Evelyn Genevieve Sharp

Evelyn Genevieve Sharp. . , On April 3, 1944, at the age of twenty-four, Evelyn Genevieve Sharp, Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), died in the crash of a P-38 aircraft on a hilltop above a ravine approximately 200 yards north of here. A marker has been placed at the site within the Peiffer Memorial Arboretum and Nature Preserve. She was ferrying the plane from Long Beach, California, to Newark, New Jersey, for the U.S. Army Air Forces and experienced an engine failure just after take-off from the New Cumberland Airport., Evelyn was one of the youngest pilots in the country to earn her private, commercial, and instructor's certificates by the age of twenty. She taught over 350 men to fly in the government's pre-war Civilian Pilot Training Program prior to her being accepted as one of the twenty-eight "Originals" in the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS). They would prove to the War Department that women could serve their country during world war two as pilots for the military., Born in Montana, Evelyn grew up in rural Nebraska, where she became the state's best known aviatrix. Today, she rests in Ord, Nebraska, near the airfield named in her memory. When Evelyn died, she was a WASP squadron commander, three flights away from earning the highest certification then available to women pilots., The Lockheed P-38 propeller blades in this memorial are mounted skyward to honor and revere Evelyn Sharp's amazing determination and soaring spirit that drove her commitment in service to the United States., May we forever hold in awe Evelyn Genevieve Sharp's courage and patriotism, as her legacy shall endure and inspire all for future generations..