Daughter of the Air
The Brief Soaring Life of Cornelia Fort
You will ask me why we fly, and that's a question very few pilots can answer coherently. 'For room and board' is the only logical answer; further explanations are always vague, because we can't manage to put into words what it is that really keeps us at it. There's not one of us, no matter how tired we may be of everything connected with airplanes, whose head won't perk up at the sound of an engine overhead, whose eyes won't light up as a shining plane roars down the runway. And that's the only answer there is; in brief, the trite phrase: 'It gets under your skin, deep down inside.'
-Cornelia Fort, 1939
Cornelia Fort's (1919-1943) career as one of America's first female army pilots took her far from home-to Hawaii and later to Delaware and California as members of the WAFS, the first women's flight squadron. In a remarkable coincidence of fate, she was in the air at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked. Throughout her short, extraordinary life she recorded her experiences in eloquent letters.
When Cornelia Fort fell in love with flying, she was forced to defy her family-one of Nashville's oldest and most prominent-and societal pressure in order to become an aviator. But from the moment she first set foot in a plane, she found a consuming passion and a mission in life. With a love of flying and a lust for life, Cornelia Fort, like Beryl Markham and Amelia Earhart, came to personify the female pilot.
In Daughter of the Air, author Rob Simbeck interweaves Cornelia Fort's own eloquent letters and diaries with historical documents and interviews of those who knew and flew with her to create a vivid portrait of this courageous woman. Daughter of the Air tells both Cornelia's remarkable story-a life shaped by bravery, intelligence, and charm-and the political and social atmosphere of the day.
Book Description from Amazon.com
A member of a prominent Nashville family, Cornelia Fort became a flight instructor and aviator at a time when few women did so. This is the story of her short life, augmented with letters provided by her family. Among the interesting episodes in her life, at the age of 22, she witnessed the bombing of Pearl Harbor from the air while giving a flight lesson.
Published by Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 1999, softcover, 9 B&W photos, 5½ x 8¼ in., 263 pages, signed by the author.
Read a book review from HistoryNet.com by Cheryl Holman.
 It's a rare person whose life is worth a biography after having lasted just 24 years. But as the first woman pilot to die in the service of her country in World War II, Cornelia Fort certainly qualifies. Rob Simbeck's interviews with women who flew with her and knew her well, along with his use of her ample letters and assiduously kept diary, present a chapter in the nation's history that has waited more than half a century to be told. 
- Julie Dear, The Washington Post
An unusual story of a gallant young spirit who loved her country and died in its service.
- Kirkus Reviews
Far more than just a tale of a fascinating and rebellious woman, Daughter of the Air provides an accounting of issues that would give rise to the modern women's liberation movement as well as of the conflicts faced by the U.S. military over the presence of women in the ranks.
- Willy Stern, Business Week
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