Goodbye Glamour Gals: the true story of American women pilots in WWII

By: RJ Dailey

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

In 1940s America, Jacqueline Cochran was the rarest kind of woman: she was a self-made millionaire pilot who, since the disappearance of her friend Amelia Earhart, had become the nation’s most famous darling of the air. But she was no darling. At the outbreak of World War II, Cochran used her considerable celebrity and wealth to launch a fight of her own against the US Army. The notion might have seemed absurd, but she aimed to command a group of women pilots within the Army Air Corps.

Cochran was feminine and scrappy, but she was not the only woman pilot with ambition. Vassar-educated, socially connected Nancy Love also wanted women flying military planes, but she had a different idea of how they should be used. Goodbye Glamour Gals is a story of extraordinary women in an extraordinary time.

A cold rivalry developed as Cochran and Love struggled to convince the Army that women were a national resource. Each gained allies and, remarkably, two fragile programs emerged. But in a world hostile to progressive women, it was clear only one organization could succeed. With the aid of a powerful general, Cochran managed to merge the programs under her command, relegating Love to a vague, subordinate role. The Women Airforce Service Pilots—the WASP—were born, and by summer 1944 they were flying every kind of airplane in the Army, from the P-51 Mustang (the fastest) to the B-29 Superfortress (the biggest). The women pilots worked under punishing conditions, drank, swore, and did things the Army way. They did this while often wearing impeccable makeup, enduring brutal discrimination, and fending off aggressive sexual advances.

Inevitably, the WASP project ignited a national media controversy that portrayed the hardworking women pilots as the Army's glamorous trophy girls, and Cochran and Love were compelled to join forces in opposition—taking their fight all the way to Congress.

Although the story is true, Goodbye Glamour Gals is written in a fictional narrative style. All 100,000 words are deliberately consistent with the 1940s lexicon, researched down to the idiom.

Thorough and inspiring

Incredible story that resonates today. You get used to the AI narrator. Totally worth the listen.

The three women that were always trying to be better than the other ones.

This was a true story that really made you understand the women flying the planes for World War III.

From a female pilot

I started flying in 1978 and I had my first Flight Instructor was from the wasps so this one was good for me, but it might not be good for everybody. It had a lot of political overtones which I also enjoyed because I understand how politics FX everybody.

AI trash narrator. Boycott all “virtual voice” titles until audible comes to its senses and stops doing it!!

I really only want to review the “performance”. I have a hard and fast rule to never listen to the virtual voice narrator, I wish I had obeyed that rule in this case. Not only is it as wooden an my null post it is an insult to all real narrators. My aunt was a WASP so I desperately wanted to listen to this book but that was not enough to force me to finish listening to it. Also as the sister of an audible narrator I can not in good conscience support this AI garbage.

The digital voice narration was awful

It was an interesting factual summary of the events surrounding the standup, mission and dissolution of the WASPs but the errors in speech were distracting. For example, ATA was said “atta”—and each chapter title was given as if it were the end of a sentence. Pauses in the wrong places, as well as using the wrong pronunciation of “lead” as “led” were tough. You have to be a true fanatic of the WASPs and Cochran and Love to get through this one.