May 4, 2024 • 50 mins
Susan Tate Ankeny is a nonfiction World War 2 history book author whose works include 'The Girl and the Bombardier' and her newest book, 'American Flygirl'. 'American Flygirl' recounts the inspiring story of Hazel Ying Lee, the first Asian American woman to earn a pilot’s license and fly with the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) despite the widespread anti-Asian sentiment back then.
Hazel refused to be deterred by discrimination due to her gender and her status as the daughter of Chinese immigrants. Just one year after sitting in on a friend's flight lesson, she earned her pilot's license and was on the way to the front against the Japanese. She would posthumously receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for her extraordinary service and patriotism.
Learn more about Susan: https://susantateankeny.com/
Get a copy of 'American Flygirl': https://amzn.to/3UuX67N
Join the SOFREP Book Club here: https://sofrep.com/book-club
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Lute force. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.
You're listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, Military Nails and
straight talk with the guys in the community.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Is this thing on? It is another episode of soft
Rep Radio and I am your host, the one and
only rad come it to you from the fireplace as always.
And a big reason why that fireplace stays on and
we get to keep doing these shows is because you
keep going to our merch store picking up some of
that branded soft Rep merch that we love to get
tagged on on Instagram, on Facebook, on all the social media.
(00:59):
So hit us up to I guess soft Rep We'll
be looking for it and sharing it. I also want
to mention our book club. It's soft Rep dot Com
Forward slash book Hyphened Club, and we have a lot
of curated books in there that are picked out by
Brandon Webb's Special Operator Sniper. You know, all of the crew,
that guy, everybody, George, George hand that's in there. Everybody's
putting these books together. And hopefully this next author who
(01:21):
I have on the show, her book will be able
to get into our rotation. We'll figure that out. We'll
get guy involved. But who I want to introduce today
and I's going to read it straight up is Susan
Tate Anthony out of Portland, Organ Okay, is the author
of non fiction World War Two history books, including American
Flag Girl and The Girl and the Bambadere. A former educator,
she is a member of the Oregon eighth Air Force
(01:43):
Historical Society, the Association day Sapotus de A Vites Allies,
which finds and memorializes World War Two crash sites in France. Okay,
pretty badass. The daughter of a World War Two bambadeer
and great granddaughter of Oregon Pioneers. She lives in Portland.
Welcome to the show, Susan Tate Ankeny. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Thank you, Rad. That's quite an introduction, Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Well, I mean I had to just like keep it condensed,
right because first of all, you know this totally will
become your book American Flag Girl, which is what we
are going to be talking about. Ear publicist, and is like, Rad,
please check this book out, send it to me. I
was reading about it. How could you not love anything
that has to do with flying In the early days
(02:28):
of flight, right when boy, nobody had hours in the sky, right,
But yet here they go off to war, right, and
talk to me about Hazel ying Lee, who you have
written about, who is the first female licensed pilot, first
Asian American pilot in the military, Chinese descent in the
(02:50):
forties during like racism at its fullest, bigotry against women
at its fullest, homemaking is where you belong bare feet
and cooking is at its fullest. I don't believe in that.
And I want you to tell me how was that
going on? What was going on? What made wow? Tell
me about your book?
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Well, first of all, and I'm not sure, I'm not
sure if I'm correcting you or if you said this
and I missed it. She was not the first woman
to receive a pilot's license, but the first Asian American
woman to receive pilot's license. Everything else you were right on.
She was the first Asian American woman to fly with
the military. She wasn't in the military, but she worked
for the military and to fly fighter aircraft as well.
(03:29):
So yeah, she was born in nineteen twelve at a
time when yes, women were expected to stay home and
have children and be quiet and also take care of
their parents as they aged, and anything other than that
was not only frowned upon, but women were shunned for
doing otherwise. So there was that, and she was, you know,
(03:51):
rebelling against that from the beginning, but also as an
Asian American, Yes, the Chinese Exclusion Act was harshly punishing
the Chinese Americans and keeping them secluded in chinatowns. They
were not welcome in public places outside of Chinatown. They
couldn't have a job where they would be seen outside
(04:12):
of Chinatown. So like in a stock room or something
that was okay, but they couldn't go in restaurants. I mean,
they were really kept powerless in these places. So to
do something like this, to break out like this, it
took a person who just really didn't care what anybody
thought or said about her. She was just doing her thing.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Yeah, and she kind of references that when she's flying
in her mind. You know, it's kind of like when
I get to take off, you know, as she grows
up and gets her licensing and starts to experiment with airplanes,
none of that's around her, right, It's just her and
her own engine and the hum and the rumbling and
just what is this thing I'm flying? She's probably got
(04:57):
to say that one hundred different times, like can I
pull over go to the bathroom? No, and you can't.
And I'll tell you right now. I got a friend
who's a pilot, male pilot, and they have things that
allow the male to just pee right into a tube
as they do, but a female has to have like
a suction device installed robo bionic, and then it can
malfunction and then if you have to go, you've got
(05:18):
to go.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Well back then, there there wasn't there were only really
and so they had to hold it.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Geez, I mean really. And there's one pilot that I
know out there and she goes by the callsign puddles
because her device malfunctioned in an F eighteen super Hornet.
So here she is flying mock one having to take
a whiz, and just I can only imagine, you know.
And guys, I'm just saying, you know, there's just like this.
You know, she's dropping bombs. These these women are just
(05:46):
as bad ass and any guy. I just have to say,
Plus they make human beings. I can't do no, not
at all. I don't have that ability. I know who
rules this world. I just want you to know that.
My listener loves to hear that, you know, because you
to respect the woman. Okay, yes, and you know I've
been married successfully for twenty five years. All right, congratulations,
(06:09):
And I have daughters, Okay, I'll do it, and I
have to. They have to look up to this, and
so therefore, you know, we know what's right and what's wrong.
And uh wow, being the first Asian American to fly,
you know, I'm sure that you know, this will be
coming out around May, and that is like Asian American
Pacific Islander month, you know, so this will be coming
(06:31):
out and there's a lot of you know, I think
the book comes out April, right, and when when this
comes out, I think the book will already be out.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Yes, the book was released April twenty third, last week,
and yes, right ahead of a n HPI month on purpose. Yes, yes, no.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Great, that's perfect because she needs to have her story.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Not ignored, right right, and it has been holy cow.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah. As someone who went into the Air Force, I
just it was like, you know, I'm just so excited
to see that. You know, Hazel ying Lee was able
to break all the barriers.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
She did the best she could. She wanted to fly, combat.
That's one thing she never got to do and didn't
happen until nineteen ninety four. But these women who are
women Air Force Service pilots, they did pave the way
for women eventually being in the military and also flying combat,
which is what they wanted to do when we're trained
to do.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Right, Yeah, why not? I mean, but I'm not trying
to give away your book. There's so much I want
to talk to you about. But I want people, I
want you to go out and get the book, right, really,
go get American flag geirls support, you know, women authors
writing about powerful women doing powerful things that we can't
let it just be you know, forgotten and swept underwet,
kept in the back. They're not to be that. They
(07:48):
should be law enforcement, anybody anything that they want to be.
And so boy, I just like that. She's she's pretty
bitching with her cigarette, you know, on the cover, just
kicking it. I know, right here, she's got her cigarette.
If you can watching this, she got her smoking her
hand because why not? Okay, in that day and age,
why not? All right?
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Exactly? I mean she was way cooler than I am.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
I mean me too, right, and her friends on the
wings of the plane and the photos. I don't want
to show those because I want you to go see this, okay,
I want you to get the book, check out the pictures.
It's pretty cool that there are some archive photos from
back in the day, because really, well, I had three
pictures of Iojima were taken, and then today you got
(08:33):
like five hundred at a concert.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Yeah. Well, you know, I think some of that was
the fact that they were women too. I mean, women,
you know, are archivist, they you know, keep the scrap
books and whatever. And these women were taking pictures and
they were writing home every every day for most of them.
So I had all of these letters and all of
these stories about Hazel that we're written about, and I think,
(08:57):
maybe I'm wrong, but you know, women do tend to
do that, tend to write more than man. It's a stereotype.
It's dangerous territory. I'm generalizing.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I was going to say, yes, ma'am, I think.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
At that time, and so that's why we have so
much about Hazel because of that.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
That's really cool. Now, what made you how okay, okay,
I know it made you your mom and dad. What
helped you to power yourself as a young girl to
be this writer that you are today. Can you inspire
my listener to say, how old were you when you
started writing or realized that you had the knack to
break down a story?
Speaker 3 (09:36):
I remember being ten. I mean I think I always
wanted to write. I do remember being ten and writing
my first chapter book, which you know was probably like
ten pages long, the whole thing, but it had chapters,
and so I was really like wow, and I you know,
I did. I wanted to be a writer. I loved writing.
I loved playing with words. My parents were storytellers. I
was raised with people who tell stories. The reason I
(09:57):
have my first book, The Girl in the Bambadeer, is
because my dad loved to tell his story about what
happened to him during the war. I was very lucky
that he did that. That was unusual. And my mother
was Irish and a storyteller as well, so I was raised.
She didn't read books, she didn't really trust books.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
She just told the stories of the layout her stories.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Oh, I have not laughed as hard since she's been gone.
She was hilarious little Irish woman. But I think that
has something to do with it. And my dad was
a reader and loved books. And I used to get
in trouble as a child for reading all the time.
My mom was always, you know, trying to get me
to do something productive, but I just wanted to read.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Why not. I mean, it's just brain food, you know,
and it just takes you into another imagination of your
own imagination. Now you're really writing about somebody's life, though,
you know, these are things that took place, So if
you could imagine what she was going through through your eyes,
putting it on paper, that's where books really take off,
(10:59):
you know, you get to really just dive in and
read about it. And I mean there's just things like, okay, look, listener,
my viewer, they don't they didn't let women at the
gun at the guns America guns. Okay, all guns, guns, guns,
right right right? Okay, where's our guns? Don't take my guns?
My liberties? Hello? What about your liberties? What about her
(11:19):
liberties of being able to operate a gun? Huh? Or
having a forty five caliber pistol in case she went down?
What about that? What about that? You know, while the
guys are scrambling looking for their forty fives, she's like, well,
have a nice day. I just guess I'll be a
female that might crash land and get captured. And what
would they do to a female versus a male if
a male has a forty five? And in your book
(11:40):
you talk about the males have you know, they have
these pistols and they're taught to keep one round in
the chamber in case they crash and they don't get
they get captured, you know, put themselves out of their misery.
A female getting captured.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Yeah, spoken like the father of daughters. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you know, women were just just delicate little things. I mean,
the belief was in nineteen twelve when the first woman
got a license that if she went up in the air,
not flu just went into an airplane, she would go berserk.
That women were just too temperamental and they certainly couldn't
(12:20):
handle flying in aircraft, and yet their safety record was
better than men.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Sure. Sure, So I have so many things that I said.
But you remember how I told you that this is
the internet and it's forever.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Yeah, so I'm just remembering that.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Yeah, I got I gotta be cautious on what I
want to say, Yeah, because because I really have you know,
I want to channel my inner Christina Amenport at all
times when I'm doing this, and so I just got
to keep it real otherwise you'll know what side I picked.
But I'm going to say that women rule the world.
I can't say it enough, right, And so from you know,
extreme athletes in the X Games winning gold medals to
(13:00):
flying aircraft to going into space and you know what
I mean. Well, you know there's nothing that we need
a woman can't do that a guy could do except
have a kid.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Oh that's powerful, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
And you don't even really need a man, not anymore. No,
So how about that? You guys should be nice? You
should be nice?
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Yeah, change your mind. Well, we need both, We need
men and women.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
You know, I get it.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Men are great.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
But American Flag girl, I mean that's the kind of
outspokenness that was really needing to be taking place back then.
You know, guys standing up and saying, hey, she can
do it. Yeah, I see her doing she's doing it
better than me.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
And they did, and there were men that did. And
I hope in my book I have not painted a
picture of all men being you know, terrible men trying
to keep women out. There were many advocates. You go ahead,
you'd be mad, yeah, righteous anger it is.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
That's all it is. That's all it is. And you know,
I can't change the past. I can only be a
good steward of the future, and so therefore I can
just you know, put that front foot forward at all times.
That's how I look at it forward. That's right, That's right, geez,
just like she was putting herself out there.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
You know.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Uh, that's just a good book.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Thank you. I noticed you've got an advanced copy, so
you don't have a lot of the pictures that are
in the actual In the actual, yes, there's there's an
answert with a lot of pictures that I'm sorry you
don't have.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
No, that's okay, because I've had this book for a minute.
But the pictures on the back I thought were pretty
cool from the archives I was looking AT's image courtesy
of Texas Women's University Women's Collection. Yeah, you know, give
them a shout out for photos they have in the
back here, right, because you know, one hundred percent, please
read and vote. I mean I hope that just means
in general.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Oh yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Yeah, if you're voting, you can read. Come on, man,
I And that's my fingers crossed right there.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Those are two good things, voting and reading.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Yes, in the back of the book. Yeah, I'm sure,
I'm sure. You know, Uh, I just really think that, uh,
Chinese Americans really got shafted, you know, and like you
said that there was that whole ban the Japanese attacked
and everybody was just pretty racist.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Yes, you know, after that, the Chinese started wearing buttons
in Portland, I think around the country that that said
I'm Chinese because they didn't want to be mixed up
with the Japanese who were being rounded up and put
in internment camps. I mean, can you imagine the fear
of that for your.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Family, children and all the people even being born here
and still having to deal with that, that slide of
eye like who is that over there? Is that American?
Are you a citizen? Or it's your purpose here?
Speaker 3 (15:53):
That distrust to be watched.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
When they're trust when all they want to do is
fight for the country that they live in.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Right, That's all Hazel wanted to She wanted to defend
the country, and she exactly she had a very difficult
time doing that.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
To defend the ideals of you know, bring me your weak,
hungry and the needy to defend that, right, because I've
been there, you have growing up. Yeah, I'm drinking powdered
milk before. That's how old I am. Let's go there, right,
I remember my dad. My dad told me water was
okay to drink in cheerios. He's like, other kids eat
(16:29):
it that way. Really at the time we're in California. Well,
it's just like, you know, it's crazy, dude, I don't know,
what do you think is this? Is this something that
could be adapted into a movie.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
There is interest in making it into a movie, so yes,
I think so. In fact, one of my reviews, I
think it was Publishers Weekly gave me a star reviewed
last week and they called it cinematic. So I'm very
proud of it. That's my writing. I mean, it's like fiction.
Don't don't you think it doesn't read like boring nonfiction?
Speaker 2 (17:02):
No, it's not boring. No, that's why I want to
talk about it. But it's like you know, a big
TV show like Game of Thrones. You just you haven't
seen it. I can't say a word. Sorry, I just
really don't want I want you to know that a
she climbed the ladder of just what she wanted to
do her own lab like, she made her own destiny
and chose it. And her sister and we're talking about
(17:22):
Hazel ying Lee here who I'm referencing is her her
sister or someone of her family members said what happens
is everybody freaks out, you know, and she's like, well,
Hazel is the one that doesn't freak out. And that's
what you need, is someone that doesn't freak out to
be in that pilot's chair, you know, that cockpit, ice
on the wing and trying to climb over mountains that
(17:42):
are ten thousand feet taller than you know planes can
even fly, and happen to go through what did you
quote it as the what did they quote it the
Skyway to Hell?
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Yes? Yes, because it was littered with planes that you're
talking about, the Hump, the supply root of the Himalayans. Yeah, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah, try to get equipment into troops and like you know,
the fighter aircraft are getting hunted at all times. Everybody
knows that's the probably the funnel.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Yeah, it was the only way to get in. At
that time, Japan had effectively cut China off and there
was no supplies to China and that was the only
way the hump, right.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
And it was and it was just littered with you know,
as they called them, coffins. There the planes, there are coffins,
and there's troops and stuff that are I'm sure still
being discovered through hikers randomly just taking the Himalayas up
for a challenge. And there's an aircraft crashed, right, you know,
I'm sure. So you go around and do this in.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
France, Well, yeah, I belonged to an organization that does this.
I don't personally, but a very good friend of mine
is the leader of that organization and he began this,
and it's just an incredible thing that, yes, they go
around and find crash sites where B seventeen's mostly had crashed,
(19:05):
and oftentimes someone was killed in the family and they
memorialize it, you know, the'll put up a plaque. But
the incredible thing is they have a ceremony and I've
been to one of these ceremonies and they bring all
the family members over from the United States that it
was their family member who either crashed and maybe got
taken in by the French resistance or the underground or
(19:26):
was killed, and very emotional. Sometimes the children. At one ceremony,
the wife of the bambaedeer who'd been killed in that
crash was there and she spoke, and their children were there,
and sometimes the children who you know, never met their father.
He died really all well anyway, So it's incredible. And
they're still finding pieces of planes. A friend of mine
(19:47):
they just found a piece of his father's plane and gave.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
It to him. You know, when farmers are plowing up
their fields in France, they're finding still pieces of aircraft
and a dog tag. Not many years ago, they did
find some information then some bone fragments on a man
who'd been missing in action. So all this time.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Later, and I see that you also have a triangle
flag on your mantle behind you. You want to tell me
who that belongs to?
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Me?
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Yeah, I have one too.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
My dad. My dad was a vombed deer in World
War Two and it was my dad that was shot down.
And that's what my first book is about. And yeah,
he was. He was vombit deer in the Eighth Air Force.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Tell me something else about that about.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
D Well, The story of him being shot down was
you know, pretty incredible and harrowing. I mean, right from
the time he jumped out of the plane. He'd never
used a parachute before. Now he told me that one
of his training instructors said, you don't need training for something,
You've got to get right the first time. But I'm guessing,
(20:51):
knowing my dad, because some men had training, I'm guessing
that there was training like posted and he didn't go.
So he didn't know how to work his parachute and
it was on upside down, so right from the beginning
he's in trouble. He does realize he can do it
from the other side and it opens, but he lands
looking up at the sky because he was being followed
by a measureshment and who he thought was just going
(21:13):
to shoot him. So his whole life had terrible back pain.
He had many many surgeries. They were never able to
fix it from that fall, and he was in shock
when he landed, and that you know, they whisked him away.
The French knew what to do. My dad was just
My dad always said I wouldn't have survived, but the
French were not going to hear of anything else happening.
He used to joke that they carried him across the
(21:35):
country to safety, so that I did nothing. They did
it all, and they would have been killed. They would
have been killed immediately for helping him. Sometimes entire families
that helped, and my dad did stay with a family
were shot and their bodies were left on the stairs
of the churches in the middle of the village. So
everybody would see that as a warning not to help.
(21:56):
And this had happened in this family. The van Lairs
still took my dad and two other American airmen into
their homes, and many people did across the country, and
in Paris it was it was a harrowing experience where
they pretended to be German. They had or excuse me, French,
they had false identification that they had to hold out
to guards and one question and it would have been
(22:18):
all over for them. Yes, it was a harrowing journey
across the credit. Your father, yes, yes, my father.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
And then he comes home and they're you come around, right,
I'd imagine not for a.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
While, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Say that right, yeah yeah right, because dads World War two.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Yeah, and so he had many many health issues. For
you know, it was over fifteen years before I came along,
and he was in pretty bad shape. You know, he
was in and out of facility. Yes, yes, yes, facilities
of back pain. He became so arthritic he couldn't walk.
My mother carried him around. He was a little tiny man,
(23:00):
but yeah, we love all Irish mom. Yeah, so yes.
I came along later and he started telling me about
what happened to him. Someone asked me one time, how
old were you? I just always he always told me.
I mean, I must have been very young, probably too young.
(23:21):
And he would cry when he'd talk about the people
who saved his life and what they risked to save him,
and you know, the remorse he felt for surviving when
you know, even the co pilot in his plane didn't
didn't survive, and he'd cry, and that that really got
my attention. You know, I adored my dad, and seeing
him cry and telling the story. I knew when I
was little, this is a big deal. You know, something
(23:42):
really big happened to my dad.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Yeah. And then you just decided to take that chapter
book inside your brain to put it into a book
for your dad. And did he get a chance to
read your book or didn't?
Speaker 3 (23:55):
He didn't, And I'm so sad. I didn't ever want
to write it. I knew it, but I wanted him
to write it, and I kept being after him and
he wrote a lot of it. I mean, I'm thankful
because again I could use that too in my book
that when I wrote, but his heart just wasn't in it.
He wasn't a live in the past kind of person,
especially as he got older. And so when he died,
I was like, I've got to write the story, you
(24:17):
know now it's it's my story and if I don't
tell it, nobody will. So it serious came to me,
and I'm glad. I mean, he would have loved that
I wrote it, but he also I don't know he
loved me anyway, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Way to keep that, way to keep the legacy alive.
That's what you've done. You've just immortalized it. Really yeah,
you know, because now we can type it into the internet.
It'll always be there as long as the internet's around.
You never thought about that's going to be around for
Lucktive the digital Diaries.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Well, I did it for the Van Layers and all
the people who saved you, because they are really the
unsung heroes in this. And when we went to France,
we were treated like royalty. My French was not great,
and their English was not great, and I sometimes thought,
I think they have me confused. I think they thought
that like we were in World War two or something
(25:05):
because of the way they were so grateful to Americans
help in their freedom that they have now they still
are liberation, Yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
I mean, how can you not be glad to be
liberating from that situation?
Speaker 3 (25:19):
Well, how can we even imagine, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (25:21):
We can't speaking German.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Right right, and these you know, well we sing the
praises of the airmen, and yes, rightly so, but these
people also are and they were farmers, you know, they
were unarmed farmers, just.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Human beings, yes on earth, Yes, try just to live
and eat their food and have a family. And just
you know, they just happened to speak mercy to our
friends and friends. Yes, yes, to them for what they've
done to your father, for your father and on their behalf.
That's very awesome. You know. I know a lot of
folks go over to like Normandy and deal a lot
of tours with you know, those that are still around,
(25:58):
and that's starting to get a little bit less and
less each year and less Normandy.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
It's incredible, all those beaches if anyone can ever have
the opportunity to see that, we'll change your life. To
stand there on Omaha Beach. Oh yeah, and it feels haunted,
you know, it feels like it's it's there, you can
feel it.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Percent. I stood on the opposite of the channel of
the Isle White Isle of Wight. I was on Thengland
coast just a few years ago, and I could see
France and what you say is Normandy's shoreline off of
the distance. They're like, you see that out there, that's shoreline.
That's that's where Normandy and Utah and all that is.
I was like, oh man, And they would launch from
Portsmouth and south of England to go over to France
(26:42):
get it to Normandy. Very haunted, yes, very spooky.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
And you know I went to the German Cemetery too,
when there was no one there and it's just kind
of a little cemetery off in the distance. I don't
think very many people visit it, but you know, those
mothers lost sons too.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
I agree.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
It was still a very beautiful experience to see all
of it, you know.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Yeah, you know, war's not cool, and it happens, and
I feel like the infantry guy on both sides is
just doing what they think is the call to duty, right.
And then there's the higher ups that have like the
puppet master streams of everything that trickles down, you know,
lack of information to those guys. So it's not so
much the infantry guy fighting because he thinks he's supposed
(27:25):
to also like our infantry guy is fighting. So I
don't know, I have a lot of blame on the
higher ups.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
My dad read my first book. I talked about my
dad's attitude a lot about that, especially when he went
in he was drafted. He didn't want to go to
the war. He called it someone else's war, and he
thought that the politicians could fix it. And I say
a lot about that in the book. But then after
being shot down and living in homes where people were,
(27:52):
you know, Nazi occupied, they were living in a Nazi
occupied area. And of course at the time he was
hearing rumors in France about what was happening to Jewish people,
but it just seemed way too far fetched to believe,
and it wasn't in the American papers, if anything was
about it. It was just a little little story on a
back page that all changed him, That all changed his
(28:12):
idea about war and what we were doing and what
we needed to do in that case. So he came
out of that completely changed in his idea about war,
although he still sat and watched the news during the
Vietnam War and tears would roll down his eyes, and
sometimes they would mention teachers, students. He was an educator,
and some of his students died in the Vietnam War.
(28:34):
And I remember him saying to me, I was pretty little.
I thought we fought the last war. So he was
very broken hearted. Yeah, and I know, Vietnam's a whole
other thing.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
But it's a whole other thing. If my father served
in that one, you know, and it's like a whole
nother you know. I don't want to say what he
did wasn't worth it, you know, and his friends that
went with him, and so Vietnam, man, that's a whole
nother book. I don't know who you're going to have
to pick their brain to write that one. Huh.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
I don't know if I'm smart enough to write about me.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Oh yeah, I know you are.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
There's just a lot that's it's much more political, don't
you think.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
I think so? Yeah, it is, And you know, this
is World War two with you know Hazel. You know,
it's more it's a good versus evil almost kind of fight,
even though politicians were involved in that. But it was like,
we don't want to go to war, but we have to.
That was World War two. Like he comes up roosevelts, like,
we don't want to go to war.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Yeah, Americans didn't. Americans wanted to keep us out of it.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
And then but they all bound like glue. We all
kind of got together. There's no real like you know issue.
It's like, oh, hey, we got to stop making coffee
cans and make ration cans.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
And those guys came back heroes, you know, parades and yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Time Life Magazine, Kissing the New York you know, the
nurse and the sailor picture right, did right? I mean
so classy and just so random, But I mean, well,
you know.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
What do you do? Like in China? And this American
fly Girl starts with this. In nineteen thirty one, the
Japanese just invaded China. We went I didn't know much
about this honestly before I wrote this book. And they
said they've got resources that we want and we're coming in.
And they had a fantastic air force, whereas China had
(30:28):
four little, scattered, fledgling air forces around the country, and
Japan had easy pickings coming in. And so that's why
the Chinese sent delegates to the United States. They needed planes,
they needed pilots, or the country was going to be
taken over and easily. It's just hard to imagine, it's
such a big country. And so yes, that's how Hazel
(30:50):
ended up being trained. I won't give it all the way,
but to be a pilot in China. That's how that started.
How they started training young men, they were boys really
China towns. They took them out and the training was
paid for by the benevolent societies and sent them into
aerial combat dogfights in China against the Japanese. So I
(31:13):
just think that's that's amazing, and that these young American
boys they didn't all get to do it. They didn't
get chosen. They wanted to. They'd never been to China,
you know, it was the country of their parents, and
they wanted to go fight a war over in another country.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
A place that's really just not even not much known
about it here in our own country. Because there was
such a.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Boycott on the culture right right, yes, yes, Chinese.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
So you can't like say, oh, I have been reading
about this in all these different articles and magazines and
I can't wait to go over there. It's like, you know,
here you are.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
And most of their families were from Canton, the Canton area.
I can't remember the name of the exact town, and
I would mispronounce it. But they began their journey in Shanghai,
where they didn't even speak the same language. The Chinese
Americans here spoke Cantonese, and in that part of China,
like Shanghai, they spoke Mandarin. So the first thing these
(32:11):
people had to do, these Americans had to do was
even learn a new language. So they knew nothing about
the country. They didn't even speak the language, right. Yeah,
they'd seen a movie. I'm not going to be able
to remember the name of it right now. These young people,
you know, nineteen to twenty three years old, had seen
a movie about Shanghai and that was all they knew.
I mean, these were kind of typical American teenagers. You know.
(32:33):
They weren't Chinese, and they were Chinese American, but they
lived in an American culture that they fully embraced, you know,
you look at Hazel on the cover of the book,
she's clearly kind of a cool.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Yeah, she's definitely you know, yeah, like if you're going
to say western, she's just she seems, yeah, just normal.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
She thought of herself as American, but of course, yeah,
you know, it showed wherever she went. So she would
be asked to leave a restaurant because of how she looked.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yeah, because, you know, because because she's Asian or Chinese,
you know. And it's like a lot of people stare
at me when I walk around, and it's because I
have a lot going on and I look out and
so I don't see that, you know, I don't see
what my wife's coming in to kiss. I don't see
I just see how I just see her. I'm like, oh,
pretty face. But I have to understand, you know, you
(33:22):
just walk in someplace to be judged on how you look.
But yet deep down inside, you have no idea how
that person's gonna be, what who they are. You know,
she's just straight up American, having a smoke, wanting to
defend her country. You wanting to be a part of it,
wanting to be a part of the movement, wanting to
you know, really break break barriers for women to fly,
(33:46):
you know, Asian women to fly period, because it was
so and in your book you write about how where.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Is it at?
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Where do I have that little snippet says here. Despite
her experience, she would feel the Rusian in discrimination of
Americans Chinese Exclusion Act, which refused to admit Chinese immigrants
into the US for a generation. In China's field of
male dominated aviation, she was dismissed for being a woman
and for being an American. During World War Two, she
(34:13):
suffered the pain of being mistaken for Japanese, but in
service to her country, Hazel refused to be limited by gender, race,
and impossible dreams. The US government posthumously awarded her the
Congressional Medal of Honor and recognized the military service of
the wasps, and her untimely death ended her a short
life served as a beacon for women everywhere who are
(34:34):
confronted by racism and sexism.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
Press release or something. I've never read? What is that
that you're reading from?
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Did you like was that? Okay? Did you want to correct?
Speaker 3 (34:44):
No? No, but I don't think i've read it. Is
it from like The Jack and the Jacks of the book,
is it?
Speaker 2 (34:49):
No, it's not. No, No, that's here. That's here, this
is the pace of paper. Okay, yeah, yeah, I just
pick and choose.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
I told you no that it's a exactly right. Yeah. Yeah,
pretty pretty amazing. I don't I don't think. I mean
she wanted to be a role model for young Asian
American girl. I mean because she had little sisters.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
And so like she should have Barbie.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Yeah, and then and then a movie about.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Barbie with smoke, wouldn't that be great? Sorry, I don't mean.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
I want that outfit, you know, I want to wear
that plane.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Because Barbie gets a jeep, she can have a plane.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Open cockpit plane.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
But so Hazel just wanted to fly, and and a
lot of flyers at that time, and especially all of
the women flyers were flying to do acrobats and you know,
aerial things in the sky fly shows. So Hazel was
also very different. And then she didn't want to do shows.
She wanted to do combat. She wanted to fight. And
(36:04):
you know, when she thought she could fight for China,
that's a whole nother story. And then she wanted to
get back to this country and fight combat here. And
there was no way that she was told, you can
be a nurse, you can be a secretary, but you
cannot fly aircraft at all, I mean not even out
of combat for what was then the US Army Air Corps.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Yeah, to go from no to here's the Congressional Medal
of Honor.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Yeah she learned that, she really did.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, it's awarded. Right. I'm not
sure she was like even after it, she was just
doing what she did. Oh yeah, she would.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Have done it for no attention at all. I think
she would laugh about all of this, honestly, it would
just seem funny to her because she just wanted to
fly plays fast, as fast as she could. She flew
fighting aircraft.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
You know. And also right here I have this little snippet.
It just talks about how, like yet a new age
was dawning with Hazel, and for the first time, the
idea that more than child rearing and homemaking might be
available to women began to take root. Some women brave
enough to go against convention found themselves willing and eager
to exchange traditional roles to become pilots and explore new
opportunities in aviation. A fire was lit in Hazel that
(37:20):
would change the course of her life and aviation history.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Yes, definitely. Women were coming out of the shadows, and
women had been given the vote. The amendment was passed
white women, not women of color, right, and so they
were emerging from the shadows and beginning to realize for
the first time that is there a choice because that
hadn't even been something that was discussed. I don't know
(37:46):
if women even wanted something they didn't know they could have.
And Hazel just said, well why not?
Speaker 2 (37:54):
I mean why not?
Speaker 3 (37:56):
Yeah, I mean why can't I wear pants? Right? Oh? Yeah,
that was shocking.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
That's a big deal, right, Yeah, yeah, I'm totally a
dad of daughters and yeah, I get it. I'm just like,
you know, we were just talking about how women were
just a lot of credit card like fifty years ago
with about a man's signature.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
I don't think it was that was it fifty years
it was? It was like it was in the seventies. Yeah,
I don't want to say seventy two or seventy six,
So right before you were born. It would definitely happened
before I remember it. I remember my mom, Yeah, being
on my.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Dad get a credit card?
Speaker 3 (38:33):
Yes, yes, which is a big deal to my mom. Yes,
but yeah, I mean it's hard to imagine.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
I can't. I don't want to. I don't. I'm glad
that's in my past. I don't. I don't want to
have known that. I don't know why I'm saying that.
I'm glad that my daughters are able and you know,
women are able to go and be themselves. Okay, we
got to stop the insanity though. Okay, in this world
of you're just as bad ass as I'm just as
(39:04):
bad ass. I don't have any say over you, and
you don't have any sale over me. You have freedom
to choose, and I have freedom to choose. And no
matter what language you speak, it should be that way.
It should just be freedom to choose. It shouldn't be
we're going to stone you because you don't wear your
head gear, right, you know your hit job. You know
we're going to stone you from being a female? What
I know today that's happening.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
I was just thinking that, can you believe that's going
on right now? That's yes, right now. The things I
write about in my book are happening now around.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
The world, and it's like we're trying, We've got to
stop reverting backwards as well with like these ideals. It's
just not we've got to keep moving forward progressive, it's forward.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
Yeah. And I think when you imprison women in that way,
the way they're doing in those countries, the way you're
talking about, Yes, I think men are imprisoned by that too.
I mean we're all we all lose out in that situation. Yeah,
I don't know, this is I don't know if i'd
want to be the man in charge of everything, you know,
(40:05):
it's all falls to me. I mean, men and women
are great together. They make a great team, you know.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
And and also like we've never had a female president
in America. Yeah, you know, We've gone to war under
all these dudes. I'm just saying, huh yeah, maybe maybe
we give a lady a chance to be in the
White House and run some things.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Huh yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
I mean what says here that they were good in
the house on this paper back in the day. Is
that where you guys want to put him in the
White House? Straight up?
Speaker 3 (40:40):
Yeah. A lot of waste, A lot of waste has.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Gone, A lot of waste makes me stretch my muscles.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
I think you're a good father of those daughters, and
they need to know about that. And you said, you
don't know why you mentioned the credit card thing, but
they need to know that. They need to know that
has happened. And because we tend to we have short
memories as human beings, and we tend to as a
lot of is proving right now that things tend to repeat,
We tend to go backwards and repeat and forget the
(41:09):
mistakes that were made.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Why don't we put mandates on men? How about all
men after the age of twenty three have to get vaccinated?
Speaker 3 (41:19):
How about that? Oh? Did I say that?
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Figure things out?
Speaker 3 (41:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (41:25):
How about that? How about we put stipulation? So you're like, no,
well where do I Why does anybody get a right?
Let's have this comment. I'm okay with that. Sorry, you're
a powerful woman. We're talking about a powerful woman. I'm
raising powerful women and I'm married to a powerful woman.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
But you said it, why can't we all be powerful?
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Yeah? Wow?
Speaker 3 (41:43):
I mean it isn't just women who can be put
to Sure, I think men could learn some things from
women vice versa. You know I think that Why are
we so afraid of each other's strengths?
Speaker 2 (41:57):
I just think I want a controversial episode is what
I want, Okay, I think I want this to be
my controversy. If that's my controversy, then bring it. Let's go.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
Okay, come out, Okay.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Well in the commets below, why did it happen?
Speaker 3 (42:09):
Okay? I appreciate that you may not have read the
entire book, but this is a piece of history. You're
probably also too young to know. Why did it happen
that the wasps were disbanded? The WASPS, the Women Air
Force Service Pilots of which Hazel was a member, disbanded
before the war was even over. I mean it speaks
to what you're saying. The war wasn't over. The day
(42:32):
after the wasps were let go, planes were sitting on
factory runways. They needed to be delivered. There wasn't anybody
to deliver me. And there were thousands of these women,
and the American opinion, like it happened to Rosie the Riveters,
American opinion turned against them because they were taking men's jobs.
And now men were coming back from the war, and
(42:54):
you know, d Day had happened, and there was all
this Ya, the war's over, but it wasn't over. It
went on for a year or more, many many more
years aircraft were needed to be ferried as the women
were doing, so they were just sent home because men
were threatened by having them have their jobs, and you know,
they became more vocal the men about, well, we don't
(43:18):
want to fly combat, we want to ferry planes. And
now the women are fering planes and we're being sent
over to lose our lives. So it was a really
big deal. And at that time, in December of forty four,
the whole country rallied behind it. Yeah, get rid of
those women. There were no parades, there were no metals.
Most of them never flew an airplane again, and this
(43:38):
was their lives. Yeah, so what kind of thinking is
going on in the public. You know, they were the
darlings of the early war, coming in to save the day,
and by the end of the war they were job stealers.
And oh and the other belief at that time is
that women needed to go home now that men were
(44:00):
coming back to nurture these men, to care for them emotionally.
I mean this was said outright in public. You know,
you can't fly a plane and nurture your husband, or
you know that apparently two things can't happen. I think
there was a real fear about what was going to
happen in this country after the war, and women were threatening.
(44:21):
Imagine I am imagining.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
To have you know, you know, Hazel be just turned
on now. First of all, she's a woman. Second, she's
Asian Chinese. Still confused with everybody in America during the
whole ending of the war, and everybody still has this
polarization happening on people and the women. And that's what
you're talking about, is polarizations like oh, back to you know,
(44:48):
back to the kitchen, back to nurturing. You know, your
husband can't work because he's shell shocked, So you got
to stop working in the job that he was gonna
work in because he's shell shocked, and you got to
go home and take care of him now. But you
can't make anything for your family because he needs his
job back. But he's shell shocked.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
Hey, and these women were supporting their families. One of
the argument was is that men are the breadwinners and
need to support their families. A lot of these women
were taking I mean, their husbands had already died in
the war. They were the bread winner for their parents,
their children, so that didn't really hold either. It wasn't logical.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
My dad deployed as a Green Beret. He'd go for
six months. We never moved around the country. A lot
of military brats moved around the country with their parents
getting stationed. He got stationed with a Special Forces group
and then they went to places and we stayed in Utah.
But that gave us some roots and some grounding here.
And I guess what I'm getting at is my mom
every morning would get us into the car to go
(45:46):
to school, and we, let's say prayer Aaron to get
the car started this morning, and'd be, okay, darn God,
please pray for the car turn on right. I'm like, oh,
there is a God that he's taken me to school. Okay.
But mom was also dad, And so when my dad
came home. I was talking to Dad. I was like, hey,
(46:06):
now dad's home. He's like, no, Dad never left. Dad's
been right here with mom. And so he's like, you know,
you just got to look at it that way, right,
I gotta go do my stuff. Who was handling all this?
He's like, your mother, Your mother was taking care of
He had just a huge respect for the workload that
he almost felt like he was playing hooky. You know,
(46:26):
he's with the guys, he's wearing gear, he's jumping out
of airplanes, and then comes home and he has to acclimate, right,
get back into the life of family man, you know, father,
you know, coming home, et cetera. And it just took
a minute, you know. And so mama just kept the
house running, I'm just saying.
Speaker 3 (46:46):
And she was able to do all those things, keep
the house running, and be a support partner to him,
and you know, see, I'm sure had a very happy
life because of the attitude that he had towards.
Speaker 2 (46:59):
Like your mom, Yes, like your mom carried Yeah, the VA.
I think what broke my mom was my dad being
broken because she'd have to push them through all these
VA tunnels and like, you know, all these different things,
and here she is pushing fifty sixty at the time
and breaking herself hauling him around because he's broken. You know,
it's just like the caregiver. Yeah right. That's why I'm
(47:20):
a big advocate for our younger veterans to just go
get checked out while they're young, like thirties and forties,
like go in their twenties, because by the time you're sixty.
Your caregiver, your significant other is the one taking care
of you, right, and so it's like you got to
look at like they're going to need to be also
taken care of. But the love is, I'm gonna wheel
you around, honey because I love you so much. We're
gonna get your meds. But who's taking care of her
(47:41):
or him wheeling you around? I don't know, it's just
one love.
Speaker 3 (47:45):
Maybe I bet you took care of your mom. Is
your mom still alive?
Speaker 2 (47:48):
No?
Speaker 3 (47:49):
But I bet you. I bet you did. Yes, I did,
And that's how it goes. Yes, and you have this
Oh really, I'm sorry. That's hard.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
Is like two years ago?
Speaker 3 (48:01):
So fresh.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
Yeah, I'm a mama's boy, just like the bumper sticker
almost boy for.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
You the best find the best kind.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
Well, before I keep the waterworks going any longer, here,
I got these glasses on to hide all that. I
will say that you're You've been an awesome guest and
I've been very I've grown from meeting you, and thank
you for being on the show.
Speaker 3 (48:24):
Interviewer, thank you.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
Uh and American Flag Girl by Susan Tate Akeney. It's
like tank tank tak me Akney you've been awesome. Thank you,
you're awesome. Yeah, and you're publicist, Please send me any
more of you ot and yes, yes, so and so.
(48:49):
I guess what I'm wanting to do is I'm just
gonna wind down the show and say thank you for
being on the show, Thanks for talking about your father's story,
thank you for bringing Hazel yng leing Lee's life to
my my soft rep. And thanks to my listener for
taking the time to hear us and just have random conversation.
We haven't ever met, and this is how it goes.
And you can do the same and just be a
(49:10):
nice person and just kindness is never out of fashion. Boom,
just remember that perfect. Do you have any any website
or anything that you want to shout out that I
didn't I do.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
My website is Susantateancony dot com.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
And do you have social media as well? They can
find you out there if they have any questions about
your author's show.
Speaker 3 (49:32):
Yes, Facebook and Instagram at Susan Tate anchony on both
of those and.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
We'll have that in the description. Thanks to Anton, my producer,
and random Web the creator and everybody that's on board
with soft rep that helps us to move this ship
in the right direction again. Please go support our merch
shops so I keep the fireplace lit, and check out
our book club. It's very important to us that you
guys read books, all books. Just read a book and
(49:59):
on the of my guest Susan on rad saved piece
Speaker 1 (50:10):
You've been listening to self Red Radio m
Lute force. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.
You're listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, Military Nails and
straight talk with the guys in the community.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Is this thing on? It is another episode of soft
Rep Radio and I am your host, the one and
only rad come it to you from the fireplace as always.
And a big reason why that fireplace stays on and
we get to keep doing these shows is because you
keep going to our merch store picking up some of
that branded soft Rep merch that we love to get
tagged on on Instagram, on Facebook, on all the social media.
(00:59):
So hit us up to I guess soft Rep We'll
be looking for it and sharing it. I also want
to mention our book club. It's soft Rep dot Com
Forward slash book Hyphened Club, and we have a lot
of curated books in there that are picked out by
Brandon Webb's Special Operator Sniper. You know, all of the crew,
that guy, everybody, George, George hand that's in there. Everybody's
putting these books together. And hopefully this next author who
(01:21):
I have on the show, her book will be able
to get into our rotation. We'll figure that out. We'll
get guy involved. But who I want to introduce today
and I's going to read it straight up is Susan
Tate Anthony out of Portland, Organ Okay, is the author
of non fiction World War Two history books, including American
Flag Girl and The Girl and the Bambadere. A former educator,
she is a member of the Oregon eighth Air Force
(01:43):
Historical Society, the Association day Sapotus de A Vites Allies,
which finds and memorializes World War Two crash sites in France. Okay,
pretty badass. The daughter of a World War Two bambadeer
and great granddaughter of Oregon Pioneers. She lives in Portland.
Welcome to the show, Susan Tate Ankeny. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Thank you, Rad. That's quite an introduction, Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Well, I mean I had to just like keep it condensed,
right because first of all, you know this totally will
become your book American Flag Girl, which is what we
are going to be talking about. Ear publicist, and is like, Rad,
please check this book out, send it to me. I
was reading about it. How could you not love anything
that has to do with flying In the early days
(02:28):
of flight, right when boy, nobody had hours in the sky, right,
But yet here they go off to war, right, and
talk to me about Hazel ying Lee, who you have
written about, who is the first female licensed pilot, first
Asian American pilot in the military, Chinese descent in the
(02:50):
forties during like racism at its fullest, bigotry against women
at its fullest, homemaking is where you belong bare feet
and cooking is at its fullest. I don't believe in that.
And I want you to tell me how was that
going on? What was going on? What made wow? Tell
me about your book?
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Well, first of all, and I'm not sure, I'm not
sure if I'm correcting you or if you said this
and I missed it. She was not the first woman
to receive a pilot's license, but the first Asian American
woman to receive pilot's license. Everything else you were right on.
She was the first Asian American woman to fly with
the military. She wasn't in the military, but she worked
for the military and to fly fighter aircraft as well.
(03:29):
So yeah, she was born in nineteen twelve at a
time when yes, women were expected to stay home and
have children and be quiet and also take care of
their parents as they aged, and anything other than that
was not only frowned upon, but women were shunned for
doing otherwise. So there was that, and she was, you know,
(03:51):
rebelling against that from the beginning, but also as an
Asian American, Yes, the Chinese Exclusion Act was harshly punishing
the Chinese Americans and keeping them secluded in chinatowns. They
were not welcome in public places outside of Chinatown. They
couldn't have a job where they would be seen outside
(04:12):
of Chinatown. So like in a stock room or something
that was okay, but they couldn't go in restaurants. I mean,
they were really kept powerless in these places. So to
do something like this, to break out like this, it
took a person who just really didn't care what anybody
thought or said about her. She was just doing her thing.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Yeah, and she kind of references that when she's flying
in her mind. You know, it's kind of like when
I get to take off, you know, as she grows
up and gets her licensing and starts to experiment with airplanes,
none of that's around her, right, It's just her and
her own engine and the hum and the rumbling and
just what is this thing I'm flying? She's probably got
(04:57):
to say that one hundred different times, like can I
pull over go to the bathroom? No, and you can't.
And I'll tell you right now. I got a friend
who's a pilot, male pilot, and they have things that
allow the male to just pee right into a tube
as they do, but a female has to have like
a suction device installed robo bionic, and then it can
malfunction and then if you have to go, you've got
(05:18):
to go.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Well back then, there there wasn't there were only really
and so they had to hold it.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Geez, I mean really. And there's one pilot that I
know out there and she goes by the callsign puddles
because her device malfunctioned in an F eighteen super Hornet.
So here she is flying mock one having to take
a whiz, and just I can only imagine, you know.
And guys, I'm just saying, you know, there's just like this.
You know, she's dropping bombs. These these women are just
(05:46):
as bad ass and any guy. I just have to say,
Plus they make human beings. I can't do no, not
at all. I don't have that ability. I know who
rules this world. I just want you to know that.
My listener loves to hear that, you know, because you
to respect the woman. Okay, yes, and you know I've
been married successfully for twenty five years. All right, congratulations,
(06:09):
And I have daughters, Okay, I'll do it, and I
have to. They have to look up to this, and
so therefore, you know, we know what's right and what's wrong.
And uh wow, being the first Asian American to fly,
you know, I'm sure that you know, this will be
coming out around May, and that is like Asian American
Pacific Islander month, you know, so this will be coming
(06:31):
out and there's a lot of you know, I think
the book comes out April, right, and when when this
comes out, I think the book will already be out.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Yes, the book was released April twenty third, last week,
and yes, right ahead of a n HPI month on purpose. Yes, yes, no.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Great, that's perfect because she needs to have her story.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Not ignored, right right, and it has been holy cow.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah. As someone who went into the Air Force, I
just it was like, you know, I'm just so excited
to see that. You know, Hazel ying Lee was able
to break all the barriers.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
She did the best she could. She wanted to fly, combat.
That's one thing she never got to do and didn't
happen until nineteen ninety four. But these women who are
women Air Force Service pilots, they did pave the way
for women eventually being in the military and also flying combat,
which is what they wanted to do when we're trained
to do.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Right, Yeah, why not? I mean, but I'm not trying
to give away your book. There's so much I want
to talk to you about. But I want people, I
want you to go out and get the book, right, really,
go get American flag geirls support, you know, women authors
writing about powerful women doing powerful things that we can't
let it just be you know, forgotten and swept underwet,
kept in the back. They're not to be that. They
(07:48):
should be law enforcement, anybody anything that they want to be.
And so boy, I just like that. She's she's pretty
bitching with her cigarette, you know, on the cover, just
kicking it. I know, right here, she's got her cigarette.
If you can watching this, she got her smoking her
hand because why not? Okay, in that day and age,
why not? All right?
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Exactly? I mean she was way cooler than I am.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
I mean me too, right, and her friends on the
wings of the plane and the photos. I don't want
to show those because I want you to go see this, okay,
I want you to get the book, check out the pictures.
It's pretty cool that there are some archive photos from
back in the day, because really, well, I had three
pictures of Iojima were taken, and then today you got
(08:33):
like five hundred at a concert.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Yeah. Well, you know, I think some of that was
the fact that they were women too. I mean, women,
you know, are archivist, they you know, keep the scrap
books and whatever. And these women were taking pictures and
they were writing home every every day for most of them.
So I had all of these letters and all of
these stories about Hazel that we're written about, and I think,
(08:57):
maybe I'm wrong, but you know, women do tend to
do that, tend to write more than man. It's a stereotype.
It's dangerous territory. I'm generalizing.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I was going to say, yes, ma'am, I think.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
At that time, and so that's why we have so
much about Hazel because of that.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
That's really cool. Now, what made you how okay, okay,
I know it made you your mom and dad. What
helped you to power yourself as a young girl to
be this writer that you are today. Can you inspire
my listener to say, how old were you when you
started writing or realized that you had the knack to
break down a story?
Speaker 3 (09:36):
I remember being ten. I mean I think I always
wanted to write. I do remember being ten and writing
my first chapter book, which you know was probably like
ten pages long, the whole thing, but it had chapters,
and so I was really like wow, and I you know,
I did. I wanted to be a writer. I loved writing.
I loved playing with words. My parents were storytellers. I
was raised with people who tell stories. The reason I
(09:57):
have my first book, The Girl in the Bambadeer, is
because my dad loved to tell his story about what
happened to him during the war. I was very lucky
that he did that. That was unusual. And my mother
was Irish and a storyteller as well, so I was raised.
She didn't read books, she didn't really trust books.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
She just told the stories of the layout her stories.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Oh, I have not laughed as hard since she's been gone.
She was hilarious little Irish woman. But I think that
has something to do with it. And my dad was
a reader and loved books. And I used to get
in trouble as a child for reading all the time.
My mom was always, you know, trying to get me
to do something productive, but I just wanted to read.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Why not. I mean, it's just brain food, you know,
and it just takes you into another imagination of your
own imagination. Now you're really writing about somebody's life, though,
you know, these are things that took place, So if
you could imagine what she was going through through your eyes,
putting it on paper, that's where books really take off,
(10:59):
you know, you get to really just dive in and
read about it. And I mean there's just things like, okay, look, listener,
my viewer, they don't they didn't let women at the
gun at the guns America guns. Okay, all guns, guns, guns,
right right right? Okay, where's our guns? Don't take my guns?
My liberties? Hello? What about your liberties? What about her
(11:19):
liberties of being able to operate a gun? Huh? Or
having a forty five caliber pistol in case she went down?
What about that? What about that? You know, while the
guys are scrambling looking for their forty fives, she's like, well,
have a nice day. I just guess I'll be a
female that might crash land and get captured. And what
would they do to a female versus a male if
a male has a forty five? And in your book
(11:40):
you talk about the males have you know, they have
these pistols and they're taught to keep one round in
the chamber in case they crash and they don't get
they get captured, you know, put themselves out of their misery.
A female getting captured.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Yeah, spoken like the father of daughters. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you know, women were just just delicate little things. I mean,
the belief was in nineteen twelve when the first woman
got a license that if she went up in the air,
not flu just went into an airplane, she would go berserk.
That women were just too temperamental and they certainly couldn't
(12:20):
handle flying in aircraft, and yet their safety record was
better than men.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Sure. Sure, So I have so many things that I said.
But you remember how I told you that this is
the internet and it's forever.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Yeah, so I'm just remembering that.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Yeah, I got I gotta be cautious on what I
want to say, Yeah, because because I really have you know,
I want to channel my inner Christina Amenport at all
times when I'm doing this, and so I just got
to keep it real otherwise you'll know what side I picked.
But I'm going to say that women rule the world.
I can't say it enough, right, And so from you know,
extreme athletes in the X Games winning gold medals to
(13:00):
flying aircraft to going into space and you know what
I mean. Well, you know there's nothing that we need
a woman can't do that a guy could do except
have a kid.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Oh that's powerful, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
And you don't even really need a man, not anymore. No,
So how about that? You guys should be nice? You
should be nice?
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Yeah, change your mind. Well, we need both, We need
men and women.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
You know, I get it.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Men are great.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
But American Flag girl, I mean that's the kind of
outspokenness that was really needing to be taking place back then.
You know, guys standing up and saying, hey, she can
do it. Yeah, I see her doing she's doing it
better than me.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
And they did, and there were men that did. And
I hope in my book I have not painted a
picture of all men being you know, terrible men trying
to keep women out. There were many advocates. You go ahead,
you'd be mad, yeah, righteous anger it is.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
That's all it is. That's all it is. And you know,
I can't change the past. I can only be a
good steward of the future, and so therefore I can
just you know, put that front foot forward at all times.
That's how I look at it forward. That's right, That's right, geez,
just like she was putting herself out there.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
You know.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Uh, that's just a good book.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Thank you. I noticed you've got an advanced copy, so
you don't have a lot of the pictures that are
in the actual In the actual, yes, there's there's an
answert with a lot of pictures that I'm sorry you
don't have.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
No, that's okay, because I've had this book for a minute.
But the pictures on the back I thought were pretty
cool from the archives I was looking AT's image courtesy
of Texas Women's University Women's Collection. Yeah, you know, give
them a shout out for photos they have in the
back here, right, because you know, one hundred percent, please
read and vote. I mean I hope that just means
in general.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Oh yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Yeah, if you're voting, you can read. Come on, man,
I And that's my fingers crossed right there.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Those are two good things, voting and reading.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Yes, in the back of the book. Yeah, I'm sure,
I'm sure. You know, Uh, I just really think that, uh,
Chinese Americans really got shafted, you know, and like you
said that there was that whole ban the Japanese attacked
and everybody was just pretty racist.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Yes, you know, after that, the Chinese started wearing buttons
in Portland, I think around the country that that said
I'm Chinese because they didn't want to be mixed up
with the Japanese who were being rounded up and put
in internment camps. I mean, can you imagine the fear
of that for your.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Family, children and all the people even being born here
and still having to deal with that, that slide of
eye like who is that over there? Is that American?
Are you a citizen? Or it's your purpose here?
Speaker 3 (15:53):
That distrust to be watched.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
When they're trust when all they want to do is
fight for the country that they live in.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Right, That's all Hazel wanted to She wanted to defend
the country, and she exactly she had a very difficult
time doing that.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
To defend the ideals of you know, bring me your weak,
hungry and the needy to defend that, right, because I've
been there, you have growing up. Yeah, I'm drinking powdered
milk before. That's how old I am. Let's go there, right,
I remember my dad. My dad told me water was
okay to drink in cheerios. He's like, other kids eat
(16:29):
it that way. Really at the time we're in California. Well,
it's just like, you know, it's crazy, dude, I don't know,
what do you think is this? Is this something that
could be adapted into a movie.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
There is interest in making it into a movie, so yes,
I think so. In fact, one of my reviews, I
think it was Publishers Weekly gave me a star reviewed
last week and they called it cinematic. So I'm very
proud of it. That's my writing. I mean, it's like fiction.
Don't don't you think it doesn't read like boring nonfiction?
Speaker 2 (17:02):
No, it's not boring. No, that's why I want to
talk about it. But it's like you know, a big
TV show like Game of Thrones. You just you haven't
seen it. I can't say a word. Sorry, I just
really don't want I want you to know that a
she climbed the ladder of just what she wanted to
do her own lab like, she made her own destiny
and chose it. And her sister and we're talking about
(17:22):
Hazel ying Lee here who I'm referencing is her her
sister or someone of her family members said what happens
is everybody freaks out, you know, and she's like, well,
Hazel is the one that doesn't freak out. And that's
what you need, is someone that doesn't freak out to
be in that pilot's chair, you know, that cockpit, ice
on the wing and trying to climb over mountains that
(17:42):
are ten thousand feet taller than you know planes can
even fly, and happen to go through what did you
quote it as the what did they quote it the
Skyway to Hell?
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Yes? Yes, because it was littered with planes that you're
talking about, the Hump, the supply root of the Himalayans. Yeah, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah, try to get equipment into troops and like you know,
the fighter aircraft are getting hunted at all times. Everybody
knows that's the probably the funnel.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Yeah, it was the only way to get in. At
that time, Japan had effectively cut China off and there
was no supplies to China and that was the only
way the hump, right.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
And it was and it was just littered with you know,
as they called them, coffins. There the planes, there are coffins,
and there's troops and stuff that are I'm sure still
being discovered through hikers randomly just taking the Himalayas up
for a challenge. And there's an aircraft crashed, right, you know,
I'm sure. So you go around and do this in.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
France, Well, yeah, I belonged to an organization that does this.
I don't personally, but a very good friend of mine
is the leader of that organization and he began this,
and it's just an incredible thing that, yes, they go
around and find crash sites where B seventeen's mostly had crashed,
(19:05):
and oftentimes someone was killed in the family and they
memorialize it, you know, the'll put up a plaque. But
the incredible thing is they have a ceremony and I've
been to one of these ceremonies and they bring all
the family members over from the United States that it
was their family member who either crashed and maybe got
taken in by the French resistance or the underground or
(19:26):
was killed, and very emotional. Sometimes the children. At one ceremony,
the wife of the bambaedeer who'd been killed in that
crash was there and she spoke, and their children were there,
and sometimes the children who you know, never met their father.
He died really all well anyway, So it's incredible. And
they're still finding pieces of planes. A friend of mine
(19:47):
they just found a piece of his father's plane and gave.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
It to him. You know, when farmers are plowing up
their fields in France, they're finding still pieces of aircraft
and a dog tag. Not many years ago, they did
find some information then some bone fragments on a man
who'd been missing in action. So all this time.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Later, and I see that you also have a triangle
flag on your mantle behind you. You want to tell me
who that belongs to?
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Me?
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Yeah, I have one too.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
My dad. My dad was a vombed deer in World
War Two and it was my dad that was shot down.
And that's what my first book is about. And yeah,
he was. He was vombit deer in the Eighth Air Force.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Tell me something else about that about.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
D Well, The story of him being shot down was
you know, pretty incredible and harrowing. I mean, right from
the time he jumped out of the plane. He'd never
used a parachute before. Now he told me that one
of his training instructors said, you don't need training for something,
You've got to get right the first time. But I'm guessing,
(20:51):
knowing my dad, because some men had training, I'm guessing
that there was training like posted and he didn't go.
So he didn't know how to work his parachute and
it was on upside down, so right from the beginning
he's in trouble. He does realize he can do it
from the other side and it opens, but he lands
looking up at the sky because he was being followed
by a measureshment and who he thought was just going
(21:13):
to shoot him. So his whole life had terrible back pain.
He had many many surgeries. They were never able to
fix it from that fall, and he was in shock
when he landed, and that you know, they whisked him away.
The French knew what to do. My dad was just
My dad always said I wouldn't have survived, but the
French were not going to hear of anything else happening.
He used to joke that they carried him across the
(21:35):
country to safety, so that I did nothing. They did
it all, and they would have been killed. They would
have been killed immediately for helping him. Sometimes entire families
that helped, and my dad did stay with a family
were shot and their bodies were left on the stairs
of the churches in the middle of the village. So
everybody would see that as a warning not to help.
(21:56):
And this had happened in this family. The van Lairs
still took my dad and two other American airmen into
their homes, and many people did across the country, and
in Paris it was it was a harrowing experience where
they pretended to be German. They had or excuse me, French,
they had false identification that they had to hold out
to guards and one question and it would have been
(22:18):
all over for them. Yes, it was a harrowing journey
across the credit. Your father, yes, yes, my father.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
And then he comes home and they're you come around, right,
I'd imagine not for a.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
While, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Say that right, yeah yeah right, because dads World War two.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Yeah, and so he had many many health issues. For
you know, it was over fifteen years before I came along,
and he was in pretty bad shape. You know, he
was in and out of facility. Yes, yes, yes, facilities
of back pain. He became so arthritic he couldn't walk.
My mother carried him around. He was a little tiny man,
(23:00):
but yeah, we love all Irish mom. Yeah, so yes.
I came along later and he started telling me about
what happened to him. Someone asked me one time, how
old were you? I just always he always told me.
I mean, I must have been very young, probably too young.
(23:21):
And he would cry when he'd talk about the people
who saved his life and what they risked to save him,
and you know, the remorse he felt for surviving when
you know, even the co pilot in his plane didn't
didn't survive, and he'd cry, and that that really got
my attention. You know, I adored my dad, and seeing
him cry and telling the story. I knew when I
was little, this is a big deal. You know, something
(23:42):
really big happened to my dad.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Yeah. And then you just decided to take that chapter
book inside your brain to put it into a book
for your dad. And did he get a chance to
read your book or didn't?
Speaker 3 (23:55):
He didn't, And I'm so sad. I didn't ever want
to write it. I knew it, but I wanted him
to write it, and I kept being after him and
he wrote a lot of it. I mean, I'm thankful
because again I could use that too in my book
that when I wrote, but his heart just wasn't in it.
He wasn't a live in the past kind of person,
especially as he got older. And so when he died,
I was like, I've got to write the story, you
(24:17):
know now it's it's my story and if I don't
tell it, nobody will. So it serious came to me,
and I'm glad. I mean, he would have loved that
I wrote it, but he also I don't know he
loved me anyway, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Way to keep that, way to keep the legacy alive.
That's what you've done. You've just immortalized it. Really yeah,
you know, because now we can type it into the internet.
It'll always be there as long as the internet's around.
You never thought about that's going to be around for
Lucktive the digital Diaries.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Well, I did it for the Van Layers and all
the people who saved you, because they are really the
unsung heroes in this. And when we went to France,
we were treated like royalty. My French was not great,
and their English was not great, and I sometimes thought,
I think they have me confused. I think they thought
that like we were in World War two or something
(25:05):
because of the way they were so grateful to Americans
help in their freedom that they have now they still
are liberation, Yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
I mean, how can you not be glad to be
liberating from that situation?
Speaker 3 (25:19):
Well, how can we even imagine, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (25:21):
We can't speaking German.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Right right, and these you know, well we sing the
praises of the airmen, and yes, rightly so, but these
people also are and they were farmers, you know, they
were unarmed farmers, just.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Human beings, yes on earth, Yes, try just to live
and eat their food and have a family. And just
you know, they just happened to speak mercy to our
friends and friends. Yes, yes, to them for what they've
done to your father, for your father and on their behalf.
That's very awesome. You know. I know a lot of
folks go over to like Normandy and deal a lot
of tours with you know, those that are still around,
(25:58):
and that's starting to get a little bit less and
less each year and less Normandy.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
It's incredible, all those beaches if anyone can ever have
the opportunity to see that, we'll change your life. To
stand there on Omaha Beach. Oh yeah, and it feels haunted,
you know, it feels like it's it's there, you can
feel it.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Percent. I stood on the opposite of the channel of
the Isle White Isle of Wight. I was on Thengland
coast just a few years ago, and I could see
France and what you say is Normandy's shoreline off of
the distance. They're like, you see that out there, that's shoreline.
That's that's where Normandy and Utah and all that is.
I was like, oh man, And they would launch from
Portsmouth and south of England to go over to France
(26:42):
get it to Normandy. Very haunted, yes, very spooky.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
And you know I went to the German Cemetery too,
when there was no one there and it's just kind
of a little cemetery off in the distance. I don't
think very many people visit it, but you know, those
mothers lost sons too.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
I agree.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
It was still a very beautiful experience to see all
of it, you know.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Yeah, you know, war's not cool, and it happens, and
I feel like the infantry guy on both sides is
just doing what they think is the call to duty, right.
And then there's the higher ups that have like the
puppet master streams of everything that trickles down, you know,
lack of information to those guys. So it's not so
much the infantry guy fighting because he thinks he's supposed
(27:25):
to also like our infantry guy is fighting. So I
don't know, I have a lot of blame on the
higher ups.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
My dad read my first book. I talked about my
dad's attitude a lot about that, especially when he went
in he was drafted. He didn't want to go to
the war. He called it someone else's war, and he
thought that the politicians could fix it. And I say
a lot about that in the book. But then after
being shot down and living in homes where people were,
(27:52):
you know, Nazi occupied, they were living in a Nazi
occupied area. And of course at the time he was
hearing rumors in France about what was happening to Jewish people,
but it just seemed way too far fetched to believe,
and it wasn't in the American papers, if anything was
about it. It was just a little little story on a
back page that all changed him, That all changed his
(28:12):
idea about war and what we were doing and what
we needed to do in that case. So he came
out of that completely changed in his idea about war,
although he still sat and watched the news during the
Vietnam War and tears would roll down his eyes, and
sometimes they would mention teachers, students. He was an educator,
and some of his students died in the Vietnam War.
(28:34):
And I remember him saying to me, I was pretty little.
I thought we fought the last war. So he was
very broken hearted. Yeah, and I know, Vietnam's a whole
other thing.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
But it's a whole other thing. If my father served
in that one, you know, and it's like a whole
nother you know. I don't want to say what he
did wasn't worth it, you know, and his friends that
went with him, and so Vietnam, man, that's a whole
nother book. I don't know who you're going to have
to pick their brain to write that one. Huh.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
I don't know if I'm smart enough to write about me.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Oh yeah, I know you are.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
There's just a lot that's it's much more political, don't
you think.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
I think so? Yeah, it is, And you know, this
is World War two with you know Hazel. You know,
it's more it's a good versus evil almost kind of fight,
even though politicians were involved in that. But it was like,
we don't want to go to war, but we have to.
That was World War two. Like he comes up roosevelts, like,
we don't want to go to war.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Yeah, Americans didn't. Americans wanted to keep us out of it.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
And then but they all bound like glue. We all
kind of got together. There's no real like you know issue.
It's like, oh, hey, we got to stop making coffee
cans and make ration cans.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
And those guys came back heroes, you know, parades and yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Time Life Magazine, Kissing the New York you know, the
nurse and the sailor picture right, did right? I mean
so classy and just so random, But I mean, well,
you know.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
What do you do? Like in China? And this American
fly Girl starts with this. In nineteen thirty one, the
Japanese just invaded China. We went I didn't know much
about this honestly before I wrote this book. And they
said they've got resources that we want and we're coming in.
And they had a fantastic air force, whereas China had
(30:28):
four little, scattered, fledgling air forces around the country, and
Japan had easy pickings coming in. And so that's why
the Chinese sent delegates to the United States. They needed planes,
they needed pilots, or the country was going to be
taken over and easily. It's just hard to imagine, it's
such a big country. And so yes, that's how Hazel
(30:50):
ended up being trained. I won't give it all the way,
but to be a pilot in China. That's how that started.
How they started training young men, they were boys really
China towns. They took them out and the training was
paid for by the benevolent societies and sent them into
aerial combat dogfights in China against the Japanese. So I
(31:13):
just think that's that's amazing, and that these young American
boys they didn't all get to do it. They didn't
get chosen. They wanted to. They'd never been to China,
you know, it was the country of their parents, and
they wanted to go fight a war over in another country.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
A place that's really just not even not much known
about it here in our own country. Because there was
such a.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Boycott on the culture right right, yes, yes, Chinese.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
So you can't like say, oh, I have been reading
about this in all these different articles and magazines and
I can't wait to go over there. It's like, you know,
here you are.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
And most of their families were from Canton, the Canton area.
I can't remember the name of the exact town, and
I would mispronounce it. But they began their journey in Shanghai,
where they didn't even speak the same language. The Chinese
Americans here spoke Cantonese, and in that part of China,
like Shanghai, they spoke Mandarin. So the first thing these
(32:11):
people had to do, these Americans had to do was
even learn a new language. So they knew nothing about
the country. They didn't even speak the language, right. Yeah,
they'd seen a movie. I'm not going to be able
to remember the name of it right now. These young people,
you know, nineteen to twenty three years old, had seen
a movie about Shanghai and that was all they knew.
I mean, these were kind of typical American teenagers. You know.
(32:33):
They weren't Chinese, and they were Chinese American, but they
lived in an American culture that they fully embraced, you know,
you look at Hazel on the cover of the book,
she's clearly kind of a cool.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Yeah, she's definitely you know, yeah, like if you're going
to say western, she's just she seems, yeah, just normal.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
She thought of herself as American, but of course, yeah,
you know, it showed wherever she went. So she would
be asked to leave a restaurant because of how she looked.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yeah, because, you know, because because she's Asian or Chinese,
you know. And it's like a lot of people stare
at me when I walk around, and it's because I
have a lot going on and I look out and
so I don't see that, you know, I don't see
what my wife's coming in to kiss. I don't see
I just see how I just see her. I'm like, oh,
pretty face. But I have to understand, you know, you
(33:22):
just walk in someplace to be judged on how you look.
But yet deep down inside, you have no idea how
that person's gonna be, what who they are. You know,
she's just straight up American, having a smoke, wanting to
defend her country. You wanting to be a part of it,
wanting to be a part of the movement, wanting to
you know, really break break barriers for women to fly,
(33:46):
you know, Asian women to fly period, because it was
so and in your book you write about how where.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Is it at?
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Where do I have that little snippet says here. Despite
her experience, she would feel the Rusian in discrimination of
Americans Chinese Exclusion Act, which refused to admit Chinese immigrants
into the US for a generation. In China's field of
male dominated aviation, she was dismissed for being a woman
and for being an American. During World War Two, she
(34:13):
suffered the pain of being mistaken for Japanese, but in
service to her country, Hazel refused to be limited by gender, race,
and impossible dreams. The US government posthumously awarded her the
Congressional Medal of Honor and recognized the military service of
the wasps, and her untimely death ended her a short
life served as a beacon for women everywhere who are
(34:34):
confronted by racism and sexism.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
Press release or something. I've never read? What is that
that you're reading from?
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Did you like was that? Okay? Did you want to correct?
Speaker 3 (34:44):
No? No, but I don't think i've read it. Is
it from like The Jack and the Jacks of the book,
is it?
Speaker 2 (34:49):
No, it's not. No, No, that's here. That's here, this
is the pace of paper. Okay, yeah, yeah, I just
pick and choose.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
I told you no that it's a exactly right. Yeah. Yeah,
pretty pretty amazing. I don't I don't think. I mean
she wanted to be a role model for young Asian
American girl. I mean because she had little sisters.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
And so like she should have Barbie.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Yeah, and then and then a movie about.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Barbie with smoke, wouldn't that be great? Sorry, I don't mean.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
I want that outfit, you know, I want to wear
that plane.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Because Barbie gets a jeep, she can have a plane.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Open cockpit plane.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
But so Hazel just wanted to fly, and and a
lot of flyers at that time, and especially all of
the women flyers were flying to do acrobats and you know,
aerial things in the sky fly shows. So Hazel was
also very different. And then she didn't want to do shows.
She wanted to do combat. She wanted to fight. And
(36:04):
you know, when she thought she could fight for China,
that's a whole nother story. And then she wanted to
get back to this country and fight combat here. And
there was no way that she was told, you can
be a nurse, you can be a secretary, but you
cannot fly aircraft at all, I mean not even out
of combat for what was then the US Army Air Corps.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Yeah, to go from no to here's the Congressional Medal
of Honor.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Yeah she learned that, she really did.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, it's awarded. Right. I'm not
sure she was like even after it, she was just
doing what she did. Oh yeah, she would.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Have done it for no attention at all. I think
she would laugh about all of this, honestly, it would
just seem funny to her because she just wanted to
fly plays fast, as fast as she could. She flew
fighting aircraft.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
You know. And also right here I have this little snippet.
It just talks about how, like yet a new age
was dawning with Hazel, and for the first time, the
idea that more than child rearing and homemaking might be
available to women began to take root. Some women brave
enough to go against convention found themselves willing and eager
to exchange traditional roles to become pilots and explore new
opportunities in aviation. A fire was lit in Hazel that
(37:20):
would change the course of her life and aviation history.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Yes, definitely. Women were coming out of the shadows, and
women had been given the vote. The amendment was passed
white women, not women of color, right, and so they
were emerging from the shadows and beginning to realize for
the first time that is there a choice because that
hadn't even been something that was discussed. I don't know
(37:46):
if women even wanted something they didn't know they could have.
And Hazel just said, well why not?
Speaker 2 (37:54):
I mean why not?
Speaker 3 (37:56):
Yeah, I mean why can't I wear pants? Right? Oh? Yeah,
that was shocking.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
That's a big deal, right, Yeah, yeah, I'm totally a
dad of daughters and yeah, I get it. I'm just like,
you know, we were just talking about how women were
just a lot of credit card like fifty years ago
with about a man's signature.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
I don't think it was that was it fifty years
it was? It was like it was in the seventies. Yeah,
I don't want to say seventy two or seventy six,
So right before you were born. It would definitely happened
before I remember it. I remember my mom, Yeah, being
on my.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Dad get a credit card?
Speaker 3 (38:33):
Yes, yes, which is a big deal to my mom. Yes,
but yeah, I mean it's hard to imagine.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
I can't. I don't want to. I don't. I'm glad
that's in my past. I don't. I don't want to
have known that. I don't know why I'm saying that.
I'm glad that my daughters are able and you know,
women are able to go and be themselves. Okay, we
got to stop the insanity though. Okay, in this world
of you're just as bad ass as I'm just as
(39:04):
bad ass. I don't have any say over you, and
you don't have any sale over me. You have freedom
to choose, and I have freedom to choose. And no
matter what language you speak, it should be that way.
It should just be freedom to choose. It shouldn't be
we're going to stone you because you don't wear your
head gear, right, you know your hit job. You know
we're going to stone you from being a female? What
I know today that's happening.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
I was just thinking that, can you believe that's going
on right now? That's yes, right now. The things I
write about in my book are happening now around.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
The world, and it's like we're trying, We've got to
stop reverting backwards as well with like these ideals. It's
just not we've got to keep moving forward progressive, it's forward.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
Yeah. And I think when you imprison women in that way,
the way they're doing in those countries, the way you're
talking about, Yes, I think men are imprisoned by that too.
I mean we're all we all lose out in that situation. Yeah,
I don't know, this is I don't know if i'd
want to be the man in charge of everything, you know,
(40:05):
it's all falls to me. I mean, men and women
are great together. They make a great team, you know.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
And and also like we've never had a female president
in America. Yeah, you know, We've gone to war under
all these dudes. I'm just saying, huh yeah, maybe maybe
we give a lady a chance to be in the
White House and run some things.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Huh yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
I mean what says here that they were good in
the house on this paper back in the day. Is
that where you guys want to put him in the
White House? Straight up?
Speaker 3 (40:40):
Yeah. A lot of waste, A lot of waste has.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Gone, A lot of waste makes me stretch my muscles.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
I think you're a good father of those daughters, and
they need to know about that. And you said, you
don't know why you mentioned the credit card thing, but
they need to know that. They need to know that
has happened. And because we tend to we have short
memories as human beings, and we tend to as a
lot of is proving right now that things tend to repeat,
We tend to go backwards and repeat and forget the
(41:09):
mistakes that were made.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Why don't we put mandates on men? How about all
men after the age of twenty three have to get vaccinated?
Speaker 3 (41:19):
How about that? Oh? Did I say that?
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Figure things out?
Speaker 3 (41:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (41:25):
How about that? How about we put stipulation? So you're like, no,
well where do I Why does anybody get a right?
Let's have this comment. I'm okay with that. Sorry, you're
a powerful woman. We're talking about a powerful woman. I'm
raising powerful women and I'm married to a powerful woman.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
But you said it, why can't we all be powerful?
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Yeah? Wow?
Speaker 3 (41:43):
I mean it isn't just women who can be put
to Sure, I think men could learn some things from
women vice versa. You know I think that Why are
we so afraid of each other's strengths?
Speaker 2 (41:57):
I just think I want a controversial episode is what
I want, Okay, I think I want this to be
my controversy. If that's my controversy, then bring it. Let's go.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
Okay, come out, Okay.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Well in the commets below, why did it happen?
Speaker 3 (42:09):
Okay? I appreciate that you may not have read the
entire book, but this is a piece of history. You're
probably also too young to know. Why did it happen
that the wasps were disbanded? The WASPS, the Women Air
Force Service Pilots of which Hazel was a member, disbanded
before the war was even over. I mean it speaks
to what you're saying. The war wasn't over. The day
(42:32):
after the wasps were let go, planes were sitting on
factory runways. They needed to be delivered. There wasn't anybody
to deliver me. And there were thousands of these women,
and the American opinion, like it happened to Rosie the Riveters,
American opinion turned against them because they were taking men's jobs.
And now men were coming back from the war, and
(42:54):
you know, d Day had happened, and there was all
this Ya, the war's over, but it wasn't over. It
went on for a year or more, many many more
years aircraft were needed to be ferried as the women
were doing, so they were just sent home because men
were threatened by having them have their jobs, and you know,
they became more vocal the men about, well, we don't
(43:18):
want to fly combat, we want to ferry planes. And
now the women are fering planes and we're being sent
over to lose our lives. So it was a really
big deal. And at that time, in December of forty four,
the whole country rallied behind it. Yeah, get rid of
those women. There were no parades, there were no metals.
Most of them never flew an airplane again, and this
(43:38):
was their lives. Yeah, so what kind of thinking is
going on in the public. You know, they were the
darlings of the early war, coming in to save the day,
and by the end of the war they were job stealers.
And oh and the other belief at that time is
that women needed to go home now that men were
(44:00):
coming back to nurture these men, to care for them emotionally.
I mean this was said outright in public. You know,
you can't fly a plane and nurture your husband, or
you know that apparently two things can't happen. I think
there was a real fear about what was going to
happen in this country after the war, and women were threatening.
(44:21):
Imagine I am imagining.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
To have you know, you know, Hazel be just turned
on now. First of all, she's a woman. Second, she's
Asian Chinese. Still confused with everybody in America during the
whole ending of the war, and everybody still has this
polarization happening on people and the women. And that's what
you're talking about, is polarizations like oh, back to you know,
(44:48):
back to the kitchen, back to nurturing. You know, your
husband can't work because he's shell shocked, So you got
to stop working in the job that he was gonna
work in because he's shell shocked, and you got to
go home and take care of him now. But you
can't make anything for your family because he needs his
job back. But he's shell shocked.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
Hey, and these women were supporting their families. One of
the argument was is that men are the breadwinners and
need to support their families. A lot of these women
were taking I mean, their husbands had already died in
the war. They were the bread winner for their parents,
their children, so that didn't really hold either. It wasn't logical.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
My dad deployed as a Green Beret. He'd go for
six months. We never moved around the country. A lot
of military brats moved around the country with their parents
getting stationed. He got stationed with a Special Forces group
and then they went to places and we stayed in Utah.
But that gave us some roots and some grounding here.
And I guess what I'm getting at is my mom
every morning would get us into the car to go
(45:46):
to school, and we, let's say prayer Aaron to get
the car started this morning, and'd be, okay, darn God,
please pray for the car turn on right. I'm like, oh,
there is a God that he's taken me to school. Okay.
But mom was also dad, And so when my dad
came home. I was talking to Dad. I was like, hey,
(46:06):
now dad's home. He's like, no, Dad never left. Dad's
been right here with mom. And so he's like, you know,
you just got to look at it that way, right,
I gotta go do my stuff. Who was handling all this?
He's like, your mother, Your mother was taking care of
He had just a huge respect for the workload that
he almost felt like he was playing hooky. You know,
(46:26):
he's with the guys, he's wearing gear, he's jumping out
of airplanes, and then comes home and he has to acclimate, right,
get back into the life of family man, you know, father,
you know, coming home, et cetera. And it just took
a minute, you know. And so mama just kept the
house running, I'm just saying.
Speaker 3 (46:46):
And she was able to do all those things, keep
the house running, and be a support partner to him,
and you know, see, I'm sure had a very happy
life because of the attitude that he had towards.
Speaker 2 (46:59):
Like your mom, Yes, like your mom carried Yeah, the VA.
I think what broke my mom was my dad being
broken because she'd have to push them through all these
VA tunnels and like, you know, all these different things,
and here she is pushing fifty sixty at the time
and breaking herself hauling him around because he's broken. You know,
it's just like the caregiver. Yeah right. That's why I'm
(47:20):
a big advocate for our younger veterans to just go
get checked out while they're young, like thirties and forties,
like go in their twenties, because by the time you're sixty.
Your caregiver, your significant other is the one taking care
of you, right, and so it's like you got to
look at like they're going to need to be also
taken care of. But the love is, I'm gonna wheel
you around, honey because I love you so much. We're
gonna get your meds. But who's taking care of her
(47:41):
or him wheeling you around? I don't know, it's just
one love.
Speaker 3 (47:45):
Maybe I bet you took care of your mom. Is
your mom still alive?
Speaker 2 (47:48):
No?
Speaker 3 (47:49):
But I bet you. I bet you did. Yes, I did,
And that's how it goes. Yes, and you have this
Oh really, I'm sorry. That's hard.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
Is like two years ago?
Speaker 3 (48:01):
So fresh.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
Yeah, I'm a mama's boy, just like the bumper sticker
almost boy for.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
You the best find the best kind.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
Well, before I keep the waterworks going any longer, here,
I got these glasses on to hide all that. I
will say that you're You've been an awesome guest and
I've been very I've grown from meeting you, and thank
you for being on the show.
Speaker 3 (48:24):
Interviewer, thank you.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
Uh and American Flag Girl by Susan Tate Akeney. It's
like tank tank tak me Akney you've been awesome. Thank you,
you're awesome. Yeah, and you're publicist, Please send me any
more of you ot and yes, yes, so and so.
(48:49):
I guess what I'm wanting to do is I'm just
gonna wind down the show and say thank you for
being on the show, Thanks for talking about your father's story,
thank you for bringing Hazel yng leing Lee's life to
my my soft rep. And thanks to my listener for
taking the time to hear us and just have random conversation.
We haven't ever met, and this is how it goes.
And you can do the same and just be a
(49:10):
nice person and just kindness is never out of fashion. Boom,
just remember that perfect. Do you have any any website
or anything that you want to shout out that I
didn't I do.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
My website is Susantateancony dot com.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
And do you have social media as well? They can
find you out there if they have any questions about
your author's show.
Speaker 3 (49:32):
Yes, Facebook and Instagram at Susan Tate anchony on both
of those and.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
We'll have that in the description. Thanks to Anton, my producer,
and random Web the creator and everybody that's on board
with soft rep that helps us to move this ship
in the right direction again. Please go support our merch
shops so I keep the fireplace lit, and check out
our book club. It's very important to us that you
guys read books, all books. Just read a book and
(49:59):
on the of my guest Susan on rad saved piece
Speaker 1 (50:10):
You've been listening to self Red Radio m
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.