Mildred Jane Baessler Doyle died at 97 on Friday, Feb. 1 at Spectrum Health Blodgett Hospital in Grand Rapids. She was the last surviving World War II pilot from Michigan.
Doyle was among 1,102 women who served in the Women Airforce Service Pilots program during the war — service for which she received the Congressional Gold Medal. Doyle and the other WASPs flew 60,000,000 miles of operation flights from 1942 to 1944 and flew 78 types of aircraft — all without the benefits of military service.
As WASPs were technically civilians. WASPs had to buy their own uniforms, cover travel costs, and pay rent. And if a WASP died in the course of her service, her family received nothing.
"The Women's Airforce Service Pilots were groundbreaking in the same way that the iconic Rosie the Riveters were — one in flying and one in building the aircraft," director of the Ada Historical Society Kristen Wildes told the Free Press for a 2017 news story about Doyle.
The same year, Doyle sat with Free Press to talk about her life, her work, and the pride she had in both.
“They call us pioneers … the women in different fields of aviation, even the astronauts and the gals in the military, they all say, ‘If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t be doing this today.’"
Doyle was buried on Monday at the Parish of the Holy Spirit in her home town of Grand Rapids. Her family has asked that memorial contributions in her honor be made to the National WASP WWII Museum in Sweetwater, Texas.