The message Barbara and her fellow WASPS got was loud and clear: "Women are 'not supposed' to fly every type of plane, such as bombers, and certainly not in combat zones. War is a man's business, not a woman's!"
As opposition to the bill to militarize the WASPS grew, and members were not allowed to even contact their Congressmen to vote for it, Barbara thought about her dilemma every time she took a plane up for a test flight.
It just isn't fair. I'm tired of pretending I'm a basketball player instead of a pilot. I can fly any plane as well as a man, or better. Eleven million of my country's men and women are in the military now. I want to get in this war, not keep being sidelined out of it.
Discouraged, some of her friends had already left the WASPS for other war work, even though it kept most of them on the ground.
But I want to fly! That's what I've been trained for, and my safety record is one of the best. So how am I going to fly a plane where the real action is?
The answer came to her:
If my own country won't let me help fight the war the best way I can, I'll go where they will. I'll leave the WASPS and get back to England, somehow, and rejoin the British ATA.
She had heard they needed more American women volunteers to ferry planes again in England. They were especially in need of those who could fly bombers. She could do that, and it would take her closer to a real war zone, on the other side of the English Channel.
When the solution to her dilemma began to jell in her mind, Barbara telephoned her mentor.
Jackie Cochran listened, then asked, "If you do leave the WASPS, how are you going to get to England? You can't fly a plane there, or even catch a ride in one."
Barbara had been thinking about that, too. "By sea," she replied confidently.
"The ocean liners aren't running, and you can't hitch a ride on a troop ship."
"I'll get to England, don't worry."
"I wouldn't be too eager to," Jackie cautioned. "The Germans aren't bombing London anymore, but now they're firing long-range rockets at it. And there are still hundreds of UXB's there, waiting to go off."
Barbara had almost forgotten that many of the bombs the Nazis dropped on London three years before hadn't exploded on impact, and hadn't been built to.
"They have delayed timing devices on them that some ingenious munitions ghoul thought up," Jackie said. "Some of the UXBs are in the ground now, or covered with debris and hard to see. But step on one, or just the slightest touch, and Pow! You're an obituary!"