HUMBLE BEGINNINGS are two words used often for people whose hard work and ingenuity make them legends. Such is the case of Bessie Pittman, er, Jacqueline Cochran, also known as the Speed Queen, director of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserves, first woman pilot to "go supersonic," and recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross. Cochran was one of five children born to the Pittman family in the Florida panhandle. By some accounts she married at just 14 to a Robert Cochran, kept his name after their divorce in 1927, and gave herself a new first name-Jacqueline—setting a course to get out of Florida and into an eventual job at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City. She learned to fly at Roosevelt Field on Long Island and had her license within three weeks. She won the Bendix Trophy in 1938.
展开▼
