During WWII women participated in a variety of war related services as they have in all wars. However, WWII was unique in that women were called upon to occupy roles typically reserved for men because of labor shortages caused be increased factory production and massive deployments of men overseas. Consequently, the US War Department feared that this deficit of qualified personnel would threaten the successful completion and rapid departure from war activity.

Yet in the meantime, as early as the 1930's several women had taken to the skies. Most notably included in this list of aviators is Amelia Earhart and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who even in this pre-war condition supported the incorporation of female pilots into the military's air services. World War II's shortage of personnel, including capable pilots, gave female pilots Nancy Harkness Love and Jaqueline Cochrane the opportunity to submit proposals to General Arnold of the Army Air Forces (AAF). Their separate proposals both recommended the inclusion of women in the flying effort, domestically and overseas, though the details of their submissions developed very different visions for female involvement.

Love's proposal articulated the development of a squadron of women pilots to ferry aircraft from factories to AAF bases. Her proposal was approved and the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Service (WAFS) became a division of the Air Transport Command, but maintaining civilian status.

Cochrane's intentions, on the other hand, were slightly more expansive for female involvement. Her 1941 proposal suggested that women take responsibility to all aircraft ferrying operations. The following year, Cochrane submitted a more detailed memorandum recommending that women actually be militarized and be trained by the AAF to fly all military aircraft, where as Love's squad was to be trained as transition pilots, who only learned operations for specific aircraft. As a result, according to Cochrane, the mobilization of women would allow men in the AAF to go overseas and participate in combat where they were greatly needed.