142: The Only Missing WASP: The Disappearance of Gertrude Tompkins Silver

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On October 26, 1944, Gertrude "Tommy" Tompkins Silver took off from Mines Field in Los Angeles in a P-51 Mustang on what should have been a routine ferry flight. She never arrived. Gertrude was one of the pioneering Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs), the civilian women who flew military aircraft during World War II so male pilots could be sent overseas. She was also the only WASP to disappear during the war whose aircraft has never been recovered. In this episode, we explore Gertrude's extraordinary life, from a childhood marked by a debilitating stutter and an unlikely love of goats to world travel, flight, and a quiet wartime marriage just weeks before she vanished. More than eighty…