Just before Easter, twenty-three PT-17 Stearman biplanes were to be flown from Montana to an air base in Tennessee. Six of the planes were to be flown by WAFS, and Barbara was to fly one of them. The others were to be flown by male ferry pilots.
Two days after takeoff from Great Falls, Barbara and the other five WAFS all landed their planes in Tennessee. But after two more days, only six of the seventeen male pilots had delivered their planes.
Later it was learned that some of the male pilots got lost, and a few had landed short of their destination with damaged planes. Others were just plain late arriving, apparently visiting friends at airfields along the way. The score was WAFS a perfect score of 6; men a dismal 11 out of 17.
The WAFS rested their case as to who were the better and more reliable pilots.
A letter postmarked a month earlier was delivered to Barbara one morning in March. She was in the commissary after ferrying a fighter plane from Brooklyn to Colorado Springs and taking a bus back. Seeing the name and European Theater of War address of Stephen Collier on the return side of the thin blue V-Mail letter, she opened it eagerly and anxiously.
"Dear Barbara," she read, and barely understood most of the rest of his letter. It was full of blacked-out words and sentences because of government security censorship.
What she managed to learn from the letter was that Stephen was alive and had not been injured after serving with General Patton's armored division in North Africa. He had entered service as a private, but became commissioned a second lieutenant and recently was promoted to first lieutenant, working in communications. That much was sufficiently vague for the censors to leave in.
On the personal side, which was brief, he wrote, "I need to tell you something, about my marriage, but don't want to do it in a letter. With a war going on, and you in the States and me over here, I don't see how we can get together so I can explain. But I hope somehow to get to see you again. The thought of that is what keeps me going.
"How's Tim? I've written to you both, but never get a reply. Maybe my mail has gone astray. Has his custody been decided yet?"
Curiously, a word or words before he signed his name, Stephen, was blacked out so she did not know whether he said "Love," "Sincerely," or what.
She wrote back immediately: "Dear Stephen, "I got your letter, although the date you wrote it was blacked out by censors. I'm very glad to know you're all right and hope since your duty in North Africa you are in a safer part of the war. Everyone here is very excited about General Patton's successes against the Afrika Korps.