was not going to build up time fast. She made a deal with the manager of the airport to work for her flying time. The airport had a gas station and cafe. She pumped gas, made sandwiches, served beer, and worked on the planes. They had shacks with cots and slept outside. Her parents were not surprised nor afraid of her flying, only her driving.

When the WASPs [Annotator's Note: Women Airforce Service Pilots] first started out, they had to have 200 hours [Annotator's Note: of flight time]. It was lowered to 35 hours and Norma Halberg got that in no time. She had 85 hours by the time she left to join the WASPs. She wanted to fly and had since she was a child. In high school, she gave a talk on flying as a career. She heard about the WASPs once she started flying. Jackie Cochran's [Annotator's Note: Colonel Jacqueline "Jackie" Cochran] associate came by and interviewed them. She was accepted in July or August [Annotator's Note: 1943] but could not go in until January [Annotator's Note: January 1944]. She could have said she wanted to join to help the war effort, but she really wanted just to fly. [Annotator's Note: Halberg tells the interviewer that she might not want to put that in and laughs.] She wanted to stay in Blythe [Annotator's Note: Blythe, California], but the airport closed. She got a job at Blythe Air Force Base [Annotator's Note: then Blythe Army Airfield] as a driver. She drove trucks and staff cars and it was fun. She flew Cubs [Annotator's Note: Piper J-3 Cub light observation aircraft], Taylorcrafts [Annotator's Note: various; Taylorcrafts Aviation], and Luscombes [Annotator's Note: various; Luscombe Aircraft company]. She flew whatever was available. In January, she went to Sweetwater, Texas [Annotator's Note: Avenger Army Airfield, Sweetwater, Texas].

[Annotator’s Note: Norma Halberg joined the Women Airforce Service Pilots or WASPs in January 1944 and went to Avenger Army Airfield, Sweetwater, Texas.] There was a blizzard when she arrived. They were picked up in a truck and it was cold and miserable. They got from the town to the base and were shown their quarters. There were six women to a bay. They marched everywhere. They got up at six o'clock in the morning and had to fall into formation, which was new to most of them. They had breakfast served on tin trays. After a while she ate everything on the tray. The food was good except for the eggs which were not fresh. The day was divided into two parts. One part was ground school. If you had ground school in the morning, you flew in the afternoon and vice versa. Halberg started in primary training in a Stearman [Annotator's Note: Boeing-Stearman Model 75 Kaydet or PT-13 primary trainer aircraft], an open cockpit plane that was very, very cold. They were issued warm jackets. Their uniforms were all one piece and none of them fit them. They were all too large.

Norma Halberg does not recall how many hours of primary training she had. She went from the Stearman [Annotator's Note: Boeing-Stearman Model 75 Kaydet or PT-13 primary trainer aircraft] to the AT-6 [Annotator's Note: North American AT-6 Texan advanced trainer aircraft]. Ordinarily, one would go from the Stearman to the BT-13 [Annotator's Note: Vultee BT-13 Valiant basic trainer aircraft; also known as the Vultee Vibrator]. The AT-6 was a faster plane and had retractable gear. They used the BT-13 for night and instrument flying. She did not enjoy the BT-13. It was cumbersome and was not as sophisticated as the AT-6. She made friends. One woman was her very best friend in training and now lives in Australia. They talk on the telephone still. The women had all sorts of backgrounds. They all loved to fly. Some were married and had children; some had husbands in the Air Force. Once, Halberg failed on a flight. She knew she was in trouble because the instructor was sarcastic and nasty. She knew he would flunk her, and he did. If she had failed the next flight, she was out of the program. She was very nervous on her next flight. It was an Army officer and he was sweet. She had a great flight. Most of the instructors were men. She had no trouble with them other than the one. Most were civilians. The women had to take an Army test flight to pass. She started the school 11 January [Annotator's Note: 11 January 1944] and graduated 4 August. She was ready and skilled. She thought the program was well done. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Halberg if there were any training accidents. Halberg gets emotional and says she does not like to talk about it.] Graduation was just speeches by a few officers, including Jackie Cochran [Annotator's Note: US Air Force Reserve Colonel Jacqueline "Jackie" Cochran; commander of the Women Airforce Service Pilots or WASPs]. Hap Arnold [Annotator's Note: General of the Army and General of the Air Force Henry Harley Arnold] was not at their graduation. They had been promised military status and were supposed to graduate as second lieutenants, but Congress turned that down. Halberg thought this was lousy. Most of the male instructors were the ones who testified against them. Halberg says they were worried the women would take their jobs and they would have to go into the Army. They had certainly proven their flying ability.

[Annotator's Note: Norma Halberg graduated from her training for the Women Airforce Service Pilots or WASPs at Avenger Army Airfield in Sweetwater, Texas on 4 August 1944.] Halberg then went to a basic training school [Annotator's Note: Gardener Field in Taft, California] as a test pilot. When a plane had been written up as having something wrong, it had to be flown by a test pilot. They would try to determine what was wrong with it. The plane would be turned over to be repaired and then they would fly it again to ensure it was ready. She loved the job. The people she was flying with were great, including the men. There were only a couple of people who tried to give her a problem. There was an advantage to being a civilian. One morning in the chow line, an officer asked her if she was in uniform because she was wearing a ball cap. She was able to say yes, and she did not have to be extra polite. He left her alone. They had auxiliary fields. She was told to go pick up a plane at one and fly it back to the base. The plane had been written up as dangerous to fly. She flew it back and had no trouble. At dinner that night, a captain came over and gave her hell for flying it. He said he had more experience than her, and he said it was dangerous. He was furious. Halberg worked as a test pilot from August [Annotator's Note: August 1944] to 20 December [Annotator's Note: 20 December 1944] when the WASPs were disbanded. She had been following the war but was surprised when they were told they were no longer needed. They thought they were in for the duration, but pilots were coming back [Annotator's Note: from the war]. She had not thought about the future. She just went home and started organizing her life.

[Annotator's Note: The Women Airforce Service Pilots or WASPs were disbanded on 20 December 1944, which came as a surprise to the pilots. After the group was disbanded, Norma Halberg returned home.] Halberg got a job as a control tower operator in Santa Barbara, California at Goleta Air Base [Annotator's Note: Goleta Air Station, later Marine Corps Air Station Santa Barbara, Goleta, California]. She started as a junior operator. She did not fly again until the war was over. At that time, she started ferrying small planes from the factory to the dealer. She wanted to see another part of the world and got a job in Saudi Arabia. She called different companies to see what was required. She got recommendations and she figured they would find something for her to do. The company made her a payroll clerk. It was glamorous where she was. It was a small town that had housing for women, for men, and for families. She was housed with four other women. It was different. They did not come into contact with anyone other than Americans. They had a club and they played a lot of bridge. She did not do any flying. She got married in Bahrain. Her husband also worked in Saudi Arabia. The first time she went in the main gate, there was a hand hanging on display. Some of the men took one look at the hand and said to put them on the next plane back. She and her husband tired of Saudi Arabia and went to Indonesia. She loved Indonesia. She was out in the jungle. It had been a Dutch settlement. There was a swimming pool and golf course. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Halberg if she thinks Saudi Arabia and Indonesia were more untouched by the war than the United States.] Halberg thinks the United States was untouched. Indonesia had been invaded by the Japanese. This was after the war in the 1950s. She saw no remnants of the invasion. There was no rationing in those countries, and she does not recall rationing in the United States. She recalls taking her cigarettes home to her parents because they were smokers.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Norma Halberg if the Fifinella Gazette, the newsletter of Women Airforce Service Pilots or WASP class 43-1, improved the morale of the WASPs.] She does not know that it had any effect on their morale. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Halberg where she was when she heard the war ended.] Halberg's grandfather was dying and she was out looking for medication for him. Drugstore after drugstore did not have it due to the military taking the supplies. She was surrounded by people cheering and celebrating, but she was just trying to get medicine for her dying grandfather. [Annotator's Note: Halberg gets quiet. The interviewer then asks Halberg how she felt about the atomic bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan on 6 and 9 August 1945.] If it stopped the war, she was glad. She was horrified as to what it could do, but glad it had the effect that it did. Just before Halberg got out of the WASPS, the CO [Annotator's Note: commanding officer] said there were 30 planes to be ferried from California [Annotator's Note: to Saint Augustine, Florida]. She volunteered. They were Stearmans [Annotator's Note: Boeing-Stearman Model 75 Kaydet or PT-13 primary trainer aircraft], open cockpit biplanes. It was December [Annotator's Note: December 1944]. She made a mask for her face. She has never been so cold in her life; she thought she would die. When they say never volunteer, that is a very good idea. The war itself did not affect Halberg much. She was trained as a pilot and had a lot of flying experience. Most of them were unhappy when they were disbanded but where else would she have gotten all of those flying hours. She decided to serve because she wanted to fly. She could say it was because she wanted to win the war, but it was because she wanted to fly. Her service was a very nice experience. World War 2 was something we had to do. Nobody wanted to go to war until we were attacked. We would have had to anyway, but Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] was the deciding factor. She feels it absolutely important for there to be institutions like the Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana]. Generations after the war need to know what happened and how it came about. It is very important.

Just before she went into the WASPs [Annotator's Note: Women Airforce Service Pilots], Norma Halberg and another girl, neither of whom was licensed to fly, decided to practice some landings at an auxiliary airport in the desert. The first landing, they hit hard and broke the undercarriage. Halberg was flying barefoot and the other girl had tennis shoes on. It became dark and they walked for five hours across the desert. They walked to the highway and got picked up by a truck driver who dropped them off at the airport. Everyone thought they were dead. Halberg told them the plane quit on take-off. The next day, the manager of the airport went out to take a look himself. He knew what happened and they were in the doghouse for a while. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Halberg if there are any other stories she would like to share. Halberg had earlier not wanted to talk about accidents during training and she brings it up, reluctantly and emotionally.] Two classmates of hers were killed and that was hard to take. That was the most memorable thing that happened, and it is not a nice memory. They were not able to have a funeral. The families had to pay for their daughter's wreaths at home. The women took up a collection to ship their bodies home. The government would not even pay for that. Halberg feels it was disgraceful. The fact that they were still civilians meant that their families could not even have the flags [Annotator's Note: service flags] in the window of their homes. She still thinks it is the most disgraceful thing. Most of her experiences as a WASP were good. She does not feel she was discriminated against, the men she flew with were nice. [Annotator's Note: The tape cuts then starts back.] When Halberg lived in Saudi Arabia, there was a girl from Cairo [Annotator's Note: Cairo, Egypt] who had married an American. She made a trip to the United States with her husband who lived in the Bible Belt. When she returned, Halberg asked her what she thought of America. She said that if anyone had told her America was like that, she would not have believed them, all they did was go to church. At lunch time [Annotator's Note: while she was a WASP], Halberg usually had lunch with a couple of lieutenant friends. She usually arrived at the mess hall first and found a seat. One day there was only one table available and it had sign saying it was reserved. Halberg took the sign and sat on it. Her friends joined her. The CO [Annotator's Note: commanding officer] came up, mad as hell because it was his table. The two friends jumped up, but Halberg was a civilian and remained seated. They told him they did not see any reserved sign. The CO calmed down and left. Halberg sat and waited for the dining room to clear out. She slipped the reserved sign out, put it under the table, and left. Nobody ever knew what she had done, but she never did it again. If they had made her an officer, she would have had to stand up too.