(19 20- )
Pilot Mildred "Millie" Inks was born in Austin, Texas, and grew up on a ranch in Llano. When she was a child, her grandfather rented a plane and took her and four other grandchildren for a flight over his ranch. Eventually four grandchildren became pilots. Later she flew with her first husband, Bill Davidson, after he received his pilot’s license. She studied at Texas State College for Women in Denton and earned a degree in journalism at the University of Texas, Austin.
While her husband was serving with the Air Corps in World War II, Millie worked as a secretary for the adjutant general’s office in Austin. After Davidson was shot down over the North Sea, Millie and a co-worker, Kay McBride D’Arezzo, whose husband was missing in action, took flying lessons to qualify for the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) training program. Millie said, "After Bill was killed, I had to do something. I couldn’t just stay in the Adjutant General’s department typing. I wanted to get this war over with" (Weigand 2002). After she and D’Arezzo had each logged thirty-five hours of piloting, they qualified for WASP training. On November 5, 1943, they entered the program at Avenger Field, Sweetwater, Texas. At the end of a prolonged training flight, Millie and another pilot, who were late, narrowly missed being part of a collision that killed one of her classmates.
On May 23, 1944, Millie was one of the fifty-two trainees to graduate out of the ninety-four who had entered with her. Following graduation, she worked at the Eastern Training Command at Maxwell Field in Montgomery, Alabama, as a utility pilot and an engineering test pilot, whose task was to fly and test planes after they had been repaired. She said that her "commanding officer, Colonel [Robert L.] Thomas, had no bias against women and he desperately needed pilots" (Weigand 2002). In addition to testing repaired aircraft, she flew officers from Montgomery to assignments all over the eastern United States and ferried planes, including B-17 bombers, from Montgomery to other fields. In all she logged 900 hours in the cockpit.
After the WASP program was deactivated on December 20, 1944, she married Edwin Dal-rymple, a colonel. He later became an FBI agent, and they lived in various parts of the country. In addition to raising their three children, Millie Dalrymple worked at an ad agency and an insurance company, served in the Texas state legislature, and was a teacher. In her spare time she played competitive tennis and did volunteer work.
