This Military Service Page was created/owned by
A3C Michael S. Bell (Unit Historian)
to remember
Tracy, Doris Bristol.
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Longtime La Veta, Colorado resident and proud WASP, Doris Virginia Tracy, 90, received her final wings on July 29, 2010.
Doris was born to Marie Todd Bristol and Vern Bristol in St. Joseph, Missouri on March 6, 1920. Her love of flying began at an early age: "I was nine years old, and my father had a friend that had a bi-plane. He took my sister and me for our first ride. From there on, I just had to learn how to fly." A few years later: "When I was in grade school, we had to write a paper on what you wanted to do when you grew up. .Of course, they were called 'aviatrixes' then, so that was what I wrote on. I wanted to be one of those!"
After the family moved to Marible, Missouri, Doris and her sister, Bernice, entered college. Doris signed up as the second girl on the list for CPT (Civilian Pilot Training). Since they could only sign up one girl for every nine boys, she had to wait to enter the training program. While she waited, she went to the air field and watched the students as they flew and sat in on the ground school classes. Eventually the instructor let her complete the training course. Doris was delighted that her first passenger, after she earned her license, was her dad!
When Doris learned about the WASP training program, she applied and was immediately accepted into class 43-4; however, she had to wait a few weeks, because she went home 'to break the news' to her mom and dad.
Doris took the train to Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas. When she arrived, she joined 123 other young women pilots as a member of class 43-5. After completing the nearly 7 months of training, 85 members of her class had earned their wings, so they graduated and became WASP. After graduation, Doris served briefly at Love Field, Dallas, Texas. She was then transferred to Lockbourne Air Force Base in Columbus, Ohio, but was soon transferred to Columbus Army Air Base in Columbus, Mississippi. There she flew engineering flight tests in AT-10's. Her last station was at Casper, Wyoming, where she flew as co-pilot on B-24's and administrative flights in the C-45. She was the only WASP stationed at Casper.
After the WASP were disbanded, Doris moved with her family to La Veta, Colorado to help her family open the ‘Gamble Store.' Although she had only planned to stay until the store was ‘up and running’, she met Julian Tracy at a dance and, as she put it, 'we just kept dancing and dancing.’ They married in 1946 immediately following the Sunday service at the La Veta Baptist Church.
The Tracy's raised their 2 daughters in La Veta. When they entered school, Doris spent time as a PTA mom. In addition to making the candy for the school candy sales , she ran both the store and the house, served on the Board of Directors of the Francisco Fort Museum, and was active in the Eastern Star. Any excess time she ever had, she spent enjoying her hobby--combing the nearby Colorado hills for arrowheads and artifacts,
Wings Across America Interview, Sept, 2000
Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony
March, 10, 2010
In September of 2000, Doris was kind enough to welcome Wings Across America into her home in La Veta. She was absolutely delightful. Her love for her family and Colorado was heartwarming. Doris was a warm, trusting, caring lady, who loved to search the land around her. She knew there was always another treasure just over the next hill.
On March 10, 2010, Doris was in attendance at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, as the WASP were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. The smile on her face was priceless. So many years later, to be honored and thanked by the country she had served -- her joy just spilled out.
Our most heartfelt prayers for her family and those who loved her. She was another 'one-of-a-kind' who touched our hearts. Knowing her was a joy and an honor.
Respectfully submitted by Nancy Parrish
Aug. 2, 2010
World War II
From Month/Year
December / 1941
To Month/Year
December / 1946
Description Overview of World War II
World War II killed more people, involved more nations, and cost more money than any other war in history. Altogether, 70 million people served in the armed forces during the war, and 17 million combatants died. Civilian deaths were ever greater. At least 19 million Soviet civilians, 10 million Chinese, and 6 million European Jews lost their lives during the war.
World War II was truly a global war. Some 70 nations took part in the conflict, and fighting took place on the continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe, as well as on the high seas. Entire societies participated as soldiers or as war workers, while others were persecuted as victims of occupation and mass murder.
World War II cost the United States a million causalities and nearly 400,000 deaths. In both domestic and foreign affairs, its consequences were far-reaching. It ended the Depression, brought millions of married women into the workforce, initiated sweeping changes in the lives of the nation's minority groups, and dramatically expanded government's presence in American life.
The War at Home & Abroad
On September 1, 1939, World War II started when Germany invaded Poland. By November 1942, the Axis powers controlled territory from Norway to North Africa and from France to the Soviet Union. After defeating the Axis in North Africa in May 1941, the United States and its Allies invaded Sicily in July 1943 and forced Italy to surrender in September. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, the Allies landed in Northern France. In December, a German counteroffensive (the Battle of the Bulge) failed. Germany surrendered in May 1945.
The United States entered the war following a surprise attack by Japan on the U.S. Pacific fleet in Hawaii. The United States and its Allies halted Japanese expansion at the Battle of Midway in June 1942 and in other campaigns in the South Pacific. From 1943 to August 1945, the Allies hopped from island to island across the Central Pacific and also battled the Japanese in China, Burma, and India. Japan agreed to surrender on August 14, 1945 after the United States dropped the first atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Consequences:
1. The war ended Depression unemployment and dramatically expanded government's presence in American life. It led the federal government to create a War Production Board to oversee conversion to a wartime economy and the Office of Price Administration to set prices on many items and to supervise a rationing system.
2. During the war, African Americans, women, and Mexican Americans founded new opportunities in industry. But Japanese Americans living on the Pacific coast were relocated from their homes and placed in internment camps.
The Dawn of the Atomic Age
In 1939, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Roosevelt, warning him that the Nazis might be able to build an atomic bomb. On December 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi, an Italian refugee, produced the first self-sustained, controlled nuclear chain reaction in Chicago.
To ensure that the United States developed a bomb before Nazi Germany did, the federal government started the secret $2 billion Manhattan Project. On July 16, 1945, in the New Mexico desert near Alamogordo, the Manhattan Project's scientists exploded the first atomic bomb.
It was during the Potsdam negotiations that President Harry Truman learned that American scientists had tested the first atomic bomb. On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay, a B-29 Superfortress, released an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan. Between 80,000 and 140,000 people were killed or fatally wounded. Three days later, a second bomb fell on Nagasaki. About 35,000 people were killed. The following day Japan sued for peace.
President Truman's defenders argued that the bombs ended the war quickly, avoiding the necessity of a costly invasion and the probable loss of tens of thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives. His critics argued that the war might have ended even without the atomic bombings. They maintained that the Japanese economy would have been strangled by a continued naval blockade, and that Japan could have been forced to surrender by conventional firebombing or by a demonstration of the atomic bomb's power.
The unleashing of nuclear power during World War II generated hope of a cheap and abundant source of energy, but it also produced anxiety among large numbers of people in the United States and around the world.
