In 1942, twenty-three-year-old Nancy Jane Miller joined a group of American women hand-picked by renowned aviatrix, Jacqueline Cochran, to volunteer as pilots with the British Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA). The ATA, which included men and women pilots from many countries, had been formed to ferry military aircraft from British factories to front-line operational squadrons and would become Cochran's inspiration for the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), which served on American soil. This is Miller's account of those years, written as a message to her father in the months between her demobilization and her voyage home in 1945. It is a description of her experiences flying 50 different kinds of military aircraft in a country under siege-without instruments and in all kinds of weather, armed only with minimal checkouts, handling notes for the planes, and plenty of pluck. It is also an American woman's view of British life during the war, the gradual buildup to D-Day, and ultimate victory in Europe. It is a vivid picture of what it meant to contribute to the war effort and, above all, what it means to fly
About the Author: Nancy Miller was born in Los Angeles in June, 1919. She attended Occidental College and then the University of California at Berkeley, where she received her first flying lessons at Oakland Airport in a Piper J3 Cub. In 1942 she joined a group of American women organized by the famous aviatrix, Jacqueline Cochran, to volunteer for the British Air Transport Auxiliary-an organization of civilian men and women pilots who ferried military airplanes across Britain at the height of WW II. The ATA was the archetype of the later American group known as the WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots). During her three years in Britain, Miller flew 50 different types of single and twin-engine military aircraft, including the iconic Spitfire, P-51 Mustang, and de Havilland Mosquito. After returning to the United States in 1945, Miller joined Livingston Air Service and Air Dusting, Inc., in Corvallis, Oregon. In 1947, she earned a seaplane rating and became the fourth woman in the world to receive a commercial helicopter rating. She was a flight instructor in both airplanes and helicopters, and she flew agricultural operations ("crop dusting") in Stearman biplanes for more than a decade. Miller was also one of the first women helicopter crop-duster pilots. Married to Arlo Livingston in 1956, Miller moved with him to Juneau, Alaska, in 1960, where they started Livingston Copters, Inc. Miller was the only woman helicopter pilot in the state at the time. She retired from aviation in 1978, having flown some 8500 hours in 103 types of aircraft during her career. Miller is a member of the 99s, the Twirly-Birds, the Whirly Girls, and the Silver Wings; she also served on the first Women's Advisory Committee on Aviation (WACOA) under President Johnson. In 2002, the Whirly-Girls presented her with a Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2008, in London, Prime Minister Brown and the British Parliamentary Under- Secretary of State for Transport presented Miller and the other surviving ATA personnel a long-overdue award for their wartime service; the Air Transport Auxiliary Veterans Badge. In 1991, Miller married Milton Stratford, since deceased, and moved to San Diego, where she now resides.