The Women’s Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs, was an organization that existed from 1942 through 1944, comprised of women trained as pilots. The WASPs began with 28 women, hired for their extensive civilian flight experience. Later applicants went through the same pilot training course as men, except for acrobatics or formation flying. By the program’s end, 1,082 WASPs had earned their pilot wings. Once qualified, they were assigned as civil service employees at various bases across the U.S., flying various training and support missions and delivering aircraft from factories to depots and bases for overseas delivery. The WASP unit at Nellis AFB (then known as Las Vegas Army Air Field) existed from Feb. 25, 1944 until the program ended on Dec. 20, 1944. From an initial group of 10, as many as 25 WASPs were stationed there before the program closed. Although they were civil service employees, they were treated as officers and billeted on base with commissioned Women’s Army Corps officers. One WASP was killed in the line of duty. Beverly Jean Moses was the AT-11 copilot on an instrument training flight crew on July 18, 1944. Her flight was diverted to search for a parachute reported near Mt. Charleston but was not heard from again. A search the next day found her aircraft’s wreckage on the mountainside; Moses, Lt. Frank Smith, the pilot, and 4 other personnel were all killed in the crash. Under political pressure from various groups, the WASP program was canceled and all remaining pilots were released effective Dec. 20, 1944. Several married pilots they met at Nellis, including Madelon Burcham, who married 1st Lt. Jack Hill, a B-17 pilot and Base Operations Officer. She and Maggie Gee were two of the 300 surviving WASPs who received a Congressional Gold Medal in a Washington, D.C., ceremony on March 10, 2010.