World War II Woman Pilot Buried at Arlington Cemetery

Elaine D. Harmon

WASPs, members of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, can at last be buried at Arlington Cemetery. Elaine D. Harmon was interred on Wednesday, September 7, 2016, at Arlington Cemetery, the first WASP to be so honored. Read about this moving story from The New York Times. Joan would have appreciated the poetry read at the ceremony. You can see a video about the ceremony here. As the NYT article by Nicholas Fandos describes it,

“Lt. Col. Christine Blice-Baum, a chaplain, read from Scripture and then from a poem, “Celestial Flight,” written by one WASP, Elizabeth MacKethan Magid, in remembrance of another:

She is not dead.

You should have known

That she is only flying higher,

Higher than she’s ever flown.”