More than a thousand women served as ferry and test pilots for the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) during World War II. The famous Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) flew every type of aircraft in the service's inventory, including the complex B-29 “Superfortress” heavy bomber. At the same time, the Soviet Union went a step further, employing women as fighter pilots (at least two achieved “ace” status with five or more combat victories) and light bomber crews. The Red Air Force even fielded several women-only combat units – the famous “Night Witches” – a unique event in aviation history.

A number of noteworthy scholarly studies, memoirs and oral histories dealing with the women aviators of World War II have appeared, covering the American and (to a lesser extent in English) the Soviet experience. Yet there have been few attempts to present this story from a comparative perspective.

This short work attempts to fill that gap. Two concise survey chapters outline the history of female military pilots in the two nations. Strebe here covers more or less familiar ground, but does so judiciously and in an engaging manner. She lays out the institutional origins of the efforts to mobilize female aviators, giving full credit to the extraordinary personalities involved (most notably Jackie Cochran for the US and Marina Raskova in the USSR). Throughout, the author draws upon the best of the published literature, augmented by original documents, oral histories, press reports, and interviews with participants.

Having established the context, Strebe then presents several well-crafted comparative studies of motivation, the gender issues faced by the women, the experience of wartime comradeship, and the eventual fate of the programs. While the leaders may have had more complex motivations, Strebe finds that the aviators in both nations were animated by simple patriotism coupled with a love of flying – hardly different from their male counterparts. Ironically, it was in repressive Stalinist Russia that women pilots had the greatest opportunity to prove themselves – there was little difference between the duties assigned to male and female air combat regiments. Yet the stories of skepticism and condescension on the part of male pilots have a universal quality. This extended to media treatment – in the US, press coverage of the “girl pilots” emphasized cosmetics and hairstyles, while early Soviet reports masculinized the names of the female pilots. Strebe covers the disbandment of the women's aviation programs objectively, but notes the injustice of the WASP being denied any military service benefits for decades after the war.

Strebe certainly gives these pioneers their due, but emphasizes that they were products of their time. Many of them rejected the label “feminist,” and most never flew an airplane again after the war. Some to this day maintain that women should not be permitted to fly in combat. Her conclusions – that, although these women did not change the course of history or alter the societal norms of their day, they still set a powerful precedent – may not be startling but are well supported.

Brevity is a virtue, but in this case it might be too much of a good thing. The book is only eighty-three pages of text (exclusive of footnotes and an extensive bibliography). This short work does a fine job of surveying the landscape, but the definitive comparative history remains to be written.