During World War II, Avenger Field became the training base for the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots, where women learned to fly United States Army Air Forces planes under civil service rather than military status. Of twenty-five thousand applicants, one thousand eight hundred thirty were accepted, and one thousand seventy-four earned wings and flew sixty million miles for the U.S. Army Air Forces. At the request of Commanding General H.H. (“Hap”) Arnold, Jacqueline Cochran became director of women pilots. The program began on November 17, 1942, when the first twenty-eight trainees entered the women’s flying training detachment at Houston Municipal Airport, and it was relocated on February 21, 1943, to Avenger Field, three miles west of Sweetwater. The last class graduated on December 7, 1944. British Royal Air Force cadets trained at Avenger Field from June 22 to August 1, 1942, and the arrival of WASP trainees in April 1943 made it the only military coeducational flying field in United States history. The trainees came from varied backgrounds, including many wives, sisters, or sweethearts of servicemen who hoped to hasten the war’s end. Women staff advisors supervised their nonflying activities as they lived under military discipline in army barracks. Trainees first flew in ill-fitting GI coveralls called “zoot suits” and wore tan slacks and shirts for dress, while graduates wore the officially adopted santiago blue uniform. The original seven-month course included one hundred eighty hours of ground school and one hundred fifteen hours of flight training, after which the women advanced from light planes to every air corps craft then in use. They ferried planes, towed targets, flew tracking, smoke-laying, searchlight, strafing, and simulated bombing missions, did radio control flying, tested aircraft, gave instrument instruction, and performed many other duties. Thirty-seven WASPs died in service. Ethel A. Sheehy served as WASP staff field executive, Nancy Harkness Love as staff executive of the ferrying division, and Leoti Clark Deaton as staff executive of training bases.