And You Will Find Love

London, 1941

Stephen, huh? Gail had done more than just piqued Barbara's curiosity, she set her to seriously wondering... A man, a live prospect, according to her best friend. Who, next to herself, knew best what kind of man she would consider marrying?

Now Gail had one in mind for her.

But she told me so little about him, then the bombs began to fall! After London's night of fire, Gail returned to Pan American Airways. She took a flight back to New York City, and Barbara returned to ferrying fighter planes from factories to airfields across England.

Jackie Cochran, meanwhile, had returned to the United States after only a short time in London. Some of the women she had recruited to fly in England felt she had deserted them.

Barbara knew better. Jackie had done what she went to England to do, learn how the British women's Air Transport Auxiliary operated. Now time was critical, to lobby in Washington for an American version of the ferrying service. Women could do an important job, if war came. They could relieve American pilots of domestic flying duties so they could go on combat missions.

Only a month before Barbara's volunteer service in England was up, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and the United States and Great Britain declared war on them. Germany promptly supported its ally, Japan, by declaring war on the United States, Great Britain, and their allies. The Second World War had begun.

Before Barbara left London with her friends, to return by bomber to the United States, she received two cablegrams.

The first was from Jackie Cochran: THEY WANT US. COME JOIN THE WAFS.

Barbara didn't even know exactly what the WAFS were, but figured they were the initials of the new women pilots' ferrying unit Jackie had been aching to start.

Elation from the news of the first cablegram soon faded as she read the second that came later that day:

DEEPLY REGRET:

GAIL KILLED IN AUTO ACCIDENT HERE. CONTACT US.

HUBERT EATON.

Winnetka, Illinois, January, 1942

Barbara arrived at Gail's parents' house in Winnetka a week after her friend's funeral, in January. By then they had learned at least the cause of the accident.

Meanwhile, Barbara had phoned Jackie Cochran and learned that WAFS stood for the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron, and though its director would be a Washington insider, Nancy Harkness Love, Jackie would be in charge of its training program. But it would still be several months before it would be ready for enlistees.

With no urgency then to prepare to become a WAFS volunteer, Barbara put her first priority seeing Gail's parents. She needed desperately to learn how her friend had been killed, and to make certain Gail's will would be executed as she had wished; namely, that she, Barbara, be granted custody of Timmy and be allowed to legally adopt him.