Women Airforce Service Pilots, Harriet Urban White

Harriet Urban (White) enlisted in the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS), later known as the Women’s Air Service Pilots (WASPs), on March 23, 1943. The eight-month training was split into flying lessons and ground training, where the women learned mechanics, navigation, and weather. ¹ Approximately 10,000 women applied and only 1,074 successfully completed the training. In September of 1943, Urban graduated from the WAFS Training Division at Avenger Field in Sweet Water, Texas. ² In October 1943, she was sent to the USAF 3^rd Ferrying Group ATC in Romulus, Michigan, where she ferried airplanes. ³ She later explained, “I was checked out in C-47 transports and bombers.” ⁴ Urban’s friend and fellow pilot Anne Noggle described her as a very determined woman who took risks and was ahead of her time. ⁵ Urban, along with her fellow pioneering WASPs was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2010.

Harriet Urban (White) was born in 1921 in Buffalo, New York to Major William P. and Harriet A. Urban. ⁶ She attended Park School in Snyder, New York, winning the Alumni Award at Park School in 1942. Urban later attended Finch Junior College in New York City. ⁷ Her first flight was in a Ford Trimotor over Niagara Falls at the age of seven. ⁸ In 1941 she flew a J-3 Cub solo in Stonington, Connecticut. ⁸ Urban passed her instructor’s flight test in May of 1942 and became a full-time flight instructor at Beacon Flying Service in Clarence, New York. ⁹ She founded the Western New York Chapter of the Ninety-Nines, the International Organization of Women Pilots, and was active in the Civil Air Patrol. ^{8, 10, 11}

In 1946 she married fellow pilot Chester A. White. ¹² Urban and her husband moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1947, where they had five children. Divorced in 1965, Urban obtained a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and sociology education and a master’s degree in teaching English as a second language. She subsequently taught at the former Technical Vocational Institute (TVI) in Albuquerque (now Central New Mexico Community College), the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, the former University of Albuquerque, the University of New Mexico (UNM), New Mexico State University (NMSU), and the University of Panama. ^{13, 14}

Urban’s daughter Landra White described her, “My mother had an insatiable curiosity about people around the world. She had a great desire to help people see connections—how we are all the same across cultures.” ⁵ Urban’s family honored her with this tribute statement, “She enriched the lives of many and will be missed by those who valued her unique views on people, her extraordinary energy, and her courage to follow her dreams.” ¹³