Sound the Cannon

Helen Cannon became a veteran of World War II more than 30 years after the war ended.

The 85-year-old Las Vegas resident was one of 1,879 women pilots who flew a variety of noncombat missions during the war under civil service status in an organization called WASPS (Women Airforce Service Pilots).

In 1977 President Jimmy Carter signed a bill into law that officially recognized WASPS as military veterans, with all the rights and privileges of veterans. In 1979 the Air Force issued honorable discharges to all members of WASPS.

Before the organization was disbanded in December 1944, shortly before the war ended, women pilots had flown more than 60 million miles in 77 different types of aircraft. Their assignments included towing targets so fighter pilots could practice firing, training male pilots, ferrying bombers and other aircraft from the manufacturing plants to air bases and testing aircraft.

Thirty-eight women pilots died in service to the United States during World War II.

Cannon was a test pilot at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, where she met her future husband, the late Bob Cannon, a well-known executive in Las Vegas who managed the Last Frontier, Tropicana and Union Plaza, among others.

Helen Cannon was a member of the Clark County School Board, and Helen Cannon Middle School is named for her.

She recently discussed her military career with the Sun:

Las Vegas Sun: Tell me about your early war experiences.

Helen Cannon: There was a training school at Luke Field. These cadets would crack up a plane once in a while. After a mechanic worked on them somebody had to go up and test them. That was my job. I figured I was expendable and they weren't.

Las Vegas Sun: What kind of aircraft did you fly?

HC: I was a test pilot for AT-6s, an advanced trainer -- 650 horsepower and retractable gears. A cadet might tear up a wing or tear a gear off, and the plane had to be tested before it went back to cadets.

I loved it. There was a certain maneuver you had to do. You had to spin it five times to the right and five times to the left. They said you had to go up to 10,000 feet and if you're not out of the spin at 5,000 feet, get out. So I'd take it up to 10,000 feet and spin, five times to the right and five times to the left.

Sun: Did you ever crash or have to bail out?

HC: No.

Sun: How long were you a test pilot?

HC: Just a couple of months. I was accepted into the WASPS in 1944. I was in the next-to-last class at Sweetwater, Texas, where we trained. Then I went to Luke Field. The WASPS folded that December.

Sun: Why did it cease before the war ended?

HC: After the male pilots finished their tour of duty in the war, they came home and they thought the WASPS were taking up the jobs they should have. So they shut down the whole WASPS program.

Sun: Women weren't allowed to fly in combat in World War II. Did that bother you?

HC: No. You didn't have any options. We could have done just as good a job as they did, but those were the rules. The WASPS were a unique bunch of women. There weren't too many women flying at that time.

Sun: Why did you become a pilot?

HC: When I was 9 years old, growing up in northern Wisconsin, a little old yellow monoplane landed in a field near where I lived. That started it. From then on, I knew I was going to learn to fly.

My only pinup picture was Amelia Earhart.

Sun: When did you finally get your pilot's license?

HC: After I graduated from high school in 1933 my mother said I had to get an education, so I worked my way through college and helped my younger sisters. After college I became a teacher and when I had a little money, I took flying lessons.

Sun: Did you want to be a professional pilot?

HC: That was impossible. In those days it was unusal even for a woman to think about flying.

Sun: After WASPS was disbanded, what did you do?

HC: I went to Stephen's College in Columbia, Mo., an all-girls' school, and taught flying for about a year.

Sun: When did you quit flying?

HC: We moved to Las Vegas about 48 years ago. I did some flying at first, but then the children (a boy and a girl) came along, and I had other fish to fry. I had done it (flown). That's what I wanted to do and I did it. I was very fortunate.

Sun: Did it ever bother you that you were not considered a veteran until 1977?

HC: No. They never promised me anything.

Sun: What did it mean to you to finally be declared a veteran?

HC: It was nice to be recognized, that we had done something for the war, for the good old U.S.A. I was always a flag-waving American. All of us (women pilots) who were there and made it through the war, if they had put is into combat we would have gone. We were just as patriotic as the fellows.

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